KUALA LUMPUR, May 1 — Lim Guan Eng wants to know what Barisan Nasional (BN) has done with foreign investors’ money from last year, which the prime minister claims increased six-fold compared to 2009. The DAP secretary-general questioned Putrajaya today on the country’s rising inflation rate, which he said had jacked up the prices of daily goods and services but seen no change to workers’ wages and income.
“If Malaysia’s economic success is so great, why are inflation and living costs on the rise?” he asked in his Labour Day message today.
The Penang chief minister said the federal government had announced the inflation rate has remained at a steady 2.8 per cent for the past three months and that the ringgit has ostensibly strengthened, and pointed out that it means Malaysians should be able to buy cheaper imported goods.
“We do not see any signs of a reduction in goods and services,” he said.
Instead, he added, the cost of living has gone up while the wage and salary for the average worker, whether blue collar or white, has remained stagnant.
“What’s more curious, where have all the investment money said to have risen six-fold gone? Something must be wrong,” the DAP leader said.
Lim appeared to blame it on Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s leadership, noting the latter’s dismissal of the latest World Bank report highlighting Malaysia’s exodus of some two million talents due to perceived lack of job opportunities and social injustice.
“One out of 10 Malaysians with a tertiary degree migrated in 2000 to an OECD (the club of rich countries, but which does not include Singapore) country – this is twice the world average and including Singapore would make this two out of 10,” the opposition leader said, citing from the World Bank study.
“In other words, it is very likely that 20 per cent of our best graduates end up in other countries. The reasons why they leave are also instructive: 66 per cent cited career prospects, 60 per cent social injustice and 54 per cent compensation,” the Bagan MP added.
Lim said the exodus of home-grown talent was very serious as it were needed to revitalize the country’s lagging economy, noting that Malaysia had fallen behind even South Korea, a country that had trailed it in 40 years ago but has since grown and tripled its GDP compared to Malaysia’s.
Lim said the problem could still be reversed so long as the government corrected its discriminatory policies and implemented minimum wage.
He said the BN were aware of it but were not putting it into practice as it preferred playing at racial politics.
He pointed to Sabah and Sarawak which he said were treated as the ruling coalition’s “fixed deposit”, but remained among the most stricken states in the country.
Sabah stands at 42.9 per cent of the national poverty rate, followed by Sarawak at 12 per cent, Lim highlighted.
He urged voters to support the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) bloc for a shot at improving their lives socially and economically.
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