I don't believe the Barisan Nasional-led government understands the real and present danger the country is heading towards. It is appropriate that we look at the reality of the situation at the beginning of 2006. The genuine businessmen who work and sweat, as oppose to just receiving "commissions" and "rewards", have long seen the writings on the wall.

Corruption and graft in Malaysia have been allowed to fester for far too long and is killing the country slowly. No one on the streets doubts the prime minister's sincerity for he is a simple man, however the prime minister seem to be the only one in his government who believes in integrity and honesty.

With the world opening up and globalisation inevitably at the doorsteps, smaller economies like ours will suffer. Unless Malaysia's industries innovate and metamorph, we will lose out to the great factory of the world; China. All the more so when the government tolerates graft and corruption in its awarding of contracts and when contracts are awarded not to the best company but to relatives and friends who can provide a kickback.

We are no longer competitive. The cost of doing business in Malaysia is now much too high. Graft and corruption certainly does not help but the inflation rate have risen to a point that it is virtually impossible to raise a family on a basic RM2,000.

It used to be that Malaysia could at least boast of a well-educated workforce however today, it is sadly no longer true. I run a local business and conduct perhaps over a hundred interviews a year of graduates in Malaysia. It is sad that our local graduates lack the confidence and social skills to make it pass the first round of interviews. Perhaps if they were not so obsessed with scoring As but more appreciative of the many and varied aspects of life and general knowledge, they would be more confident in carrying on a normal conversation.

Our places of higher education is sadly no longer what it used to be. If the politicians and the minister of higher education continue to be in a state of denial of the standard and level of our local universities then it is to the detriment of the nation.

While Malaysia, or the government rather, continue to play the racial card by insisting that there is a Malay agenda and the Chinese component believes that there is a Chinese agenda and the Indian community fights for a voice, the rest of the civilised world are working towards being more united for the simple sake of commerce and economics.

It should no longer be necessary to divide the poor up into Malays, Chinese or Indians, nor is it necessary to divide the wealthy according to their skin colour. Certain biasness exist and stereotypes are unavoidable, but government policies that promote racial division is in this day and age unnecessary. In fact it makes the country more divided and less competitive. Just go to America and look at the number of Malaysians who head business organisations and hospitals and universities. These are the brains that we lost, not because of the pull factor but more so because of the push factor.

My travels take me to all over Asia. I see for myself what used to be Malaysia's strength have now become our weakness. Some of our neighbours have become very serious with corruption and graft. China, for example, recognised their weakness and is seriously dealing with the problem. There was a local government official in an outlying province who were misappropriating the people's funds. He was found guilty and he was shot by a firing squad.

I believe we will have few or no politicians left if the ACA were free to run its investigations independently. Perhaps that is one way of trimming the cabinet.