Khairy: Only the needy should enjoy subsidies
Andrew Ong
Nov 8, 07 4:08pm
source
Umno Youth has urged the government to revamp how it subsidises various areas of the economy in order to ensure that only the needy and deserving receive such privileges.

The Youth wing’s deputy chief Khairy Jamaluddin said that at present every Malaysian enjoys government subsidies in areas such as electricity, water, fuel and essential food items.

In all, the government had to foot RM35 billion, or 25 percent of government income, lamented Khairy during the debate on economy and education at the Umno assembly today.

He said the present situation would cause wastages as subsidies have made certain commodities too cheap.

“Imagine: A pakcik on a motorbike pays RM1.92 for a litre of petrol. A towkay in a Mercedes-Benz pays the same price. Why? Why must we subsidise those who are already rich?” asked Khairy.

He said continuing government subsidy efforts would be a burden on the country’s finance in the long run and ways must be found for equitable distribution of subsidies.

Give warning before removing subsidies

But Khairy urged the government to give prior warning before removing subsidies so that the masses can prepare themselves.

“Please give a little bit of notice. Don’t wait until the 11th hour to make an announcement,” he said.

On education, Khairy said Umno Youth suggested that the government improves the standard of English classes in schools instead of using the language as a medium of instruction for science and maths.

Khairy said the objectives of teaching science and maths in English were noble but it had not achieved the desired results.

“It was supposed to improve the command of English. It was supposed to improve the performance of students in maths and English. Instead, their performance worsen,” said Khairy.

On Oct 30, Education Minister Hishammuddin Hussein announced that the government would not force students sitting for public examinations to only use English in science and math.

The controversial move was first mooted by former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad in 2002.

Be part of supply chain

On Malay entrepreneurs, Khairy said the Malays lack control of the supply chain and this explains their poor standing in various industries.

“Today is the first time the Umno president’s speech is not being read by the masses because a particular ethnic group controls the distribution line of newspapers and they are on holiday,” he said.

Khairy was referring to ‘no publication’ day of almost all the major newspapers in Peninsular Malaysia as it was the Deepavali holiday.

Umno president Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had yesterday delivered his annual presidential address yesterday but it was only carried in Utusan Malaysia, Kosmo and Oriental Daily today.

He was using this as an example of how the Malays are often at the bottom of the supply chain.

“If you look at the distribution network, all is control by a certain race. We have always allow this distribution network to be controlled by one race. Only today, we know the implication. This is because we did not control the distribution network.”

While he did not name the ethnic group which control the distribution network, it is an open secret that Indian Malaysians made up the majority of the newspaper vendors.