1. Today (June 29, 2021) there are 6,437 new cases. It was 5,000 plus these last few days. One hundred and seven people died today bringing the total to 5,108. There had been quite a number of suicides.
2. Clearly the lockdown has not reduced the number of new cases or deaths. But the MCO will be continued from today for more days. Will the number of new cases decrease? Probably not. But we are instructed to continue with lockdown and MCO until the new cases are reduced, But when? After that more days of lockdown and so on. And the cases will remain high and more would die and more would commit suicide. Already the strain is unbearable. But more lockdowns. More of the same.
3. It is always more of the same. The people will suffer, will die, will commit suicide. For the Government, this is okay. The Government remains in power. Parliament will not sit until the Prime Minister advises the King.
4. What about the people. They will continue to suffer. That is alright so long as the Government continue to be in power. That is important. The sufferings of the people is not important.
5. They are without money, without food. They are desperate. They are killing themselves. That’s okay. Not enough beds. Well quarantine at home. You get worse. No oxygen. You die. But that is preordained.
6. The people must appreciate that certain businesses must go on. We cannot afford to lose 2 billion Ringgit a day. If we have to starve, to die, that is the cost we must pay.
7. Now your friends and members of your family are dying. That is not the Government’s fault. The virus does not discriminate.
8. So accept the lockdown, accept the MCO. It is good for you. Eventually, the pandemic will be over. If you survive you can still enjoy life. Just imagine, you can actually vote in the next election and the Government you choose will be sold at the highest price. The backdoor is open. There is money to be made.
9. Politics are what matters. Remaining as Prime Minister, becoming Prime Minister – that is very important.
10. People getting sick, people dying, people committing suicide, starving, being broke, divorcing etc. etc. – all these are okay as long as the Prime Minister is Prime Minister, Ministers and Deputy Ministers get their good pay to do nothing.
11. Don’t have Majlis Pemulihan Negara. Let the country be destroyed. Let the new case remain high. The King must listen to the advice of the Prime Minister. The King is a constitutional monarch. The Prime Minister is the absolute King.
12. No problem. Give the same medicine i.e. impose lockdown, MCO and SOP. Make it difficult for vaccine to be imported. Can make money – why not. What is a few deaths, a few suicides? Yes. Let there be more deaths and more suicides.
13. Have more of the same.
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THE NATIONAL RECOVERY PLAN
** This article was published in THE EDGE DAILY, June 28, 2021
1. The Government has announced a National Recovery Plan. Unfortunately it is more of a time table for recovery based on the number of new cases and the dates the lockdown would be loosened. How the reduction is to be achieved during the stipulated period is not explained. The virus may not oblige and continue to plague the nation despite the time table.
2. We are now seeing a rise in the number of new cases. When the number decreased to 4000 plus, we believed that it must be due to the strategy adopted by the Government. But then the figure started to rise again. On June 18 new cases increased to over 6000. This figure does not seem to accord with the time table.
3. Actually the recovery plan should focus on the action to be carried out to reduce the number of the new cases. We know the measures that have to be taken.
4. We know for example the SOP is intended to reduce the spreading of the pandemic. We also know that the MCO is also intended to reduce infection. But the increase in the number of new cases mean that the SOP and the MCO have not been effective.
5. The question is why? The Government needs to study the situation. Is it because people are disobeying Government instruction? For example the masks are not worn properly or the social distancing is not practiced.
6. We know about clusters. Why are there these clusters? What happened? The workers for example may be lax in practicing the SOP. They are not very disciplined. No one is overseeing their obeying the SOP.
7. The workers go to work in buses. The workers’ buses may not be sanitised. Maybe there are too many on the buses.
8. The workers have to walk from the bus to the work place and back. Do they keep their distance from each other? And at the place of work are they separated from each other far enough. How do they behave during coffee break or when they are being briefed?
9. Many live in workers’ quarters. Some of these are well constructed but some are hastily-built huts. Do they keep their social distances while in their quarters? How far are their beds from each other?
10. Yes, there are many occasions when the workers expose themselves to infection. Merely ordering them to obey the SOP is not enough. The authorities, the police, RELA and frontline people must ensure that the SOP is followed properly. Merely imposing fines is not enough.
11. Everyday more than 6000 new cases are identified. We do not have enough beds for all of them. Some with mild symptoms have been asked to quarantine at home. As we all know mild cases can become serious. At home members of the family cannot go near them. With the virus one of the effect is to have difficulty in breathing.
12. At the hospital oxygen would be given. But at home there is no oxygen. The family members feel distressed watching their family members unable to breathe. He may die and the family members could not handle the deceased. But can they just do nothing? They may want to do something. When they go near the deceased, they may get infected. Then we are going to see a cluster. And the number of new cases will increase.
13. Vaccination is effective in reducing cases. But there also we find problems. Just registering is a problem. People in the rural areas, especially old people may not have handphones, or may not know how to register online. They may be too old, incapable.
14. Initially the vaccination centres are in the urban areas.
15. I can go on. But it is clear that the management of the pandemic is not very good. It is improving now but more can be done with less hassle.
16. This is about the pandemic. What about the economic, the finances, the social problems. Already people are committing suicide. There are lots of domestic quarrels and beating up.
17. Some politicians believe that what we need to do is to have a Parliament. Yes this is good and necessary. But many seem to think that all that is needed is to change Government. I think a change is needed. But the likelihood is to get another weak Government with paper thin majority. The concern would be about becoming Prime Minister – that’s all.
18. With all these problems some people only see opportunities for making money. Maybe this has contributed to the shortage of vaccine.
19. The Government is listening and doing something. But there are lots more things to do. Only professionals with vast experience can come up with ideas to tackle all the four crises.
MAGERAN – MAJLIS PEMULIHAN NEGARA
1. Pada 1969, apabila berlaku rusuhan di Kuala Lumpur, Kerajaan Perikatan mendapat persetujuan Yang di-Pertuan Agong untuk isytihar darurat.
2. Susulan dari itu Kerajaan, iaitu Perikatan, menubuh sebuah badan yang dinamakan MAGERAN (Majlis Gerakan Negara) bagi menangani masalah yang mencetus rusuhan di Kuala Lumpur.
3. Masalahnya ialah:-
i. Kemenangan Perikatan yang kurang dari dahulu.
ii. Pendapat orang Melayu yang tidak puas hati kerana merasa tidak terbela serta tidak mendapat nikmat dari kemerdekaan.
4. Tun Razak sebagai Pengerusi MAGERAN berjaya mendapat penyertaan parti lawan, iaitu Gerakan, Parti Progressive Perak, PAS dan Sarawak United Peoples Parti ke dalam Kerajaan. Perikatan bertukar menjadi Barisan Nasional.
5. Untuk masalah kedua Tun Razak memperkenal Dasar Ekonomi Baru.
6. Di masa yang sama Kuala Lumpur dipisah dari Selangor dan pemilihan ahli Majlis bandaran ditamatkan.
7. Tindakan Tun Razak melalui MAGERAN berjaya menstabilkan negara selama lebih dari 40 tahun.
MAJLIS PEMULIHAN NEGARA (NATIONAL RECOVERY COUNCIL)
8. Kali ini keadaan adalah lebih teruk. Walaupun di waktu darurat diisytihar masalah COVID-19 tidaklah begitu serius, tetapi darurat gagal.
9. Ini menyebabkan jumlah katil di hospital tidak mencukupi sehingga pesakit terpaksa dikuarantin di rumah. Ada yang maut di rumah kerana tidak dapat dirawat, khusus dengan bekalan oksigen.
10. Selain dari wabak, tindakan MCO menyebabkan ekonomi merosot dan kewangan Kerajaan terhakis teruk.
11. Di masa yang sama pula politik menjadi kucar-kacir kerana kelemahan Kerajaan. Ini disusuli dengan banyak masalah sosial termasuk membunuh diri.
12. Majlis Pemulihan Negara tidak akan ganti Kerajaan. Majlis ditugas untuk mengurang kes baru sehingga tercapai herd imuniti.
13. Selain masalah kemerosotan ekonomi dan kewangan akan dipulih oleh Majlis.
14. Untuk politik Parlimen akan bersidang dan tindakan Majlis akan dibentang kepada Parlimen. Percubaan untuk hapuskan Majlis Pemulihan Negara tidak akan diusahakan oleh Parlimen.
15. Yang menjadi masalah politik ialah percubaan merampas kuasa. Malangnya jika Kerajaan ditukar, Kerajaan baru juga akan menjadi lemah kerana majoriti yang tipis. Tindakan politik hanya akan meneruskan masalah.
16. Masalah persekolahan juga akan dikaji dan ditangani oleh Majlis.
17. Selain dari empat perkara ini, perkara lain tidak akan disentuh oleh Majlis. Sementara itu Kerajaan boleh menangani urusan-urusan biasa asalkan tidak menyentuh empat perkara tadi.
18. Majlis tidak diletak dibawah Kerajaan tetapi akan lapor secara langsung kepada DYMM Yang di-Pertuan Agong.
19. Kewujudan Majlis akan tamat apabila negara mencapai herd immuniti atau sebelum PRU 15.
20. Majlis in diperlukan untuk memasti keputusan-keputusan pelan tindakan untuk membantu rakyat dapat dibuat dengan segera dan dilaksanakan tanpa melalui terlalu banyak proses birokrasi.
21. Ahli-ahli Majlis akan terdiri dari pakar-pakar perubatan termasuk ahli psikiatri, pakar-pakar ekonomi yang tidak partisan dan berpengalaman di dalam membantu Negara mengatasi krisis, pakar pelaburan yang berpengalaman, penggerak sosial yang telah bukti keupayaan membantu rakyat ketika pandemik, tokoh-tokoh perundangan yang tidak partisan dan beberapa tokoh politik yang tidak bertindak mewakili parti. Keahlian tidak akan lebih dari 20 anggota. Tidak ada politik dalam Majlis Pemulihan Negara.
22. Nama-nama mereka akan disembahkan kepada Yang di-Pertuan Agong untuk perkenannya. Ahli-ahli Majlis akan berkhidmat secara sukarela, tanpa gaji kecuali diberi elaun yang perlu. Mereka perlu menganggap perlantikan mereka sebagai satu khidmat Negara atau national service.
23. Jika Yang Di-Pertuan Agong dan Majlis Raja-Raja menerima cadangan penubuhan Majlis Pemulihan Negara ini, nama-nama mereka akan dipersembahkan untuk perkenan.
INDUSTRIALISATION
** This article was originally published in THE EDGE DAILY , April 19, 2021
1. We want to be a developed country. Industry, manufacturing industry will help us achieve this ambition. But we need to adopt a different strategy.
2. When we decided to industrialise, our objective was to give people some income. But we had no knowledge about manufacturing, no capital, no expertise in management and no knowledge of the market. So we decided on foreign direct investment.
3. It worked and we can say we have become an industrialised country. 80% of our exports now are made up of manufactured goods.
4. But we are still not a developed country. If we look at Japan, Korea and China, we will notice a difference. They industrialise through acquisition of technology and producing their own branded products to compete in the international market. And they succeeded. We now see Sony, Hitachi, Toshiba products from Japan. Hyundai, Kia, Samsung and LG from Korea. And now Huawei and all kinds of products from China.
5. We do not have Malaysian branded goods internationally except gloves although we produce sophisticated components for some of the best brands in the world.
6. It is time for us to change our strategy. We should produce not for the domestic market but for the world market. Currently we dominate the world in the production of rubber gloves.
7. We should be able to identify other products for the world market.
8. We are blessed with a lot of raw materials. We have rubber and palm oil of course. But we also have tin, silica sand, rare earth, bauxite and maybe other minerals. We should identify products using these raw materials. But if we do, we should aim for the world market. We should be big in the particular product.
9. There are thousands of products made from rubber. Malaysia should produce all the rubber tyres of the world – airplane tyres, tractor tyres, wheelbarrow and lawn mower tyres etc. Like rubber gloves we should be big in some of these products.
10. Rare earth is much needed for batteries. As we turn to electrification to reduce pollution with CO2, more and more batteries would be needed. Already motorcars can do 400km per charge. With research, the range would increase. And the millions of cars switching to EV would need huge numbers of batteries using Lithium-Ion magnets.
11. Power plants using gas would depend upon many components which we can manufacture. We may not have the raw materials. But we can import them. Already Malaysia can produce solar panels and turbines.
12. We do not really have a glass industry. The demand for glassware can be met by our abundance of silica sand. We produce sheet glass but we export mainly silica sand with no added value. There are also industrial usage for glass which we can manufacture.
13. Our universities should train engineers. The capability of Malaysians is enormous. We had no knowledge about animation before. Now we produce a number of good animated films. There are no films involved. Everything is electronics now. Apart from entertainment, there are demands for animation in many industries.
14. Animation makes teaching easier. We can see how the inside of engines work. The parts can be illustrated individually, assembled through animation, sliced through to show how the parts work. We can see how the parts work with animation.
15. We are already producing composite parts of airplanes. We can do more. Precision engineering can be so precise that the products would perform faultlessly.
16. It is a mistake to limit ourselves to supplying the domestic market. Korea does not need ships as the land is continuous. But Korea decided to build ships for the world market. Today Korea builds most of the big ships in the world. Korea even built a gas liquefaction plant on a floating platform. Petronas has two of them.
17. South Korea builds cars and lithium-ion batteries for the world. And it is one of the two biggest producers of micro-chips for the world.
18. We are world beaters too. We have been the biggest canned pineapple producers, tin and rubber and palm oil producers in the world at one time. Now we are falling behind others in these fields. Yet we can be very big in manufacturing if we aim at the world market. We have the capacity. There should be a new policy to encourage the manufacture of products for the world market.
19. The Government should support big locally owned industries so that we can be fully industrialised. If we can give tax-free incentives to FDI, we should be able to do the same for our big industries to supply the world.
20. Now we are in the information age. This is a new power which lends itself to the invention of other products, to automation and robotics. Everything that we do today can be enhanced by artificial intelligence.
21. We don’t need labour intensive manufacturing i.e., dependence on foreign workers. We need to discourage such industries. We have to replace them with local engineers trained to handle robots and automated machines.
22. Our palm oil and rubber estates need workers. We should reduce acreage for these estates while depending on other kinds of agriculture. Modern agriculture depends more on technology than manual workers.
23. By changing our industries and agriculture to depend less on labour, we will be rid of our foreign workers. It would be painful. Those depending on foreign workers will scream. But the answer is not to increase the quota for foreign workers but to switch to other industries and automation.
THE RULE OF LAW
1. Among the most important objectives of Pakatan Harapan when it was struggling to overthrow the kleptocratic government of Najib Razak was the restoration of the Rule of Law. Najib had ignored the law when it suited him. In fact the laws were abused in order to oppress the people. Instead of protecting the people, the laws exposed the people to unknown but real fears.
2. The basic law of Malaysia is the constitution. It is a comprehensive body of laws which determines the legal structure of Malaysia from the Yang Di Pertuan Agong to the Rulers of the States, to the Federal and State Governments and the bodies empowered to rule and enforce.
3. All other laws are derived from the constitution. No law which in any way negates the constitution may be promulgated.
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— Dr Mahathir Mohamad (@chedetofficial) August 13, 2018
BANK NEGARA
1. It is reported that Bank Negara has bought from the Government of Malaysia 22.58 hectares of land for the relocation of the Global Islamic Finance University and the International Research Academy for Islamic Finance. (read here)
2. Months were taken to negotiate these transactions. Bank Negara will pay the Government of Malaysia RM2 billion for this land.
3. When I was in office Bank Negara expanded physically several times. But no one heard about the price paid for the land. Maybe the public as stakeholders, would like to know how much Bank Negara paid for the land on which the present magnificent bank buildings stand.
THE 160 BILLION LOSS
1. It is obvious that Johari Ghani, the Second Minister of Finance wants desperately to stop the debate on the huge loss suffered by the Malaysian financial reserve.
2. I too would like to close the debate, but I cannot allow Johari Ghani’s failure to explain the losses suffered by Bank Negara of 39.6 billion USD between 2013 and 2015 to remain a mystery.
3. The large loss may be due to normal management. But big sums must have been involved for the total to be so big. It cannot be just because Bank Negara followed the trend in the out flow of funds from Malaysia.
TAHUN BARU
1. Selamat menyambut tahun baru 2017. Dalam bahasa Inggeris mereka berkata Happy New Year.
2. Mungkin orang Melayu hanya ingin berada dalam keadaan selamat sahaja. Mungkin kita tidak mengharapkan tahun baru menjadi tahun yang seronok gembira.
3. Sesungguhnya kita tidak boleh tahu keadaan masa depan kita, walaupun untuk satu tahun sahaja. Tetapi kita boleh teka jika kita mengambil kira tahun-tahun yang lepas dan tahun ini (2016) yang kita lalui. Kita tahu beberapa keadaan yang kita alami tahun yang kita tinggalkan ini tidak akan berubah. Keadaan akan diteruskan. Dan mungkin menjadi lebih buruk.
NEW YEAR
1. On this good day I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year.
2. 2016 had not been a very happy year for us in Malaysia. But the whole world had not had a good year either.
3. I will not repeat the litany of events which made 2016 a bad year.