— Nawawi Mohamad The Malaysian Insider Nov 13, 2011
NOV 13 — Silvio Berlusconi, the flamboyant, scandalous media billionaire who practically jumped into Italian politics by organising the People of Freedom party, reigned for seventeen years. He has now resigned. He left Italy with about €1.9 trillion in national debt.
After being so preoccupied with his scandals, both creating them and defending himself from the repercussions, he had procrastinated in dealing with Italy’s troubled economy and serious financial problems.
Berlusconi only agreed to the proposal to reduce the deficit in June, when in March his advisers had already literally shouted at him to start taking action.
His government managed to get everything in order only by September this year and got the vote of final approval in the Italian Senate by a margin of 156 to 12 just before his resignation; too little too late.
The final straw is not his scandalous life but the neglected state of the economy and finance in Italy.
With our own version of scandals, mismanagement, complacency, wastage, extravagance and callous spending by the Umno/BN government, Malaysia is not much different from Italy.
Unfortunately the Umno/BN government seems to be oblivious to the so many writings on the wall pertaining to our economy, financial status, deficits, national debts and the road that Malaysia is now on.
The Umno/BN government must rectify these fault by scrapping all the mega projects, take action against all the irresponsible parties that are wasting our money, start with an austerity drive selectively, concentrate on the economy, let the people have more money in their pockets to spend and thus generate the domestic economy which is still within our influence.
Well, we do have many experts to work it out. We cannot depend on the world’s economy to prosper or even pick up because time is not on our side and the present situation is just too volatile and unpredictable.
However, the Umno/BN government seems to be preoccupied with trying to build up its deteriorating image and influence for the coming general election. And to win what may be a pyrrhic victory.
Unfortunately the whole nation has to bear the perils of procrastination by the Umno/BN government.