What Malaysians Want

NOV 13 — What a way to end the year.
Everywhere I read, the country seems to be losing money.
The national airline, TNB... not to mention the various ministries that overspent their budget without approval from the Finance Ministry.
They did not lose and overspend public funds by a few thousands, but by hundreds of millions. They bought laptops and binoculars way beyond market prices and paid for instruments and devices that had not been delivered at that time, yet.
The standard response given by the respective ministries: “We will look into it, and we will take action if there were elements of abuse.”
What investigations? They made it sound as if the Auditor-General was careless and made unwarranted accusations of inappropriate use of funds.
The Malaysian Insider, in an article a few days back, asked “Where’s the beef, Sharizat?” I concur, but I won’t stop there. We should also be asking the ministers, Where are the commuter trains, where are the plain clothes officers on express buses to catch errant drivers, what happened to all the corridors, and where oh where have the English teachers gone to?
Where are you leading us to next?
Malaysians do not want fancy new buildings or new shopping complexes. We do not need to see our man walking and conducting experiments on the moon, nor million ringgit consultants churning daily dishes of alphabet salads that make no sense to us.
Malaysians want a stop to the misallocation of funds. We want action taken against ministers, their family members and high ranking government officials who do not understand the meaning of conflict of interest, public funds, accountability involving our hard earned salaries.
We want our companies to tell Malaysians what they are doing to save costs, avert a loss and why Malaysians should continue paying taxes to support their negligence and opulent lifestyles.
Dishing out RM500 to families earning less than RM3,000 is not the answer and neither is opening up Kedai Rayat 1 Malaysia that sell — according to the minister of Domestic Trade and Consumerism — popular products at cheaper prices.
Why in the world is Kedai Rakyat 1 Malaysia selling popular products?
Kedai Rakyat 1 Malaysia was set up to offer cheap products of good quality to those who are less fortunate. Subsidising popular products, or selling them at a cheaper price than other shops defeats the whole purpose of setting up these outlets.
The government needs to look at the big picture, and fast.
We need high-paying jobs, and to attract high-paying companies we need skilled workers. And to have skilled workers we need better education and training that is commercially, economically oriented and not politically motivated. We are already one of the biggest spenders in education in the region, all we have to do is make it worthwhile.
Revamp the universities and colleges, and make them use English on campus. There is a reason why graduates from international and private universities are worth more than their local counterparts. So learn from them please.
Please train our teachers in teaching schools only in English. Like any language it is about having enough vocabulary and confidence to converse and not just about learning grammar in class.
Lack manpower? Then start recruiting our retired but qualified, experienced English teachers to take up this challenge. Not many are stepping up because the offer is not enticing enough. Spice it up! Offer them high pay and good perks instead of giving it to the Americans US President Barack Obama is sending to teach us English under the Fulbright programme.
Education and politics should not mix in our culturally diverse country. They should be set by academicians who are politically neutral and have no vested interest in any parties, except the betterment of the Malaysian people.
So to sum up for busy politicians (some with short attention spans), please plug the financial leak, stop spending more than you have, stop meddling and create better education to attract better paying jobs, be more transparent, accountable, and responsible in governing this country.
And lastly, please stop appearing on TV to offer us your seasonal apologies. We are tired of apologies, we want results and we want them yesterday.
Move aside if you don’t think you can perform, and retire with whatever modicum of respect you have left.
Don’t let the next general election be a Malaysian Spring. Or it may just turn out to be the election you will never forget.
* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.http://my.news.yahoo.com/what-malaysians-want-223049291.html