ARE POLITICIANS REALLY CONCERNED ABOUT THE RAKYAT?

That is all Malaysians are good for, talking. And when the government introduces schemes such as BR1M we shout and scream and call it bribery. Go ask those prison guards who are earning RM800 a month whether they consider this bribery or a Godsend to help them make ends meet, however small it may be.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Economist speaks up for low-paid civil servants

(Free Malaysia Today) – A prominent economist has spoken up for the thousands of civil servants living below the poverty line, urging the government to raise their salaries in the name of humanity and in the interest of productivity at the work place.

“As a former senior civil servant and an ordinary citizen, I am saddened to learn that 800,000 of our approximately 1.4 million civil servants earn salaries that are now under the national poverty line of RM880 per month,” said Ramon Navaratnam in a letter to the press.

He called for an across-the-board pay raise for these workers to at least RM1,200 a month.

Navaratnam, who is the Chairman of the ASLI Centre for Public Policy Studies, said he was moved by a recent statement from Cuepacs that the government had not reviewed civil service wages for 13 years.

He noted that the Cuepacs statement came at about the same time that members of Parliament unanimously voted to pay themselves higher salaries “although many of them have shown good performance only in politicking and mud slinging, while they also earn from other sources and get away with it.”

He wondered how the lowly-paid civil servants were making ends meet.

“How can we expect much from them for this poor treatment? Over the years, the plight of the low-income civil servants has deteriorated with rising inflation and the higher costs of urban living.”

READ MORE HERE

That was what Free Malaysia Today reported today, a matter that Ramon Navaratnam raised and which I have been talking about for some time.

I was once called a racist for whacking the Chinese-dominated SMI association that opposed the implementation of the minimum wage. They argued that this would increase production costs and would make Malaysia’s manufacturing uncompetitive.

That is the same argument the south used in opposing the banning of slavery in America — it would make their cotton production uncompetitive. Hence they need slave labour to make money. Malaysians, however, do not see low wages as another form of slavery. The workers may be receiving a salary but they are certainly enslaved in poverty.

When I was detained in Kamunting, I spent a lot of time speaking to the prison guards and found out that all were facing financial difficulties. Their starting pay is less than RM800 and they would need to wait till they retire before they could earn close to RM2,000. That would be 30 years or more down the road.

In the meanwhile, they have a wife and children to support and a house to pay. The house expenses alone comes to half their salary so they have very little money left to pay for the essentials. Most of them need to do a second job such as tapping rubber or collecting oil palms to make ends meet.

So they work all day long at two jobs and crawl home to catch a few hours of sleep before they need to report for their shift the following morning. In spite of that I found that there was no corruption in Kamunting — at least I did not have to participate in any (I don’t know about the other detainees).

They would offer me a cigarette (instead of charging me RM5 for the cigarette) and some even buy two packets of nasi goreng so that they can offer one to me. I politely decline the offer but they insist so I accept to avoid offending them.

It is not that I was worried the nasi goreng was poisoned but I felt bad about taking something from someone who was earning less than RM800 a month. And I was eaves-dropping on their conversation and knew that they were struggling to make ends meet and had to tap rubber or collect oil palm in the rain (and it rains practically every day in Kamunting and Taiping).

On the one hand we have people, in particular politicians, opposing BR1M. On the other hand no one cares about the so many Malaysians who need to survive below the poverty line. And these people scream and shout that they berjuang untuk rakyat.

What a load of bullshit.

Malaysians come in droves to the UK for the summer holidays and for Christmas (even PAS people). I cannot go anywhere in the UK without bumping into Malaysians. Sometimes I meet large groups or families of six or seven.

Their hotel room for one night in London costs more than a month’s salary for the average Malaysian worker. And these Malaysians book two or three rooms and stay a week or more, the cost which comes to more than a year’s salary for those earning RM800 a month.

And these are the people who whack BR1M and call is bribery. Even Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad calls it bribery.

I urge those rich Malaysians to have some compassion for the less fortunate. Go spend a few months in jail and see how the prison guards suffer. Then you will understand what it is like to earn less than RM1,000 a month.

And what upsets me is those Chinese who whack what they call ‘corrupted Malay civil servants’. But when you have seven mouths to feed and a house that needs paying how can you not be corrupted when you take home only RM800 or RM1,000 a month?

Even then, as I said, the Kamunting guards are clean as far as my experience is concerned. They offer me food and cigarettes without asking for any money in return when they could have easily charged me RM10 for the nasi goreng and RM5 for the cigarette.

And they are not supposed to do that because if they were caught they would be in deep shit. But they do it anyway because they felt sorry for me although we do not feel sorry for them.

Back in 1999 I wrote that we need to have a minimum wage and that the minimum wage should be at least RM1,200 a month. Fifteen years on and Ramon Navaratnam is still talking about the same thing.

That is all Malaysians are good for, talking. And when the government introduces schemes such as BR1M we shout and scream and call it bribery. Go ask those prison guards who are earning RM800 a month whether they consider this bribery or a Godsend to help them make ends meet, however small it may be.

Yang banyak duit bolehlah cakap. Tanyalah orang yang menderita!

It boils my blood when those with money oppose programs aimed at helping those who do not have money without offering solutions or supporting the call to increase the minimum wage for those struggling to make ends meet.

A bunch of fooking hypocrites!