Salleh Keruak is correct - we will never be a high-income country

Few weeks ago, the BN's communication czar (pictured below), argues that Malaysia would not be a developed nation because of Tun Dr M.

 

This is what he said in his piece titled 'Dr Mahathir needs to get real'

"Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said, “There was a time not so very long ago when Malaysia was admired for successfully raising itself from an impoverished third world country into a stable newly industrialised country. No one doubted that its announced intention to become a developed country by 2020 would be achieved.”

I think Dr Mahathir needs to get real. 

During that same period he is talking about, Dr Mahathir quarrelled with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and launched his ‘Buy British Last’ campaign, plus he quarrelled with US President Bill Clinton, resulting in the Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating calling Dr Mahathir a recalcitrant. Most Malaysians were embarrassed by those events. 

When Dr Mahathir decided to move Malaysia away from a commodity-based economy to a heavy-industry based economy, so that Malaysia can become a fully developed nation by 2020, he overlooked one very crucial point. And that crucial point is that Malaysia does not have expertise in research and development that the other industrialised countries possess. So it was an impossible dream if all Malaysia can become is what we would call a bolt-and-nut operation. 

Dr Mahathir had depended on the profits from the petroleum industry to finance the plans for 2020. But then in 1986 the oil price plunged by two-thirds in just a few months and this dashed Malaysia’s hopes. It also triggered the stock market collapse, which hit Malaysia as well, and Malaysia had to cancel many projects or scale them down because the country no longer had the money. Dr Mahathir did not take that possibility into calculation and a decade later in 1997 it happened yet again.

 So Wawasan 2020 was no longer possible. It was a plan mooted under an ideal situation but 1986 and 1997 proved that there is no such thing as an ideal situation. Dr Mahathir’s Wawasan 2020 is no longer possible. So he wants to find someone to blame rather than accept the fact that he was wrong and the plan was not really workable. His statement, “No one doubted that its announced intention to become a developed country by 2020 would be achieved,” is merely an attempt to avoid taking responsibility for its failure and to shift the failure to someone else. 

As for the rest of what Dr Mahathir said today it is just a repetition of what he has said so many times and cannot seem to stop saying. It is futile to reply to something that sounds like a broken record"

Link here

Ok. my response is this :

His arguments are full of holes, more than those Swiss cheese.

Ok, let's go thru them shall we?

1. Salleh Keruak (SK) says that Dr Mahathir had depended on the profits from the petroleum industry to finance the plans for 2020. But then in 1986 the oil price plunged by two-thirds in just a few months and this dashed Malaysia’s hopes. 

Hello. Wawasan 2020 was mooted in 1991, a good 5 years after the 1986 oil crisis. Please get your facts right. For fuck sake, you were the Chief Minister of Sabah in 1994, appointed by Tun M no less. Surely you were aware of Wawasan 2020!

2. SK says "Dr Mahathir quarrelled with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and launched his ‘Buy British Last’ campaign, plus he quarrelled with US President Bill Clinton, resulting in the Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating calling Dr Mahathir a recalcitrant. Most Malaysians were embarrassed by those events. 

Really? Not that we remembered. Most Malaysians were NOT embarrassed, but rather proud. That include opposition leaders. Even Nik Aziz blasted Paul Keating as reported by Associated Press (AP) " ''What do you expect from a leader whose forefathers were ex-convicts and social discards?''.   link here

3. SK says that "Malaysia does not have expertise in research and development that the other industrialised countries possess. So it was an impossible dream if all Malaysia can become is what we would call a bolt-and-nut operation"

Again, that's not true. Remember Multimedia super corridor? Cyberjaya? Technology Park? MiMos? MiGHT?  Hicom? All these are initiatives and instruments to push Malaysia towards industrialization. Granted, some of the policies do not go according to plan, but you can’t blame Tun Mahathir for not trying. In fact, GDP grew the fastest during the administration of Tun M. Not even Dear Leader Najib can match those figures.  GDP has grown at an average rate of more than 7 percent per year during his 22-year tenure. The achievement is more awesome considering that it was achieved along with reduced inflation, unemployment, and poverty. Our per capita income also grew the fastest during his time.

In any case, Vision 2020 never mention anything about certain GDP per-capita target. That's Najib's unilateral wet dreams. Vision 2020 is all about becoming a 'developed nation", not a high-income nation.

Hello Salleh. Do read again about Vision 2020. In case you forget, read below what Tun M said when he announced it during a event with Malaysian Business Council in February 1991. [ link here ]

3. What, you might rightly ask, is `a fully developed country`? Do we want to be like any particular country of the present 19 countries that are generally regarded as `developed countries`? Do we want to be like the United Kingdom, like Canada, like Holland, like Sweden, like Finland, like Japan? To be sure, each of the 19, out of a world community of more than 160 states, has its strengths. But each also has its fair share of weaknesses. Without being a duplicate of any of them we can still be developed. We should be a developed country in our own mould.

4. Malaysia should not be developed only in the economic sense. It must be a nation that is fully developed along all the dimensions: economically, politically, socially, spiritually, psychologically and culturally. We must be fully developed in terms of national unity and social cohesion, in terms of our economy, in terms of social justice, political stability, system of government, quality of life, social and spiritual values, national pride and confidence.

5. By the year 2020, Malaysia can be a united nation, with a confident Malaysian society, infused by strong moral and ethical values, living in a society that is democratic, lib- eral and tolerant, caring, economically just and equitable, progressive and prosperous, and in full possession of an economy that is competitive, dynamic, robust and resilient.

Ada paham sekalang?

But this unschooled Salleh Keruak is correct, we will never be a developed nation. This is because of this guy, who is your boss. the guy that you been defending. the guy who you are in love with. Unconditionally. Without thinking, obviously. 

Even high-income status is slipping away. We need at least 6% GDP per annum, but we are not achieving that. In 2015, the figure was 5%. For 2016 and 2017, the govt expects the growth rates to be between 4-4.5%. 

Not only that, given that high-income target is in US Dollar, we are not doing too well on that front too. Past one year, our currency is off by about 20% versus the US Dollar, which practically means we can forget that target. In any case, high income status means nothing. Qatar is richer on a per capita basis that any US, Korea, Japan, France, and even Singapore, but you dont call Qatar a developed nation do you?

So Salleh Keruak, please get real.