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Media Comment
by Ronnie Liu
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(Petaling Jaya, Friday) :  I referred to the Bernama article posted by Raja Petra entitled "30,000 Class F contractors reap gains from Govt jobs". I found him lying all the way throughout the report.

"Nor Mohamed said that the RM3 million allocation announced for each district by the Prime Minister at the UMNO General Assembly was already available. He said Members of Parliament and heads of Barisan Nasional branches could identify appropriate projects to be carried out in their constituency as the federal government might sometimes be unaware of local needs. He also said that even Opposition MPs could provide viewpoints on the projects that were needed."

Nor Mohamed lied to his teeth when he said that "MPs and heads of BN branches could identify appropriate projects to be carried out in their constituency…" because on the ground, only Umno division chiefs were given the right to lay their hands on the RM3 million political "bonus" ! Go ask any MCA, MIC, Gerakan and PPP division leaders and see if they have gotten any money out of these RM600 million. In Sarawak where there's no presence of Umno, not a single sen was given to any of the district. It is also untrue that "Opposition MPS could provide viewpoints on the projects that were needed" because he knows pretty well that there was no such mechanism or channel to do so.

It was also wrong for Nor Mohamed to argue that an annual growth of 6% in average was sufficient to achieve developed nation status by 2020. DAP SG Lim Guan Eng, a qualified accountant had earlier pointed out that nothing less than 7.2% growth every year from now was needed to achieve the Wawasan 2020 target.

"We do not want to take from Paul and give to Peter, therefore the (economic) pie has to expand," Nor Mohamed said.

If that's the case, Umno must stop demanding for higher bumi equity and also stop denying that the bumi equity has not reached more than the targeted 30% set out in NEP.

He also said that Malaysia's reserves were currently at US$80 billion.

Asked on the country's indebtedness, Nor Mohamed said Malaysia's external loans currently amounted to RM70.8 billion, of which 17.8 percent was federal government loans.

"The loans are not high and consistent with our expanding economy," he said.

"We hardly borrow overseas and we only do that to maintain our credit rating in the international market. We also prepay our external borrowings sometimes," he said.

Oh, come on, Noh Mohamed. You know that we Malaysians are now living in grace period. The Umno-led government has been depended on heavy borrowings for the past 20 years. The nation will be hit very badly when these loans were up for full repayment in the coming two to three years. We will certainly feel the pinch when our oil production only sufficient to cover our own domestic consumption by 2011.

The minister also dismissed misperceptions that the government should reduce petroleum prices now that oil prices have declined. He said that when the price of petrol was raised by 30 sen, it was computed against a crude oil price of US$58 but thereafter it rose to almost US$74 but has since come to US$63. "It is still higher than US$54 and there is no justification to cut petrol prices," Nor Mohamed said.

We dare to argue that the Umno-led Government would not slash the price of petrol and diesel even if the crude oil price falls to below US$50 per barrel. Umno leaders somehow have the abilities to concoct some storie so that they can continue to line their own pockets with money belongs to the rakyat. Look at the way they spent RM300 million a week on the Monsoon Cup in Terengganu. And didn't AAB just spent RM20 million to beef up the security system of his residence in Putrajaya?

(22/12/2006)