Today marks the first anniversary of Datuk Seri Najib Razak as the sixth Prime Minister with all the mainstream media singing peans of praise for his first year as Prime Minister.
The mainstream media were also full of superlative praises for Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in his first year as Prime Minister – but what has happened to him?
It will be better for Najib and the country if the Prime Minister is more anchored to reality and realize that after his first 12 months as Prime Minister, nothing much as changed apart from a surfeit of sloganeering.
In less than a year, Najib’s 1Malaysia slogan and concept has been torn to smithereens by his own Cabinet and the question now is whether the second pillar of his premiership, the New Economic Mode (NEM), would suffer the same fate as his 1Malaysia slogan.
How different is the NEM from NEP – New Economic Policy – which has landed the country in a middle-income trap, with the Malaysian economy suffering stagnation while other countries have either caught up or overtaken us in the league of economic development?
Will the NEM guarantee that there will be no repetition of the abuses of the NEP such as the following:
-
Rampant corruption causing the country to lose RM28 billion a year.
-
Only RM2 billion has remained in the hands of bumiputeras out of the RM54 billion shares allotted to bumiputras since the NEP.
-
At least RM100 billion wasted or burned in the 22 years of the premiership of Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad on grandiose projects and corruption – openly alleged by Barry Wain in his book “Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times”.
If not, what is the difference between the NEM with the NEP?
[Speech by DAP Parliamentary Leader and MP for Ipoh Timor Lim Kit Siang at the PAS ceramah in Arau, Perlis on Saturday, 3rd April 2010 at 11.30 pm]