Baradan Kuppusamy need not worry

There is no need for The Star's Baradan to worry about the seeming lack of economists other than Tony Pua. The opposition's criticisms of BN's economic policies seem to centre on the indiscriminate distributions of large amounts of government funds to various ministers to be chanelled to their cronies. Whatever so-called economic policies with impressive sounding names like 'transformation', acronyms and initials, have turned out to be nothing more than rhetorics without much substance. The mismanagement of funds, leakages and wastage bordered on the ludicrous, as evident in the Auditor-General's Report annually. Therefore, it can be safe to say that even without doing much planning, just carrying out the administration (don't forget we have civil servants who are the ones really carrying out the work regardless of who are the political masters, unless they opt to sabotage) could have been better than the many high sounding policies with the main aim of enriching themselves, draining national resources. For example, instead of distributing Rm250 million to NFC to experiment on large scale farming, aid to existing cattle farmers based on proper assessments could have been more effective and cheaper too. Setting up those 1Malaysia shops are totally unnecessary, duplication of work and unfair to genuine establishments.

With a credible coalition of parties to take over BN, there will be more people who are willing to come back from overseas to do their national service. I believe there are already several top economists and technocrats already helping out in Penang and Selangor. For Baradan to expect a full shadow cabinet or a proper shadow budget when most information are kept secret under Official Secrets Act is both futile and unnecessary. Pakatan state governments like Penang and Selangor have proven beyond doubt their ability to cut costs and improve on their administrations. I believe the voters are willing to give Pakatan a chance to prove themselves at the next election. Only when they could not perform to expectations then, should Baradan worry.

Malaysia Today: Economic policies that do not add up
http://malaysia-today.net/mtcolumns/guest-columnists/45235-economic-policies-that-do-not-add-up

From Malaysia Chronicle:

'Yet Pakatan holds a treasury of talent with economic specialists including PKR's Rafizi Ramli, DAP's Tony Pua and PAS' Dzulkefly Ahmad to name a few. Opposition Anwar Ibrahim himself was a former star Finance minister, who was rated as one of Asia's best during the 1990s.

Soi Lek also failed to acknowledge the widespread corruption in the BN government and was completely silent on the RM888 billion the internationally-renowned Global Financial Integrity body had said was siphoned out from Malaysia in illicit outflows during the period 2000 to 2009.

Neither did he mention that Ministers in the Prime Minister's Department Idris Jala and Koh Tsu Koon had both warned Malaysia would go bankrupt by 2019 due to excessive debt and uncontrolled spending.'

More:

http://www.malaysia-chronicle.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=23449:soi-lek-pakatan-lacks-bns-economic-expertise&Itemid=2
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