'For short-term political expediency, the politicians are willing to sacrifice the long-term interests of the country.'

Competitiveness ranking drop shocks Pemudah

Ferdtan: Pemudah's Chua Tia Guan, to say that you were surprised by the worsening result of the global competitiveness ranking for the country shows that Pemudah and Pemandu are as much clueless as the BN government.

Minister Idris Jala, who is in charge of Pemandu, had been spending obscene amount of taxpayers' money organising public seminars with plenty of colourful charts, placing expensive advertorials in the mass media and giving out 'feel-good' statements that Malaysia is on the right track.

All were mere rhetoric that are self-delusory. Finally, you are now caught by the very mechanism of measurement of performance that you have adopted - the KPI thing that you had been so gleefully used. The KPIs of Pemudah and Pemandu have shown that they have failed miserably.

Patriot: Welcome to Malaysia - land of ‘Avatar'. Dr Mahathir Mohamad has once commented that 9/11 was a make-belief Hollywood movie . So PM Najib Razak got the services of Apco and formed Pemandu to pull wool over our eyes.

The fact remains Malaysia is not competitive anymore and our purchasing power is only 30-40% of developed countries. With GBP50 and USD50, you can have a trolley full of food from Tesco (UK) or Walmart (US). Try buy food with RM50 in Malaysia.

The minimum wage is GBP6/hour and USD8/hour in UK and US respectively, but in Malaysia, it is RM3/hour or less. You don't need to be an accountant or a rocket scientist to work this out. If we continue the racist supremacy policy, we will be a doomed nation even before our oil reserves run out.

Fly Emirates: The writing has been on the wall for quite sometime now and is a well-known fact among the international business community that Malaysia is lagging behind other fast growing economies, especially Indonesia.

At first, it was complaints about the slow Internet speed, then about contracts not been transparent and now the international community knows about the bumiputera issue and the huge human and capital outflow of the non-Malays.

Nothing short of a total transformation will help Malaysia regain its competitiveness.

David Dass: We have to accept the fact that we simply cannot have our cake and eat it. If we want investments and progress we must have stability. To have stability we must ensure observance of the rule of law. The alternative is anarchy and the rule of the mob.

Peaceful demonstrations can be allowed. As must vigorous public debate and discussion. Our people must become accustomed to democratic processes. No one should be allowed to threaten or provoke violence. There must be no double standards. There must be the consistent application of policy and law. All policies must be underscored by principle.

People should be motivated to work hard and creatively. Education must be of the highest standards so that people can be empowered to achieve. Low standards of education disable and de-motivate.

Rising costs leave us with no option. We must make the most of our resources. We must stem leakages. And we must rethink our developmental strategies to establish priorities. We must make every dollar count.

Abasir: "The attitude of Malaysian respondents, which is different from those in other countries, could also be the reason. Malaysians are more likely to amplify weaknesses but downplay merits," Chua explained.

Very true. And why? Only Malaysians are exposed to the Umno/Perkasa stink on a daily basis; only Malaysians know how Pemandu uses taxpayers' money to take out advertorials to justify shady ‘private initiatives'; only Malaysians know the size of the bloated ‘civil' service regularly pumped up to serve as a Umno vote-bank; only Malaysians know the real ‘calibre' of the politicos in Pemudah.

Geronimo: Chua, what sort of merits are you referring to? In fact, you should not be surprised as we have been practising ‘mediocracy' all this while and now it's time we face the truth, as bitter as it may be, and this is so reflective in the civil sector. Reap what you sow.

Lakia: What efficiency in the service delivery system? The Key Performance Index (KPI) is mainly (may be only) determined by statistics, for example, by the number of files of applications allegedly cleared by the end of each month.

How about in terms of quality, substance, meritocracy and integrity? Why for instance until today the MACC (Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission) still refused to question Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud's alleged corruption involving billions of ringgit even though several reports have been lodged against him?

And why with the late Teoh Beng Hock involving alleged graft of less than RM3,000, he was questioned until he died?

TehTarik: The loss of competitiveness indicates that investors are losing confidence in Malaysia. This has been a trend over the past decade.

Pemandu is all rhetoric but little action, all gloss but no substance. The juggernaut of self-destruction is increasing in pace, with the likes of Ibrahim Ali, Perkasa and Utusan Malaysia . The failure of the government to silence the extremists is an indication that Malaysia may soon join the ranks of a failed state.

For short-term political expediency, the politicians are willing to sacrifice the long-term interests of the country. A classic example is Najib's willingness to alter the tender process for the bumi contractors in the MRT project.

Anonymous_3ec6: It is sad the IMD (Institute of Management Development) did not offer a 30 percent handicap when ranking Malaysia. Malaysia should get its United Nations representative to request for a 30 percent handicap on any activity involving Malaysia.

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