DAP welcomes the denial by Finance Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz today that the date for tabling Budget 2023 in Parliament will be earlier to allow for general elections to take place. He insisted that the Budget will still be tabled on October 28.
The current Cabinet members’ poor performance is due to their obsession with the general elections expected this year when they should be focusing on preventing an economic recession next year. At a time when Malaysia faces a host of economic problems, instead of doing their jobs designing cogent public policies to address them, government Ministers are running around campaigning and politicking.
There is more attention on UMNO’s demand of early elections and Perikatan Nasional threatening to pull out its support for Ismail Sabri due to Ismail breaking his promises, than on pressing economic issues ranging from soaring prices of food and materials, a severe labour shortage, a depreciating ringgit and rising interest rates. How severe the global situation is can be seen by the US economy in technical recession over the first two quarters of 2022 and the Bank of England predicting that the United Kingdom will be in recession in the final quarter of 2022.
And yet, the government in its self-absorption with politicking, continues to express optimism that Malaysia can achieve the 2022 projected economic growth of up to 6.3%. Even the International Monetary Fund had lowered its growth target of Malaysia to at best 5.6% for 2022.
Meanwhile the ringgit value continues to decline against the US at RM4.46. a 5-year low, and the lowest value on record of RM3.24 to the Singapore dollar. Despite high oil and palm oil prices, the ringgit continues to depreciate when it should be strengthening.
Even when PH was in power with low oil and palm oil prices, the ringgit has never dropped to such record levels. Whilst the government can dismiss the decline in the ringgit vis a vis the US dollar due to interest rate hikes of 2.25% by the Federal Reserve Bank, the precipitous drop against the Singapore dollar highlights the recovery risks and weakness of our economy against two of our three largest trading partners.
Policy makers should address them and also quickly overcome the failure of foreign labour to enter Malaysia. The severe labour shortage has caused RM33.5 billion losses to the palm oil, glove and auto spare parts industry as well as tens of billions of ringgit in other sectors. Despite promises that Indonesian workers will come in by 1 August, many businesses are still waiting forlornly. The Ministers concerned should focus on facilitating their entry instead of putting up obstacles.
Further, measures to curb rising prices with interest rate hikes have not proven effective. There is no point continuing with interest rate hikes when it only hurts businesses with higher borrowing costs without countering high prices and risks precipitating an economic recession.
National economic interests dictate that the general election should be held next year and not this year. The Government should stop its obsession with holding the general elections this year but focus instead on doing its job to prevent the Malaysian economy from falling into a recession in 2023. Holding the 15th general election this year at the cost of allowing an economic recession next year is just not worth it.