Where are we at right now?

IT is saddening for me to note that our country over the past few years has regressed both domestically and on the international front.

Malaysia, which previously ranked ahead of most of our fellow ASEAN member nations in terms of economic progress and governance, has now fallen behind.

What is obvious and is practically felt by most Malaysians is the feeling that there have been too much politics and politicking since the 2018 general election.

There is no such thing as political peace that generally follows after the people have delivered their mandate in an election. Instead, the country and people are suffering from political fatigue. And they are fed up. And this is happening in a nation that once proudly boasted of political stability and was the envy of many.

Our international image has been badly battered by the 1MDB saga, that has been described by foreign media as the world’s biggest ever financial scandal. Just as we thought the 1MDB scandal was taking a respite, more explosive details of how Malaysia was milked off by tens of billions have been revealed in an ongoing trial in New York of a former Goldman Sachs banker.

Domestically, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri has announced that the government is allowing another one-off withdrawal of RM10,000 for Employees Provident Fund (EPF) contributors from April 20. This will be the third such withdrawal over two years since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, to tide over the financial woes of the B40 households who have been worst hit via job losses and unemployment.

Such frequent withdrawals mean millions of contributors are facing a bleak old age financial future, with the media reporting that some 50% of the total EPF contributors have less than RM10,000 balance as of now.

The previous two withdrawals by some 7.3 million, or half of the total contributors, have depleted EPF funds by a whopping RM101 billion.

With the latest withdrawals beginning next month, economists and the layman are deeply concerned about EPF’s ability to maintain a decent annual dividend rate moving forward.

It is of utmost importance now for politicians, especially those running the country, both at federal and state levels, to get their act together by putting aside their selfish interests to mitigate the damage they have done so far.

Since the 14th General Election (GE14) in 2018, self-created political instability has forced three states to hold snap elections, something that could have been avoided and saved taxpayers a few hundred million ringgit.

In the first three years after GE14, Malaysia has had four prime ministers, something no county can ever be proud of. And now Umno, the nation’s dominant party, basking in its landslide election wins in both Malacca and Johor, is upping the pressure for a snap GE15 as well.

This has been met with a resounding “No” from at least six state governments so far, whose leaders have said they will not dissolve the state legislative assemblies should GE15 be held this year instead of the scheduled one only a year from now. Bravo to them.

The rakyat has every right to demand for politicians who are bent on disrupting our once cherished political stability at their whims and fancies to do the most honourable thing – to step down gracefully before more damage is done.

In this regards, I urge Putrajaya to expedite without any further delay the presentation of the Anti-Hopping law during the current sitting of Parliament. I also urge our Members of Parliament as well senators to buck up and to live up to the people’s expectations. Many would agree that most of them are warming their seats at the taxpayers’ expense.

With Covid-19 still raging and our elected representatives both at federal and state levels still free to jump from Party A to Party B, we need a strong political will to fix all the wrongs that are undermining the country’s future.

At the outset, I asked where are we at right now? And the rakyat at large must be saying “Enough is enough”.

Source : https://www.thesundaily.my/opinion/where-are-we-at-right-now-HH8966801