Two days ago, the Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Najib Razak claimed that the Ringgit is now one of the ‘best-performing’ currencies in the world when addressing civil servants in Putrajaya. The Prime Minister is clearly grasping at the same straws as he attempts to make Malaysians forget the disastrous toll his leadership has had on the economy.
The basis for his claim on February 5 was that the Ringgit had now crossed the psychological barrier of RM4 to the US Dollar and is now trading at RM3.9 to USD1.
Let me remind the Prime Minister again, immediately after the last General Election in 2013, the Ringgit traded at RM2.98 to the Dollar. This means that during his current 5-year term, the Ringgit tanked by nearly 31% to date.
It is an absolute travesty when the Finance and Prime Minister chose to reduce the measure of his economic performance to the past 3 months when he should evaluate himself over the 5 year term!
Let us not forget the serious loss in investor confidence that came as the 1MDB scandal broke and revealed Najib as one of the world’s largest kleptocrats. The Ringgit’s breach of the RM4 psychological barrier came in 2015, just as news of the 1MDB made international headlines.
Our Prime Minister, who was even labelled Asia’s Worst Performing Finance Minister in 2015, has nothing to be proud for the small improvement the Ringgit has seen in recent months when he is the main culprit behind the Ringgit’s tragic fall from grace over the past 5 years.
With GE14 around the corner, we are bound to see the Prime Minister manipulate more facts and “forget” more scandals in his bid to remain in power. However mere words is not enough regain confidence in our economy, as his scandal-ridden leadership has wrecked global confidence in our country.
The only way to truly recover from his disastrous leadership is to ensure is that Malaysia is never again seen as synonymous with grand kleptocracy. It is time to implement clean, transparent and competitive economic policies to rebuild the loss confidence of local and foreign investors in our economy.