On 'Najibnomics'

Late last year the government announced that it would be unveiling a 'new economic model' for Malaysia in February 2010.  The first week of February has just passed and the model, if indeed it is imminent, is yet to be made public. We can only guess as to what are in the minds of the PM and his advisers, but one thing is sure, that it is certainly going to be 'creative' and 'innovative'.  For these two words have always characterised the initiatives of the new PM.
1.  The recent unveiling of the 'Government Transformation Programme' (GTP) provides a peep into the model.
2.  So was the declared objective, made during the Budget speech, that the government was preparing Malaysia to enter the league of rich nations.
3.  During one briefing on the GTP, adviser Idris Jalla claimed that the said programme is set to save the country billions of ringgit.
4.  In the mean time, the government sets on some restructuring programmes through several fiscal and monetary measures.
5.  It relaxed the ceiling income tax to 26% from the previous 27% for the richest, and down to a staggering 15% for 'knowledge workers' in the Iskandar region. (I have approached a LHDN officer last December for a clarification on this, but was told they themselves haven't had a clue yet, as of that date.)
6.  Then there were a series of moves, ranging  from nullifying the practice of giving the annual bonus to government servants across the board, cancelling funds for programmes in many government institutions, rewarding 'high performance' institutions and individuals, to raising the salary of policemen.

7.  The government furthermore withdrew its subsidisation of the sugar price and announced probable increases in the prices of petrol and in highway toll rates come May 2010. 

8.  Through the savings and the new income-generating moves, the government would be able to secure sizeable funds to move forward with its objectives.

9.  The strategy seems to depict a certain trend in new government spending:  government plans to build new alliances and allegiances.
10.  Some sectors will be robbed of their traditional dues to pay others favoured by the government.
11.  No matter whether the robbed is an important institution of the nation and the beneficiary is just one individual.
12.  The government seems determined to support certain sectors in order to differentiate them from the rest, and support others whose immediate support is so deemed critical to the government.
13.  The result will be that some institutions and individuals will stand taller than the rest.
14. Others will have to make great sacrifices, or force others under their command to sacrifice so that they themselves can catch up with the big brothers.
15.  Small dictators will be born in all corners of the nation.
16.  Apart from the established  20 high performance schools, other schools will have to go through 'creative and innovative' schemes to redeem their lost reputations now that they are denied funds given to the former.
17.  That all of the moves seem to run counter to the spirit of 1Malaysia, which the government has been so keen to be identified with, seems not to bother them.
18.  For there is the grand new agenda in the name of Najibnomics.
19.  Najibnomics seems to snub all of the conventional approaches to nation building.
20.  Najibnomics seeks to destroy bridges between units of the society, sets new barriers between them, and seeks to divide the people so that the task of conquering them will become so much easier.
21.  Najibnomics is truly creative and innovative!