Pakatan Harapan government 2018 : How they stack up?/ The weaknesses of th ePH govt

The Malaysian government is now run by Pakatan Harapan, a coalition of parties that include Parti Bersatu, Amanah, Dap, Warisan and PKR. Malaysia nowadays has moved to a new two-party system pretty much like that in the United States with its Democratic and Republican parties. Previously,  the country was run for more than 50 years by a coalition headed by UMNO together with MCA, MIC, PBB and a host of other small parties from Sabah and Sarawak, states in the Malaysian part of Borneo. The new govt of Pakatan Harapan or popularly known as PH  has run the country for more more than 6 months already and they have done a number of things but mainly going after corrupt politicians mainly from UMNO namely people such as the ex-PM Najib Razak, and Tengku Adnan who was was secretary of the BN coalition. In general, I'm quite satisfied with the prosecution of the corrupt players but there are a number of things that have been done by the present government that are not to my likings. As such,  I would list and elaborate briefly the weaknesses and the flaws that have been done by the new government headed by the octogenarian  Mahathir Mohamad.

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One of the weaknesses that is being committed by the present government is the implementation of the ineffective SST tax regime. Previously the tax system was running using the broad-based tax system known as the GST, a tax system that is widely used by most countries. The system was so effective in collecting revenues for the government but the new govt by PH  decided to do away with the system and replaced with an old ineffective tax collection system. As such,  the revenue collected by the present government is now very much less as compared by the previous govt. This year they were only able to collect only slightly more than 20 billion ringgit whereas in the previous year more than 40 billion ringgit were able to be collected. As such,  a lot of good programmes that were implemented by the previous regime were not able to be implemented or continued by the present government because of the shortage of income. A lot of these programmes are actually helping the poor people or the B40 groups, especially those in rural areas. Because of the lack each of money, a lot of these programmes have been stopped or temporarily suspended and these really have impacted the poor deserving people. I really hope the present government would revert to the more effective GST system and would be able to collect more revenue to implement programmes to help the people. But I doubt the present government would be able to do it. I would definitely vote for a government that implements a good and effective tax collection system in the coming BE 15. If the PH continues with the tax system, a lot of good existing programmes that are helpful to the people be stopped.

Another weakness of the government is appointing ministers who lack the experience in running the country. Most of the newly appointed ministers are young, idealistic, and still in the opposition mode. These people who have been appointed to hold such important jobs have no substantial experience in running the government. Most of these ministers are young naive and really inexperienced to run a piece of bureaucratic and complex government machinery. They have come up with a number of trivial policy statements that have impacted the country as a whole. Some of them would just come up with untested policies that could only be churned by undergraduates instead of ministers. One good example is the Minister of telecommunications, a DAP member of parliament from Jelutong. He would come up with a strong clarion call of asking Telekom Malaysia to bring down the prices of unifi or broadband fees like what the opposition would.  These blunt and unnecessary orders have resulted in selling pressures on the company stocks and have resulted in the company losing billions of dollars and the high value of the stocks have been wiped out. Yes, the intention to bring down the price of the internet is good but the fact that the call has been made public and made a number of times have resulted in selling pressures. The minister could have done this rather quietly and in a professional manner than trying to be like a Robin hood and trying to show that he is doing everything to help the people. His blatant ignorance and his lack of experienced have made this GLCs losing billions of dollars.

The same applies to this person called LGE. His negative statement unsubstantiated allegations have brought down shares of blue-chip companies in Malaysia. Every time he opens his wide mouth, the KLSE shares would come down. He seems to have forgotten that he is now running the government. His mode is still in the opposition mode and which does not gel in with the system of running a government. I really hope that the Mahathir government would bring more experienced people running the ministry instead of getting the novices who just do not know how to run a govt. The people are running the govt machine using the opposition mode which does not gel nicely with that of running a govt.

The third weakness of the government is to continue harping on the weaknesses of the previous regime headed by Najib Razak. All statements nowadays by the ministers of PH govt centered on the wrongs that have been done by the previous regime. If these things are done briefly to show how the previous UMNO govt has been doing is not necessarily that bad but doing this incessantly after than half a year really reflects badly on the represent govt. It shows that the present government has no plans at all. They have no strategic plans for the country. They don't know what are the things that the country needs to delve into. The PH govt now is really in disarray without any meaningful plans, The present government is only good at talking bad about the previous govt with having good plans of their own. I really hope this blame game will stop and the PH govt would lead the way in coming up with good effective plans for the country.

A promise is a promise and a  number of promises pledges made by the PH govt government have not been implemented. This is another main weakness of the PH govt. The PH govt made a lot of pledges like abolishing the tolls, paying for the PPTN loans, reducing the price of petrol and a number of other things. But most of these pledges are not kept by the Mahathir government. If they continue ignoring these pledges and not helping the people I believe they will have a hard time in convincing millions of people in the next GE 15. It's not impossible that the PH govt will be defeated like Umno in GE 14. And it is not impossible for UMNO to make a come back again to run the country in 5 years time as what LDP in Japan has done. It all depends on the remedial actions to be taken by the PH government. Personally, I don't have faith that the present govt will fulfill their pledges. All these pledges are really empty pledges for the purpose of winning the votes. The people soon will get tired soon and it is not impossible that they will throw out the govt as they did of BN.

Will continue...