LETTER | Ignoring problems at our own peril

LETTER | I noticed it has become fashionable for the prime minister and ministers to announce that certain problems or issues faced by the nation will be resolved at some future date, be it in three to six months or a year. They have become “taichi masters” by avoiding or evading the problems faced.

I wonder who will remember the promises made when the time comes.

As I see it, the government is not solving the problems at hand. It is delaying them. In addition, it is creating even more problems each day either through incompetency, willfulness, or ignorance.

Our economy is already in a precarious situation. Yet they are obsessed with the 4-D ban, changing the brand name of a Malaysian-made whisky, and restricting coffee shops and restaurants from selling beer.

Would all this grow the economy, create jobs, and put food on the table? I think those who are doing all this do not really know how a ringgit is earned in their whole life.

We want foreign investors to invest in Malaysia but what do we do? First, from 2018 to 2021, we changed four prime ministers. Tell me which foreign investors would have confidence in a situation like this.

Middle-income trap

Second, what did successive administrations do? Seriously, do we find anything earth-shattering other than more pronounced racial, parochial, and bigotry polemics?

For a long time, even before the pandemic, we talked about Malaysia being stuck in the middle-income trap. Again what have we done? What new sources of growth or higher value-added industries have we envisaged and promoted?

For how long now have we have been debating on Malaysian workers not willing to do low value-added jobs but, at the same time, high value-added jobs are not available to them? Is there any surprise why they have to continue turning to the government for employment? But how much more can the government do this?

How do we explain this paradoxical situation – we import a huge number of foreign workers but, at the same time, our own people are hard-pressed to earn a decent living within their own country. I think this is not a natural phenomenon. This is due to years of misguided policies arising from corruption, exploitation, and profiteering.

Soon, I think foreign investors will no longer be attracted to Malaysia because we are no longer a low-cost centre. They will go directly to countries where we import workers from. After all, Malaysia as a bastion of stability, infrastructural strength, and trainable workforce is waning.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.