Pakatan: Limp reforms fuelling brain drain
By Shazwan Mustafa Kamal April 29, 2011
KUALA LUMPUR, April 29 — The government’s failure to see through announced reforms were partly to blame for the country’s chronic brain-drain problem, Pakatan Rakyat (PR) lawmakers claimed today
Opposition leaders today said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s inability to deliver on promises of equality and a “needs-based” economic model, coupled with his “conceding” to ultra-Malay voices within his own party will only result in Malaysia being mired in the middle-income trap.
“Najib is not addressing the critical issues affecting talent in leaving the country... His message of inclusiveness is lost in translation as existing policies are discriminatory against the non-Malays in the country. This has been verified by the proportion leaving the country,” DAP national publicity secretary Tony Pua said today.
According to a World Bank report yesterday, more than one million Malaysians currently live abroad. The report stated that policies favouring the majority Malays were contributing to the country’s brain-drain while holding back its economy and limiting foreign investment.
Today, Pua said Najib’s “U-turn” over his heavily-publicised New Economic Model (NEM) has left little room in the country’s competition for talent.
“The fact is these policies do not encourage competition and a poor economy will deter prospective talents from staying. He has failed in an attempt from moving from a race-based culture to a needs-based,” Pua told The Malaysian Insider.
In a Bloomberg news service report, World Bank senior economist Philip Schellekens was also quoted as saying that foreign investment could be five times the current levels if the country had Singapore’s talent base.
“Migration is very much an ethnic phenomenon in Malaysia, mostly Chinese but also Indian,” Schellekens told Bloomberg in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday.
Governance issues and lack of meritocracy are “fundamental constraints” to Malaysia’s expansion because “competition is what drives innovation,” he said.
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4 comments:
there is no hope for those searching for a job here.. i would go overseas for work but i'd come back to vote BN out!
I almost rolled of my chair when I heard Najib refute World Bank report. I had flashes of him making the rebuttal in some village wearing a sarong.
We officially have a Jaguh Kampung as PM. Now I get what Glocal means..
GTO report actually said 'unintended consequence of NEP???'.. Razak himself said 'good riddance'..How is that unintended..??? How dishonest and dysfunctional is this discussion even?
Najib, in refuting the world Bank report,said the NEP is not the contributing factor to the decline of FDI but rrather the brain drain.
And he go on to emphasize that Malaysia FDI has increased from RM19bil in 2009 to RM90bil in 2010.
The questions that come to mind are:
1)what is major reason that causes this brain drain? It is not the NEP
2)of this 90bil FDI,how much portion are high-tech industries that can impart knowledge and skill transfer? Who knows of these FDI,many of them are just relocation of factories or some industries that other countries rejected due to certain dnagers(like the Lynas rare earth processing plant in Kuantan-what technology transfer that it can impart to our people,other than endangering the life of people and the future generation)?
Another point that Najib misses(or rather purposely avoiding)is that the World Bank report stated,if there is no these brain drain due to the affirmative actions,Malaysia FDI could be 5 times more.Which means the 2010 FDI figure could be RM450bil(5x90).But Najib tries to turn course by quoting the comparative figures between 2009 n 2010.
This is like an OSTRICH!
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