COMMENTS ON THE MID TERM REVIEW OF THE NINTH MALAYSIA PLAN

By Denison Jayasooria

General Positive comments

The MTR9MP is very well written and documented in terms of its development plan, analysis and projections for the next two and half years using the five major thrust areas. The illustrative diagrams also provide clarity of trends, outcomes and projections including allocations of resources. This document is easy to understand and the general public will be able to comprehend the intentions of the Federal Government over the next two and half years.

Poverty Eradication

It is indeed commendable that the incidence of poverty has dropped from 5.7 to 3.6. However the figures does indicate that it is still alarming in Sabah at 16% and Sarawak at 4.2%

Having stated this point the MTR9MP does not take seriously the price rise and increase in cost of living. The PLI is still based on the old figures and therefore this statistical comfort is misguided and disconnected from the realities on the ground. While the federal Government has had many dialogues & discussions on price rise and many different initiatives in reducing its impact on the poor and low income, not adjusting the PLI is a serious miscalculation.

This desire to reach zero hardcore poverty is giving wrong focus on agencies to meet statistical targets which is disconnected with the grassroots. Issues related to increasing disparity between the rich and poor are also not provided. MTR9MP only provides mean income figures across the races but fails to give us other important targets such as income difference between the top 20, middle 40 and bottom 40% of the people according to race.. ‘gini coefficient’ figures are however provided (page 59). The selective release of official data is unacceptable as it does not provide opportunity for the Malaysian public let alone Members of Parliament to make an accurate assessment.

A commendable release of new data by the federal Government is the sub-ethnic break down of mean income of groups in Sabah and Sarawak (page 59). This disaggregated documentation of data will enable effective targeting. More data pertaining to poverty, equity, employment, education should be released.

In the section on Moving Forward (2008 to 2010) in poverty eradication, an integrated approach to enabling micro targeting of the poor is indicated. This is the way forward as poverty is multifaceted and therefore require multiple agency involved an integrated approach will make a significant impact.

In addition government agencies must engage civil society and grassroots organisations to be actively involved in a community development approach. Very often this is currently lacking as the priority of many of the agencies is to do single targeting of hardcore poor in a casework style rather than through community mobilisation and empowerment. In this context the approach adopted by AIM in local grassroots mobilisation and capacity building of the poor and women has proved very effective.

If an integrated and community based approach is adopted then the threefold area such as infrastructure, income generating and human capital development will be enhanced.

In a similar way the approach adopted for the urban poor too is in the right direction namely income generation and employment, basic facilities such as housing, in addition building human capital through training and provision of micro credit.

However the major problem in the urban poor area is who is really responsible for implementation and delivery. This aspect has not been effectively addressed since the release of OPP3 in 2001 when public policy recognised that urban poverty is a new are of concern due to urbanisation and modernization.


Indian community

MTR9MP provided the Federal Government an excellent opportunity to address the socio economic imbalances and the grievance of the Indian community however the development plans (MTR9MP) continue to provide recycled views and has disappointed the low income and marginalised sections of the Indian community who had shown a public display of their unhappiness with the federal Government in November 2007.

Federal government has made some efforts in addressing Indian youth issues through skills and entrepreneurship training. MTR9MP has reaffirmed that 3,000 Indian youths will be reached. In additon MTR9MP broke new ground in providing skills training to 6,260 and micro credit of RM 3 million through Yayasan Tekun (page 58). This is indeed credible and more such programmes must be organised in order to reach a larger number of indian youths through out the whole country.

MTR9MP continues to reaffirm increasing the share of equity ownership to 1.5% by 2010 (page 64). Since the Third Outline Perspective Plan (2001-2010), Government documents states this policy intension however no clear programmes, approaches or institutions or mechanisms have been indicated. In 1999 Indian equity ownership was 1.5% and Federal Government target was to raise it to 3% by 2010 (OPP3 para 4.18, page 92).

By MTR9MP it is indicated that Indian equity ownership has dropped to 1.1%. This is a clear indication that the Indian community does not have the capacity nor the extra cash to participate in the economy in a big way. The MTR9MP once again does not provide any specific steps in this direction other than setting the target. Target is not enough, concrete action is essential

Federal Government must give a clear plan in enabling the Indian community to increase their equity share. What concrete steps, action plans must be in place. A decade will pass by 2010 when the Federal government via the OPP3 acknowledged the weak equity and economic position but in concrete terms. MTR9MP indicates ‘special assistance… to raise equity ownership’ but what is it?

Document does not give details on civil service recruitment which is a major concern, intake to public universities and institutions, nor details on access to micro credit for small business development, now allocations for vernacular school education.

The real issues raised by the Indian community are not addressed through MTR9MP. This is a major concern on how the Federal Government can be so disconnected to the tears, aspirations, concerns of this section of Malaysian society. What more need to be done in terms of documentations, concrete grassroots presentation, public display before the fundamental needs are addressed?

Weakness of the Document

First, document does not articulate how national unity will be enhanced. In my opinion national unity is not an underpinning principle like Rukunegara and Islam Hadhari as national unity is a vision and goal to achieve. Therefore the diagram on page 4 of the MTR9MP is misleading and conceptually inaccurate. My early comments on the 9MP is that the articulation of National Unity is weak as it is not even listed as one of the main thrust of socio-economic development plan. This weakness in conceptualisation, articulation and execution in the MTR9MP continues and therefore there must be greater debate and discussion on this theme.

Second, another major weakness of the MTR9MP is that it did not release the basic tables which were done in the MTR7MP and MTR8MP. MTR9MP does not give adequate quantitative data and statistics which is needed for independent analysis and comment. For example while there is a table on registered professionals but no tables on employment by sector and ethnic groups nor employment by occupation and ethnic groups.

This trend is a major concern that while the Federal Government says on the one hand that they are transparent with data but each year the data released is lesser and lesser. Just standing policy intensions and plans is inadequate. Government must release basic data that can be used by others to make analysis and conclusions.

In this context the MTR9MP is only 135 pages in contrast to MTR7MP was 392 pages where else MTR8MP was 485 pages. Federal Government must ensure that Parliament is provided with adequate details for further analysis, debate and deliberation. This is good for the nation and in the best interest of all Malaysias.