Kit Siang claims ETP just pie in the sky

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 22 — DAP’s Lim Kit Siang claimed today that the Najib administration’s Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) was rich in rhetoric, business-school clichés and lofty speeches, along with unrealistic assumptions about the country’s economic growth prospects.

He also compared the government’s ambitious programme to that of a command economy and the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s.

Malaysia unveiled yesterday high-aiming plans to boost its economy by mobilising more than a trillion ringgit of private investment, although questions remained over whether the money would materialise.

The plans ranged from a new mass transit system to relieve congestion in Kuala Lumpur, to building a huge oil storage facility next to Singapore to form a regional oil products trading hub.

A casino project in Sabah is also being considered.

The Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) said it had identified investments worth RM1.38 trillion over 10 years, of which 60 per cent would come from the private sector, 32 per cent from government-linked companies and eight per cent from government.

The investment aims to double per capita income and push Malaysia into the ranks of “developed” nations by 2020, rebalancing Asia’s third most export-driven economy towards domestic demand and the service sector.

Lim, however, was unimpressed with Pemandu’s presentation, saying that ETP was based on “unrealistic targets” and failed to address existing government policies which have resulted in the country being caught in a middle-income trap.



“Like the previous pronouncements of 1 Malaysia People First Performance Now, the Government Transformation Programme, [and] the 10th Malaysia Plan, the ETP is rich in rhetoric.

“The sloganeering and spin that is common to all of these exercises provides a clear indication that the government led by (Datuk Seri) Najib (Razak) is wholly at sea in tackling the enormous challenges that the country faces.

“A common feature of the series of announcements is that they contain unrealistic assumptions about economic growth prospects; they use clichés that are taken from business school texts that have been spun in order to create a false impression of a rethinking of policies,” said Lim in a statement today.

The DAP parliamentary leader took a dig at Jala’s ETP presentation yesterday, saying that the entire event was filled with “lofty speeches” and colourful presentations that were more confusing than enlightening.

“The concepts embodied in the ETP are beyond the comprehension of the public at large. Each event at which these so-called policies are unveiled lays bare the inability of and impotence of the government to boldly deal with the core and fundamental policy distortions that are responsible for the country becoming trapped in the middle-income group,” said Lim.

He said that any hope of reforms by the Najib administration under the New Economic Model (NEM) has been sunk by Malay rights group Perkasa through their attacks on any form of policy reforming the New Economic Policy (NEP).

Lim also scoffed at Jala’s economic projections, dismissing the government’s RM1.38 trillion investment target as mere assumptions rather than actual forecasts.

“These assumptions — these it must be stressed are assumptions rather than forecasts — are wholly unrealistic in view of the historic growth rates attained over the past decade and a half and the current flows of FDI (foreign direct investments) which are negative in view of capital flight.

“The underlying assumption appears to be that the private sector will make a remarkable shift without the government doing its part. This assumption lacks all credibility as such a turnaround cannot be anticipated so long as the government remains entrapped by the policy framework espoused by Perkasa and others of its ilk,” said Lim.

The Ipoh Timur MP lamented on how no framework or explanation had been presented thus far to illustrate how the Najib administration plans on attaining the said RM1.38 trillion for investment over the next 10 years.

“A grave omission in the ETP is the singular lack of an articulation of changes in the policy regime to arrest corruption, increase competitiveness and transparency in procurements, introduce meaningful safety net programmes, rationalise labour market policies including the adoption of a minimum wage policy and the abolition of anti-competitive measures, for example APs (Approved Permits).

“To resort to what is obviously a system of central planning — with unrealistic targets, dubious statistics to show ‘performance’, picking ‘winners’, maintaining constraints to growth via quotas and a system of approvals together with subsidies to corporate entities (both GLCs and selected private corporate tycoons) — is totally in contradiction to the announced intent to let the private sector act freely,” added Lim, who likened the direction of the Malaysia’s economic programme to the features which brought about the collapse of the Soviet economy in the late 1980s.

Lim also said that a system of central planning needed to be done away with in order for the country to move forward.

“It is also salient to note that the remarkable success of China and its modernisation programme which can be attributed to the dismantling of central planning is being largely ignored. The real danger is that the country is going nowhere until there is a determined effort to implement real reforms,” said Lim.