By Teo Nie Ching
Najib
Razak took two hours to deliver his Budget speech in Parliament
yesterday - his longest speech ever since he was appointed as the PM of
Malaysia. As expected, the goodies and sweeteners made the headlines
in all the mainstream media but beneath the surface, the real extent of
the Government's practice of cronyism and misplaced priorities is
revealed.
In the 2011 Budget tabled in October 2010, Najib
announced a five-year freeze on toll rates on four highways owned by
PLUS Expressways and in January this year, Najib again told us that
several toll operations have been restructured following a review of
transportation costs aimed at easing the people's burden.
But
the truth is, the compensation paid out to toll concessionaires has
increased from RM200 million in 2011 to RM343 million, amounting to an
increase of 71.5%! Therefore Najib's so-called grand transformation and
restructuring plan is nothing but a scam as the Government is simply
passing on the financial burden of motorists to all taxpayers in
Malaysia.
In Budget 2012, Najib also announced
that all primary and secondary school fees will be abolished, beginning
with the 2012 school term and RM1 billion will be allocated for the
betterment of school premises. But what he conveniently chose not to
mention in his speech was that the Federal Government’s total
development expenditure for education and training has been reduced
from RM12 billion (2010) to RM8.5 billion - slashed by nearly 30%. As a
direct consequence, there is less allocation for building new schools.
According
to the guidelines set out by the Department of Town and Country
Planning, Peninsula Malaysia, in areas with a population of 7,500, a
primary school should be built while a secondary school should be built
in areas with a population of 15,000. In line with this ratio, we need
9 new secondary schools and 18 primary schools by the year 2015 in the
areas that fall under the authority of Majlis Perbadanan Kajang.
That's
not all, our country needs more special education institutions for
disabled children. Currently there are 21 special education
institutions for the disabled in Singapore but there are only 32 in
Malaysia despite the fact that Malaysia is approximately 500 times
larger than our southern neighbour.
I find it
even more disturbing that the Federal Government’s total development
expenditure for defence has increased from RM2.6 billion to RM3.6
billion. Malaysia does not face any immediate threats to its national
security. BN should review its priorities, failing which its position
as the Government of Malaysia could soon be replaced.
TEO NIE CHING is MP for Serdang
(Source: Malaysia Today)
Thanks to Teo Nie Ching for enlightening the rakyat further on the real extent of
the Government's practice of cronyism and misplaced priorities.
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