Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s speech at the monthly gathering of the Prime Minister’s Office and Hari Raya Open House on Aug 3 was very welcome for at least two good reasons.

Firstly, he raised the vital question as to the dire need to restore the people’s confidence in government.

Secondly, in the true  spirit of Hari Raya, he humbly apologised for any mistakes and misjudgements that he and his Deputy Finance Minister Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah may have committed.

(A) Restoring confidence

On the first  point, the prime minister  makes the commendable admission that there is  indeed a ‘confidence deficit’, which has to be addressed with a strong political will. Now with the new cabinet, our people expect a new style, a new direction and a renewed determination to remove this debilitating ‘confidence deficit’.

1. The government could decide that the new tough-talking Deputy Prime Minister, YAB Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, could give more space for Malaysians to exercise their  basic freedoms of  assembly, speech and encourage legitimate criticism. Malaysians should not be led to believe and perceive that they cannot provide constructive comments on the formulation and implementation of government policies.

All this will improve the climate of confidence which has been steadily declining recently.

2. The ringgit’s decline is staring us in the face every day and we regret that it continues to fall. This has an adverse impact on our cost of living, largely due to imported inflation. The rakyat  will suffer from paying  higher prices for their daily needs and this can and has eroded public confidence.

The slide of the ringgit is a reflection of the low public confidence in our overall quality of governance and economic and financial management.

Hence, I would urge the government to please present a White Paper to Parliament or even outline an Economic Plan on how the government proposes to meet these critical current challenges. As of now, the public are still in the dark and are not aware as to how the government plans to arrest the steady fall in the ringgit, which does not seem to be a temporary phenomenon any more.

We should not intervene to break the fall in the ringgit as our  reserves  will soon  decline below the US100 billion threshold. The present satisfactory levels can diminish fast and must be conserved. Since the ringgit decline is also probably due to structural weaknesses in the economy, we have to consider and adopt more meaningful economic transformation measures to restore longer-term confidence in our economy.

This economic transformation would mean a greater commitment to the full implementation of the New Economic Model and a faster phasing out of the New Economic Policy or the strong protective elements that it still contains. We need to be more competitive and meritocratic to face the rising global challenges.

3. Most of the confidence deficit and its dire consequences are felt by the bottom 40 percent of  our income  groups. Hence the priority in the 11th Malaysia Plan to help the poor and low income groups has to be speeded up, with concrete measures that can really benefit the poor at the grassroots levels. This would cover especially the poorest areas like Sabah, Sarawak, Kelantan and Terengganu and other severe pockets of poverty all over our country.

The Urban Well-being Ministry has to give a stronger push to alleviate urban poverty, which can often be more severe and punishing than rural poverty. At least in rural areas, one can live off the land and not have to starve or suffer acute deprivation.

4. The relative poor quality of education in schools and even our universities is a source of much concern to parents and children. Our international academic scores are comparatively low. Over  100,000 university graduates remain unemployed. But ironically, there is a crying demand for  good critical thinking and English educated graduates and  those graduates with technical skills.

Thus there is a serious ‘mismatch’ which has to be urgently addressed. We cannot afford the luxury of taking slow action. The world is passing us by more rapidly than before, not only in  education but in all other areas.

5. Our political leaders from all quarters need to spend more time on seeking to improve the welfare of all Malaysians regardless of race and religion, rather than indulge in unproductive politicking. The people are frankly just fed up with all those politicians who simply spew racism and religious bigotry.

The government has to stoutly oppose extremism, instead of sometimes pandering to some extremist views. Confidence in government will decline due to selective action and justice.

In fact it is this lack of firm action against the bad extremists and the poor  protection of the good and peaceful moderates that causes much uncertainty and low confidence in our beloved country today. The government has, as our new deputy prime minister (DPM) has rightly said, to be firm and fair.

But this worthy maxim should be proven in action and not words alone. The people’s confidence will largely depend on how the Rule of Law is administered, without fear or favour, and they will make their  judgments accordingly, soon enough.

B) PM’s apologies

On the second point of our prime minister’s speech , it is essential that while in the spirit of Hari Raya and our own religious values we must all learn to forgive and forget, we also must remember to rectify our  mistakes - and resolve not to repeat them, as well. Hopefully the 1MDB problems that  are a major cause of the confidence deficit will be resolved sooner rather than later.

The revelation that  the RM2.6 billion alleged to have been deposited into our prime minister’s account was from donors and not from the 1MDB is indeed reassuring. But one wonders why this critical information was not forthcoming much earlier. Then a lot of this confidence deficit could have been avoided and much public anxiety and worries could have been averted.

However, now the public will want to know who are the major donors, not only to 1MDB, but to all other political funds held by both sides of the House.

Transparency and Integrity are basic prerequisites of good governance, which strengthens and sustains public confidence in government and good governance. Hence, they must be upheld at all costs all the time, to strengthen our very foundations as a progressive and successful nation and not one that could be failing.

C) Conclusion

I would respectively suggest that the above list of proposals to restore confidence in government are not exhaustive. However, we can make a sincere start with the above proposals and add on as we  progress, after wide and deep consultations with all sections of our Malaysian society, so that our government will not only be able to generate but win more confidence as soon as possible.

Let’s all then rededicate ourselves to work in unity for better governance, for a better Malaysia for all Malaysians, please.

This will greatly raise our confidence in government and in our beloved country.

We believe we will succeed and not fail, God willing.

RAMON NAVARATNAM is chairperson of Asli/Centre of Public Policy Studies.