Budget 2015: Where’s the money and food?

It has been more than a week since Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak gave his federal budget speech. Similar to the American “State of the Union”, the speech is supposed to describe the current condition of the country while also announcing next year’s spending for the country.

While the prime minister was happy to announce our economic achievements, he failed to announce the increasing pressure on the citizens of the nation, leaving out the recent Salaries and Wages Report 2013.

Allow me to highlight some alarming facts from the Malaysian Department of Statistics, using median salaries instead of average salaries, because the former reflect the bulk of the population, while the average is distorted by who earn the highest and lowest in the nation.

More than one third – 3,653,800 people according to the report - joined the workforce after SPM with a median salary of only RM1,500. In comparison, degree holders working in Malaysia are only one third of those working after SPM, with 1,122,000 people. Oddly enough, degree holders only have more than double an SPM leaver at RM3,890.

This is a clear sign that we are not, in fact, pushing hard enough for a high skilled nation of employees. It is also a clear indication of a breakdown in terms of rewarding degree holders with a salary that reflects and pushes people into the tertiary education system.

On a geographical scale, salaries and wages are also distorted and centred in the Greater Klang Valley area. Surprisingly, those working in Putrajaya which I guess are public servants, have a higher median salary than those in Selangor and even Kuala Lumpur.

With a median salary of RM2,495, Putrajaya clearly shows that the push to raise public salaries are not affecting that of the private sector at all, a fallacy that was pointed out by Fomca just the other day.

Furthermore, workers in the state of Sabah earn a median salary of RM910, RM290 less than those in Sarawak.

The urban and rural gap in salaries is now exceeding RM640, a tell-tale sign that this government is not addressing the issue. Adding on to this fact, there are only two million employees in the rural areas while urban areas have more than three times more.

This is a clear sign that we have focused so much on the urban areas that rural areas are quickly becoming abandoned ghost towns due to the lack of opportunity and investments, thus creating slums and ghettos.

I guess we can expect more episodes of “Bersamamu” on TV3, then.

The government needs to create opportunities outside the cities and increase the ability to develop outside of Kuala Lumpur. Clearly, this was missing in the last budget to reckless abandon.

In his speech on strengthening the food supply chain, the government announced an allocation of RM6 billion. And yet, the only mention of aid to increase the productivity and even to open up more land is only RM200 million.

Even for fishermen, only RM60 million will be disbursed for diversification through funding of aquaculture activities and another RM27 million for an Automatic Identification System. Other than this, it is all welfare.

Furthermore, this government is also not looking to assist the rubber or even oil palm smallholders, and instead looks to somehow assist the large players through the export duty exemption extended to this December.

The government insists that we move for subsidy regularisation, and yet allows those that produce food for Malaysians to live a subsistent lifestyle in the rural areas. While America created a generation of farming millionaires, we have somehow created a culture where farming is looked down upon to the point of giving up agricultural land for housing.

I do support the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in April 2015 as it is a tax based on consumption and is in fact a progressive tax. However, before taxing, we must ensure that Malaysians in the workforce have enough to sustain a living with a little extra for savings.

This is what is missing in the budget and government policy. We no longer have a proper ratio between the CEO and the lowest employee, a 20:1 ration suggested by the Druckers Institute.

At the same time, this budget is one of austerity measures, the doling out of cash during a period of high disparity which will not assist in the achievement of a high income nation.

Keynes says that it is alright to have austerity during a boom period to sustain the boom, but not during a recession. As such, one wonders where the heck we are. A gross domestic product (GDP) of 6.3% is amiable, but at the same time, we seem to have become a nation that has left its people behind. – October 16, 2014.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.