Saturday, August 30, 2008

Budget 2009 Is More of A Sweetener, Not A Booster

I did some observations of yesterday's budget and I must say that the budget isn't satisfactory. There not much of measures to improve the nation's economy as what is indicated by Anwar Ibrahim in which Malaysiakini said that it never mentions of the FDI.

There's little to lifting people's burden apart from reducing import duties of consumer durables by half or reducing bus toll by half and etc. Civil servants are only the ones that benefit. People also expect minimum wages but the idea was refused by Dollah Badawi. Housebuyers are grieving of lack of things that can help them to buy a house / apartment.

I really expected things in the budget that includes:

1. Minimum wage of $1200 per worker on specific categories.2
2. Reduction of import duties for other than consumer durables by a margin of 40% like cars, electronical equipment, reducing red tapes.
3. Tax deductions, not reliefs..
4. And revision of certain economic policies.

Unfortunately, Abdullah's cabinet has only 2 or 3 ministers that fully understands economics. The rest of the lot doesn't even have a single knowledge at all and all of them are the Abdullah's yes men. Next year's budget is set at $207 billion ringgit, which is another 30 percent more than this year's budget. I believe while there's no FDI right now, the country's deficit will get bigger and bigger, with the ringgit value weakening to the 2006/7 value.

During budget, Abdullah was saying that he vowed to foil the September 16 plan. But then again, his card and Nazri's card that says move early to checkmate Anwar is like showing your card too early for your opponent to reorganize. At least there would time for Anwar to reorganize his next moves.

There were a few people in my neighborhood in Ipoh, including the workshop staff and a school teacher from my school (he admitted that he enjoyed reading my blog) that asked whether if 34 MPs from Sabah and Sarawak are indeed crossing over. I only said that there is a high possibility. It could be 43, if including those from Peninsular Malaysia. I think the number 43 is making BN sweat and last I heard from some blog buddy or another guy, (I can't remember who and when), each BN MP could be assigned 1 SB officer for the sake of watching out for crossovers!

The teacher at the my school that I met asked me why I've been writing such kind of stuff in the last few days. The answer is indeed simple: it's not about being interested of politics, it is the drama akin to Hollywood movies. Secondly, it's the nation's economy that is ticking me. I see that with majority of cabinet ministers that do not know economics, the nation economy could go from bad to worse instead of improving - which is an embarassment that we fall behind Singapore's pragmatic and high visionary people.

I also asked a few people around. They are not very..very happy with this year's BUDGET. It's more or less a sweetener for East Malaysia not, booster overall.

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