Don: How will PN ensure politician-helmed GLCs deliver budget initiatives?

 

BUDGET 2021 | Questions have been raised over whether Perikatan Nasional (PN) can ensure that its numerous politician-led government-linked companies (GLC) and agencies will be able to carry out Budget 2021 initiatives accordingly.

Based on the budget speech, Universiti Malaya political economy professor Terence Gomez noted that such firms will play a major role in the government’s economic plans next year.

Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz said on Friday that GLCs have been roped in to offer 15,000 contract jobs under MyStep. 

GLCs Petronas and Telekom Malaysia have also been tasked with carrying out Jana Niaga, a financing scheme for small and medium-sized enterprises.

Majlis Amanah Rakyat (Mara) will be given RM50 million to disburse to bumiputera contractors engaged in government projects under Skim Pembiayaan Kontrak Ekspres (Spike). A portion of the RM95 million allocated to help women entrepreneurs will also go through the bumiputera agency.

Some RM400 million will be channelled to the Federal Land Development Authority (Felda) to write-off interest on settlers’ debt and for development programmes.

Prasarana Malaysia Bhd, meanwhile, has been tasked with expanding the My30 travel pass beyond Klang Valley as well as introducing a new unlimited monthly travel public transport pass for school children and the disabled.

Enough checks and balances?

While he agreed with utilising GLCs to drive the Covid-19 stricken economy, Gomez questioned if there was a “political dimension” to how they will be used.

Since coming into power in March, PN has appointed government lawmakers to lead Mara (Beaufort MP Azizah Dun), Felda (Besut MP Idris Jusoh) and Prasarana (Pasir Salak MP Tajuddin Abdul Rahman).

Many other federal and state government agencies and GLCs have also seen technocrats replaced with political appointments.

Gomez, who has authored numerous books on GLCs and state-market relations, wondered if the public service delivery system was robust enough to withstand potential political influences.

“Are there enough checks and balances so that the budget allocations reach the people they are targeting?

“If GLCs are such a huge component of the budget and if the GLCs are all also controlled by politicians, including sitting MPs, then, of course, we have reasons to be concerned about this budget,” he said.

Will bumiputera policies spook investors?

The former United Nations Research Institute for Social Development research coordinator also expressed concern over what he observed as an “unsettling” emphasis on ethnic classifications in the federal supply bill.

Terence Gomez

This, he said, was evident in the number of allocations for bumiputera-specific initiatives.

“There is a very strong political dimension coming through at a time when the focus ought to be on the economic and health crises,” he added.

Aside from the two Mara schemes mentioned above, yesterday’s budget speech noted that a total of RM11.1 billion had been allocated to the “bumiputera development agenda” to reduce the disparity between the races.

According to Zafrul, this amount was RM3.1 billion more than Budget 2020.

While bumiputera policies surface in almost every budget, Gomez said a pandemic-era budget should have been premised on inspiring investor confidence and fostering national unity.

“Budgets or policies that are cast along ethnic lines will not necessarily inspire investor confidence, especially among the non-bumiputera who constitute an important segment of the corporate sector,” he analysed.

“It should have been a Malaysian budget to get all Malaysians to come together.

“We are facing a pandemic which has had an enormous economic impact on all of us, and we have to get it right,” Gomez opined. - Mkini

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