Anwar needs to put inclusivity into practice

Anwar needs to put inclusivity into practice

P Gunasegaram
Published: Apr 16, 2024 7:33 AM


COMMENT | It’s heartening to note that Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has not abandoned his promise of inclusivity made at many ceramahs and forums across the country during election campaigns and other focal points over the last 25 years since the formation of PKR.

He repeated them on Sunday at an event attended largely by Indian Malaysians, where Anwar emphasised that he would be inclusive and would not compromise on making Malaysia a country for all Malaysians regardless of race, creed or religion.

“The country must not continue bickering over petty issues, sowing the seeds of discord and hatred among races in Malaysia.

“If Malaysia wants to survive, we must go back to the core values and principles of humanity, justice and unity because that can ensure our success… and not to pander to the racist agenda of various quarters,” he said.

However, to be taken seriously, Anwar needs to break the reputation he has earned by saying different things to different audiences but not doing anything for them in the end.

He needs to show by deed and action that he means it.

Unfortunately, after one and a half years as PM - a position he got to after many trials and tribulations, doubts and misgivings, a quarter of a century of discord and strife, and the unwavering support and help of many Malaysians - Anwar has yet to prove that he is serious about what he wants to do.

Let’s take two issues - eradication of poverty irrespective of race and the fight against corruption.

Unfortunately, a serious discussion of both brings up the issue of Umno Baru, the most racist party in all of Malaysia and also the most corrupt. Anwar is too much in league with them to do anything serious about this so far.

Who is the one who is currently sowing the seeds of discord and hatred among races right now? He is the leader of Umno Youth who has now called a government minister stupid. Anwar’s tepid response was that he wouldn’t respond to the remark.

If he can’t control Umno and make its leaders behave in the interest of national reconciliation and progress towards the common objective of eradicating poverty among all Malaysians, he is already severely handicapped.

The issue of poverty cannot be tackled without increasing wages. Most Malaysians are wage earners, whether daily or monthly, whether with a contract or without. Unless this issue of wages is settled, poverty cannot be eradicated.

This issue is complicated by two factors - imported labour and poor productivity - a vicious cycle which pushes real wages (after inflation) down.

Previous governments were seduced by employers to allow the cheap import of labour to increase production, depressing wages for millions of Malaysians for decades after.

This was particularly vicious under the Umno government, during Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s 22-year first reign as prime minister from 1981-2003.

The import of labour was not only uncontrolled but gave rise to many corrupt activities resulting in employers and workers paying huge amounts in service fees which benefited neither them nor the workers but instead made many Umno cronies rich and even some ministers.

The first step in fighting poverty is therefore a phased control of migrant labour so that local labour gets its due wages. Malaysia cannot depend on cheap labour for production but must instead, move up to greater automation and better trained workers whose productivity is better.

It’s a lengthy process, starting with education and changing employers’ addiction to cheap overseas labour to keep their costs down.

The issue of vocational training too needs to be addressed and measures to increase self-employment. Tough as it is, it has to be done.

For a start, training programmes in certain key industries may be needed as imported labour is phased out. Also, when corruption and the infamous middlemen are cut out altogether, even the cost of imported labour can go down and the benefits passed on to the workforce.


Commit to minimum wage, eradicate graft

The government should commit to the minimum wage and set a target to increase it yearly by say three to five percentage points above the inflation rate.

That will force employers to increase productivity, aided by government incentives and training programmes for locals.

Next, corruption. The key problem is that dirty word called patronage where people in power dish out projects to their cronies at ridiculously favourable rates.

Thus, we have concession holders who reap billions in profits in areas such as independent power production, water and tolled roads, as well as numerous construction projects.

Each of these has layers of corruption including political donations, money into individual pockets for awarding work, kickbacks in numerous contracts, etc - all of which cost billions to the people and result in inefficiencies. Even outright theft of borrowed money as in 1MDB is a problem.

The country simply cannot afford that scale of corruption, perpetuated and developed to a coarse art, rising to intolerable proportions under none other than Umno which Harapan does not seem to be able to control despite its 81 parliamentary seats against Umno’s 26.

We have an Umno deputy prime minister who faced 47 charges of corruption but received an inexplicable discharge not amounting to acquittal.

Many other Umno bigshots brought to court in Harapan’s brief first time in power post the 2018 elections in similar situations have been similarly fortunate. Why?

In short, there is little substance out there so far which has been proposed or which has been implemented to deal adequately and tellingly with either poverty or corruption.

With huge challenges facing Anwar and little to show after one and half years in power, one should excuse us if we show some scepticism over what he says. It’s up to the prime minister to prove us wrong – and we would be delighted if he does.

P GUNASEGARAM says that actions always speak louder than words even if they stem from words first through policy.