Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s Special Cabinet Committee To Tackle the Cost of Living Changes Nothing If The BN Government Knows Only How To Increase Prices Without Increasing Salaries, Especially Minimum Wage To RM 1,100 Monthly, (With A Grace Period Of 5 Years To SMEs For Foreign Workers).
Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s Special Cabinet Committee To Tackle the Cost of Living changes nothing if the BN government knows only how to increase prices without increasing salaries, especially minimum wage to RM1,100 monthly(with a grace period of 5 years to Small and Medium Enterprises(SMEs) for foreign workers). Muhyidin used a lot of fancy academic terms without addressing the two main issues of concern to 28 million ordinary Malaysians – Is BN going to reduce prices or increasing salaries?
What is the use of the BN government spending money to create a special laboratory for two weeks beginning today to study measures to ease the burden of the people when they can not even understand the price rises is not about the price of “kangkung’ alone. Is the BN government going to appoint expert consultants again, where RM7.2 billion have been spent since 2008? Failure to address reducing prices or increasing salaries will render this Special Committee a toothless tiger, a mere talk-shop with full of meaningless flowery words without action to lessen the financial burden of the rakyat.
Does Muhyiddin not know that real wages of export-oriented industries rose by 1.9% whilst that of domestic-oriented industries rose by 1.4% after 1997? The price hikes by the BN Federal government this year in sugar, petrol, power tariffs and road tolls has highlighted the sad fact that wages can not keep up with inflation.
DAP proposes that the minimum monthly wage be increased to RM 1,100 combined with a grace period to SMEs for 5 years from extending to foreign workers, would help to increase income for 14.2 million Malaysian workers and help economic growth by protecting Malaysian SMEs. The minimum wage of RM 1,100 monthly is acceptable to Small and Medium Entreprises(SMEs) provided that it does not cover foreign workers. After the 5 years grace period, SMEs have to pay the minimum monthly wage to all foreign and local workers.
Further Malaysia loses out when foreign workers send most of their money home. Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Ahmad Maslan told Parliament last month that remittances by legal foreign workers doubled from RM 10 billion in 2009 to almost RM20 billion last year. The top five countries that received remittances from Malaysia in 2012 are Bangladesh (RM3 billion), Indonesia (RM3 billion), Nepal (RM2 billion), India (RM625 million) and the Philippines (RM561 million).
This RM20 billion foreign workers’ remittances are expected to double when the minimum wage is fully applied to all foreign workers beginning 1.1.2014. Malaysian employers and employees should be looked after first by ensuring that employees enjoy a higher minimum monthly wage of RM 1,100 and giving SMEs, a grace period of at least 5 years for SMEs to adjust before extending this minimum wage to foreign workers.
Unlike BN, the PR state government in Penang is proud that we did not increase business license fees, water rates, quit rent and assessment charges. To distract attention from the price hikes by the BN Federal government in sugar, petrol, power tariffs and road toll, BN stokes the fires of racial and religious hatred. We should not fall into BN’s traps of economic mismanagement that has caused the people to suffer rising costs of living.