Media Statement by Dr. Chen Man Hin in Seremban on Tuesday, 16^th June 2009:

PM najib must give up playing old politics or his 1 Malaysia vision will vanish

One must admit that PM Najib has been trying very hard to push his vision of 1 Malaysia to gain the support of the people, but the people are not seen to resonate to his call. These are the reasons.

HE LACKS SINCERITY. He claims that he wants unity so that we are one people. The next moment he proceeded to Perak and engineered a coup de’tat to take over the PR state government. He has achieved it with the support and co-operation from royalty, the judiciary, the attorney chambers, the police, the election commission and the bureaucracy. Instead of unity, he has created disunity among the people.

HIS 1 MALAYSIA WAS INTENDED TO UNITE THE WHOLE NATION TO CONSIST OF ONE PEOLE, ONE NATION. However at the same time, he continues to support Umno’s policy of ketuanan Melayu. How is it possible for the people to be one people, when at the same time he allows a political party of which he is president to struggle for a divisive ketuanan Melayu policy?

HE LACKS COMPETENCY. PM Najib as finance minister launched two financial stimulus packages totalling some 70billion ringgits to fight off the painful effects of a global credit crunch. When he was appointed PM there was no recession yet, but now the national economy is in recession. all his reassuring words of ‘no recession, only a mild economic downturn’ has fallen flat. for this year, the GDP is estimated to be negative by 5% (7% by independent analysts).

The government has admitted that only 20% of the stimulus packages were used to revive the economy. The money was allocated by parliament, but incompetency and inertia of government bureaucracy sabotaged the stimulus plan.

LACK OF TRANSPARENCY. Any government can have the best of strategies and plans, but if there is lack of transparency the projects will not take off but will flop badly. Corruption is still a national scourge and has cost the nation billions of ringgits. The most recent scandal of Port Klang Free Trade Zone is a case in point.

The biggest scandals involve the award of tenders of government contracts. Billions of ringgits are lost through kickbacks. Tenders are awarded to political cronies and not on basis of merit and experience. These corrupt practices result in the building of faulty bridges, schools sturctures, stadiums and government buildings of parliament and Putrajaya.

THE NEP BAGGAGE. In these hard times of recession, foreign direct investments provide a life to the economy. Unfortunately the FDIs have fallen precipitously last year and projected to dive down by 60% for this years. PM Najib has worked hard to get China and Singapore to invest in Malaysia. We must advise and warn the PM that unless he revokes the investment unfriendly NEP all his efforts will come nought. All the goodwill he has engendered will vanish, when the foreign investor see that Malaysia’s terms are unattractive.

DAP advice to PM Najib. We think your 1Malaysia is a good objective, but it cannot be achieved if you still embrace old politics of race, corruption and racial politics.

In a globalised world the road to success for Malaysia is to preach and practise the new politics of competency, accountability and transparency. Racial politics are out meritocracy is in.

* Dr. Chen Man Hin, DAP Life Advisor