Johor DAP has officially formed an alternative budget committee on May 29. The committee is led by Chua Wee Beng, state assemblyman for Bentayan, and consists of Wong Shu Qi, state assemblywoman of Senai and Mahdzir Ibrahim, Johor DAP state political education chief.
After its first meeting, the committee resolved to conduct a statewide survey. The purpose of the survey is to consult the people on how tax money should be spent to improve the lives of Johoreans.
The issues which the committee will focus on include environmental sustainability, living quality amidst rapid development, job creation and wealth distribution.
It is true that state government has very limited economic policy tools at the macro level. Yet, the committee is of the view that the state government has sufficient financial resources and capacity to implement certain policies that will tackle some fundamental problems faced by the people. For instance, the Johor state government has followed the moves of the Penang and Selangor state governments to implement free bus service in the state. It is a commendable move by an UMNO government who is not afraid to learn from Pakatan Harapan.
As a responsible opposition in the state, we play the dual role of offering alternatives being the government-in-waiting as well as providing constructive criticisms to improve the competition of ideas. We hope that this is the beginning of a healthy politics in Malaysia where both ruling party and opposition party can contribute to good governance.