By Stephanie Jacob
Tiger was peeved with the nonchalant response the Fitch revision brought about, because regardless of whether the agency jumped the gun, Tiger felt the government ignored the message being highlighted. Yes Malaysia’s fundamentals are strong, but why wait till there are serious problems to act? Tiger was therefore surprised that the government appears to be stirring out of its election induced slumber to finally take some action.
Tiger is one for action; when she is hungry she goes hunting for mousedeer and when someone infringes on her particular swath of jungle… let us just say they would be in for a snappy welcome.
Therefore, Tiger found herself surprised (too early to decide if pleasantly or not) that the government appears to be taking a leaf out of her book and making statements suggesting it is finally ready to attack some of the serious issues facing the nation’s economy.
Now before the rest of you roll your eyes at Tiger’s optimism and call this cat naive for getting excited over what till now has been mere rhetoric, allow Tiger to assure you that she plans to closely monitor whether or not words actually turn into action.
Of particular interest to Tiger, is the big fiscal policy committee meeting that is scheduled to take place today.
Word is that all the big political and finance cats are going to be trotting up; the Prime Minister and Bank Negara governor are said to be making appearances and one assumes all senior members of the finance ministry pack will be there too.
Judging from those scraps of human newspaper reports that come floating by (unfortunately Tiger is yet to receive an invitation to a big pow-wow on protecting the Malaysian jungle from crap), Tiger has read that among the things to be discussed at this meeting are the long delayed introduction of a goods and services tax (GST), subsidy rationalisation and reorganisation or resequencing of mega projects.
Tiger will not get into an argument of the nitty gritty, as what she is roaring about today is the government’s commitment and willingness to address the issues surrounding the economy.
When the Fitch rating agency first revised Malaysia’s outlook to ‘negative’ from ‘stable’, Tiger called for the government to stop pussyfooting and take concrete action to address the concerns behind the revision.
For a while last week the Finance Ministry’s secretary-general, Irwan Serigar Abdullah showed signs of falling back into bad habits when he said one of the reasons the Fitch analysts revised Malaysia’s outlook was that they were “young guys”, seemingly either missing or ignoring the fact that Moody’s and S&P have raised similar concerns despite not making revisions.
Yet his stand, along with that of Pemandu CEO and Minister in the Prime Minister’s department Idris Jala that the government was committed to preventing an actual downgrade and addressing some of the matters raised by the rating agencies was more heartening.
Awakening really does seem to be in vogue this political season… and hopefully the government is ready to get up from the slumber it has seemingly been in since the general election in early May.
Tiger was especially pleased to note that the government will be looking at some of the mega projects that it has on the cards to resequence what should go ahead and what should be pushed to the back burner during this period of global economic uncertainty.
Idris Jala
While both Irwan and Jala took pains to emphasise that nothing will be cancelled, the fact that there is an effort to focus and prioritise projects that come with high multiplier effects and low import content shows an awareness and sensitivity to the fact that Malaysia does not live in a vacuum and therefore is vulnerable to the ups and downs of a globalised world.
Both men have also said that the government is not only committed to meeting its target to reduce the fiscal deficit both for this year and the long term goal of turning a surplus budget by 2020, but is on track to do so as well.
Irwan added the caveat however, that this all depended on things progressing as expected and barring any massive economic upheaval.
To that, Tiger says that she has a fondness for a human adage that goes ‘prevention is better than cure’, and would like to propose that the Malaysian government keeps that in mind at their meeting today.
In fact Tiger is in general quite a fan of these nifty little saying and thinks they should also remember that a ‘stitch in time, saves nine’ and that those who ‘waste not, want not’, in factoring the importance of prudence and efficiency into their plans.
Come tomorrow onwards, Tiger will be prowling the websites and news portals to see the outcome and whether the government will actually act upon the statements it has made. Tiger hopes that for once they borrow some of her traits, and are bold and brave in taking the necessary steps to ensure that the economy weathers the current economic storm which looks set to last into September and possibly the rest of the year.
And in taking the necessary measures, hopefully then emerges ready to roar should things pick up next year as anticipated.
GRRRRR!
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