THE year is not even over yet, and we still have a good two months to go, but a list detailing national public holidays and how Malaysians can go for vacations on long weekends with just nine days of leave, has already been circulating.

It’s as if Malaysians can’t wait for more off days for 2020, to make use of the provision to start planning their getaways.

Malaysians will be able to enjoy 12 long weekends next year. The extended holiday is the result of having a public holiday fall on either Friday or Monday.

We are not even talking about the 13 days of gazetted national public holidays and the extra holidays declared by the states.

Oh, what a blessed country Malaysia is, indeed, and how some whine and grumble about ethnicity, whether at congress or at the office, yet love the holidays to celebrate the festivals of every ethnic group.

Even the fanatically loud racists, who conveniently forget their origins, rejoice in these celebrations.

If that’s not enough, some of us even “celebrate” silently when a VVIP dies because it means another off day!

Then, there are state government leaders who simply declare public holidays when their state football team wins silverware. And it’s not even the AFF Suzuki Cup.

But the most incredulous and outrageous public holiday was the one Kelantan declared to boost attendance at the protest against the implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Icerd) in the federal capital last December.

We have heard of cuti sakit (medical leave), cuti kahwin (marriage leave), cuti bersalin (maternity leave), and so for the first time, we had cuti protes (leave to protest).

Last week, Malaysian women workers were told that they will have longer maternity leave. They will automatically be entitled to 90 days of leave each time they have a baby.

Among the incentives announced by Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng when tabling the 2020 Budget was a review of the Employment Act 1955 to increase maternity leave from 60 days to 90 days effective 2021.

Deputy Women, Family and Community Development Minister Hannah Yeoh said it was a very basic leave that women were asking for and when babies are with their mothers for the first three months, there would be less incidences of babies choking on milk.

Previously, Human Resources Minister M. Kulasegaran had said: “Maternity leave is essential for a new mother as after birth, she needs to take good care of herself to rebuild her strength and will need plenty of rest, good nutrition and help. Both maternity leave and paternity leave are part of workers’ welfare, family well-being and the well-being of the community.”

Yeoh said it was a myth that women abused their maternity leave by spending it on holiday. She said that maternity leave for mothers was to ensure both babies and mothers spend time together and so that babies are breastfed.

“Maternity leave is not for holiday or fun, it is really for exclusive breastfeeding. Doctors always encourage mothers to breastfeed their babies for six months, ” she told reporters last week.

Not many Malaysians, especially employers, are willing to openly express their discontent on the maternity extension.

It’s simply politically incorrect, and anyone saying it affects productivity would earn the wrath of workers groups.

But privately, many employers are already complaining that Malaysians have too many public holidays, where they must shoulder the absence of their employees while productivity takes a hit.

The fact remains that when mothers go on maternity leave, someone has to pick up the slack, and most often, at no extra pay or incentive.

Just ask the teachers, especially the single ones who are forced to handle these tasks, and the resentment is palpable. It doesn’t help that there are those who seem to be more (re)productive in delivering babies than others.

With so many breaks, maternity or gazetted holidays, it has caused critical work needing to be delayed or postponed.

Clients overseas have always queried why Malaysia has to be among the countries with the most public holidays, and cynically questioned if we work at all.

In fact, we are the South East Asian nation with the most public holidays, if we account for state holidays as well. We have won it by default because no other Asean country has states, though some have provinces.

And of course, every state – except Penang, Melaka, Sabah and Sarawak – has a Ruler, meaning scripted public holidays marking their official birthdays.

This year alone, there have been 15 national public holidays – with four resulting in extended weekend breaks. Plus, the 30 state-level holidays and two-day weekends.

That belt of 10 weeks had six public holidays – starting with the Yang di-Pertuan Agong’s installation on July 30, right through to Malaysia Day on Sept 16.

In many cases, where work operations continue, even during public holidays, employers have had to pay their staff three to four times more than the daily wage rate when they have worked on public holidays.

With stiff competition from the emerging industrial economies in the region, our manufacturers have no choice but to keep their plants operating on public holidays even at the cost of sacrificing their profit margin in paying the overtime wage rates.

China, which is known as the factory of the world for producing almost everything, has only seven declared holidays.

Malaysia is already a high-cost country for basic manufacturing because we are short of labour. It can’t be denied that the frequent public holidays make it more difficult for the country to compete in low-cost production.

It might come as a surprise to most Malaysians, but the United States is one of few countries with 10 days of public holidays, while Germany only has nine.

As unpopular a decision as it may seem, it’s time the government recalibrates the system and takes the bold step to do away with minor public holidays.

It’s unacceptable to declare a public holiday for winning the Malaysia Cup or to attend a protest. It should be made illegal.

Just read up on countries with many public holidays, and you will find a European country which had to be bailed out by international financial institutions.

What’s next? Be a populist government and promise longer paternity leave because as fathers, we also need to build that special bond with our child from day one, which is only possible if we spend more time at home with the toddlers?

THE arrest of two DAP lawmakers – including a state executive councillor – for their suspected links to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) militant group is certainly one of the most explosive stories of the week.

This isn’t the first time that DAP leaders have found themselves accused of supporting the Sri Lankan terrorist group, since even Penang Deputy Chief Minister Dr P. Ramasamy and Human Resources Minister M. Kulasegaran have been entangled in that same web.

Old pictures, purportedly showing them with flags and paraphernalia from the LTTE, have been circulating on social media for a while, but recently received a new lease of life.

Both Dr Ramasamy and Kulasegaran have one thing in common – they have both spoken out against controversial Indian preacher Dr Zakir Naik. They have continuously lobbied for his deportation and the revoking of his permanent residence status. Many believe that their incessant calls have angered some individuals and groups linked to religious units, who have stepped up their campaign against the two.

But while this has been nothing more than political rhetoric, details provided by Bukit Aman’s counterterrorism division chief Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchai on Thursday have taken a new complexion.

The two DAP leaders – Melaka exco member G. Saminathan and Seremban Jaya assemblyman P. Gunasekaran – are among seven people arrested under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act, which comes with 28 days of detention. The possible arrest of Dr Ramasamy, a former Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia political science lecturer, has also cropped up.

Obviously, Saminathan and Gunasekaran have been under surveillance for a while, because the police said they were arrested for giving speeches during an LTTE Heroes Day event in Melaka on Nov 28 last year. They were also allegedly involved in activities promoting the movement, where they were said to have distributed fliers at the events.

Ayob also said that two of the seven detainees had been charged with assaulting the Sri Lankan ambassador at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in September 2016. He said police also arrested a 28-year-old insurance agent in Kuala Lumpur, who is believed to have planned an attack on the Sri Lanka High Commission in the city.

However, Ayob noted that race and religion did not factor in the arrest of the seven, adding that the force’s stance is consistent on all terror groups: “There is no issue of favouritism based on race and religion because for us, anyone who is a threat to national security will be arrested, ” he told The Malaysian Insight.

He said investigation papers would list all the evidence, to be submitted to the Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC).

Inspector-General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador, meanwhile, said there was ample evidence against the suspects.

As a follow-up, the police will now have to provide evidence of their alleged involvement in terrorism activities – even if the LTTE is now defunct – and it remains to be seen if the AGC will quickly charge them in open court.

These are serious accusations, so surely this group of seven would want to defend themselves, while the public will be expecting the police to charge them since their actions are detrimental to the nation. However, there is also a sense of disbelief, and even cynicism, that this is a mere political game to appease powerful religious and racial forces.

After all, Tamil Tigers chief Velupillai Prabhakaran has been dead for a decade now. He was cornered and killed with 18 of his most loyal bodyguards by the Sri Lankan military, it was reported. More than 10,000 former LTTE fighters, many of whom were forcibly conscripted by the rebels, have been rehabilitated since the war ended on May 18,2009, with only 300 still in detention, revealed Sri Lankan government figures.

Ayob must have anticipated such a reaction because he conceded that the police had also acted strongly against those who supported the Islamic State movement, adding that the police are professionals adhering to the letter of the law.

It’s unclear if the two are linked to the other arrested individuals because the latter party seems more radical in their actions and plans.

The arrest of Malaysian politicians, with their alleged involvement with LTTE, is, without doubt, the first of its kind in Malaysia.

But it comes as no surprise that the Malaysian anti-terrorism division has been vigilant against any attempts by Malaysians to revive support for LTTE, since India’s Home Ministry has also just renewed its ban on the group.

Recent news reports indicate that a representative of the Trans-national Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) met select media personnel in Chennai to announce a “tree sapling planting programme” to mark the “Mullivaikkal genocide” on May 18 – the final phase of the civil war in Sri Lanka, in which the LTTE was annihilated.

According to an economictimes.com report on May 15 this year, the TGTE “member of Parliament” quietly left India.

“Formed after the defeat of LTTE, the TGTE is a government-in-exile with Visvanathan Rudrakumaran as ‘Prime Minister’. Internationally, the ex-LTTE members have organised themselves in two or three factions, including the TGTE, ” it said, adding that the five-year ban was aimed at stopping fringe groups from raising the “Eelam” banner or reviving the slogan of an independent Tamil nation.

The report also quoted security experts in Sri Lanka saying they were wary of a revival of the LTTE.

“We have information that they are re-organising in Canada and Europe, ” said renowned international terrorism expert Professor Rohan Gunaratna.

“As long as attempts are being made to propagate LTTE ideology, India should continue to extend the ban.”

The news report said that although a ban has been in place for close to three decades, Tamil nationalist groups and individuals have been flaunting their affinity with LTTE with impunity, including “hailing Prabhakaran publicly and putting up photos and posters”.

So, the Indian government hasn’t been able to stamp out support for LTTE completely in India, and no politician would want to antagonise the Tamil voters.

Perhaps there isn’t much difference for Malaysian Indian politicians to tamper with Tamil sentiments, the affinity for LTTE, or to win the minority but still crucial Indian votes as part of their game plan. Race and religion remain toxic subjects, regardless of their form or variation. Adding fuel to the fire, it’s worse that this foreign extremism is imported into Malaysia, only to find life in our already complicated politics.

SUCCESSION planning is a mandatory requirement in any private company, especially public-listed ones, where staff are generally distinguished by two categories – ready to take over and being groomed to take over.

It’s simply a process for identifying and developing new leaders who can replace the old guard when they leave, retire or die.

There’s nothing insensitive or unusual about this practice because it helps increase the number of experienced and capable employees ready to assume these roles as they become available.

It also helps motivate leaders in a company, because they know they are being prepared to take over higher positions.

At any given place in the hierarchy, there are usually three names for every role, and not necessarily only for the chief executive officer post, but for those at C-suite level, too.

The term C-suite refers to the highest executive-level managers within a company, including the CEO, chief financial officer and chief operating officer. The term is derived from the use of the letter C in these positions.

Companies take this practice very seriously, with detailed scenarios deliberated, including a CEO retiring without warning, suddenly calling it quits, or God forbid, dealt the proverbial “getting hit by a bus” scenario – all of which can pull the rug from beneath the feet of succession planning.

But in the case of Malaysian politics, we don’t seem to handle it well. In fact, it borders on abysmal.

Little dialogue is conjured about the succession planning process for the Prime Minister’s position because it’s deemed politically incorrect and can come across as insensitive to many people.

Out of respect, the bulk of us choose to adopt a muted approach, because Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is simply over-whelmingly popular. Never mind that he turns 95 next year.

Despite his age, he shames even those in their 30s and 40s with his sharp mind and ability, and it seems, by and large, Malaysians want him to stay longer, if not forever.

But the reality is that Dr Mahathir is a mere mortal. Yes, he’s almost a superman, with his superb health and mental frame at his age but if he remains in office until the next election, he would be 98 years old then.

That’s a little too far fetched for us to imagine, and in all honesty, deep down in our hearts, we are not sure if that’s feasible, or even healthy for Malaysia.

Apparently, his desk in Putrajaya is overflowing with files right now, and Malaysia today is a far cry from the nation he governed during his previous tenure as PM.

If we care for him more than ourselves, we should be able to tell that he deserves to be enjoying the twilight years of his life in a better way. He said that he slogs 18 hours a day, and is constantly working against the clock. That can’t possibly be good for him.

Right now, we have an odd situation where the Prime Minister is fielding questions every few months about his timeline for passing the baton to his successor. Last week, he said he “expects to remain as PM for some three years.”

“I promise that I will step down before the next election and give way to another candidate. So I may have, at the most, three years perhaps, ” he said at a dialogue held at the Council on Foreign Relations here on Thursday.

In June, Dr Mahathir was quoted as saying he would hand over the reins to PKR president Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim “within three years”.

The PM-in-waiting has been more precise, saying he should be in the hot seat by around May 2020, which is roughly seven months away.

When he was queried in a television interview on whether the transition would happen two years from Dr Mahathir assuming control, Anwar said, “there’s an understanding that it should be around that time, but I don’t think I should be too petty about the exact month.” Though he added, “But there is this understanding that he will resign at the appropriate time.”

To be fair to Dr Mahathir, he has been pretty consistent in his statements, unless one chooses to pick a bone with the meaning of every word and sentence he has uttered about the issue.

He has already named Anwar as his successor, mirrored in the single name which exists in the agreement that was signed by the heads of the Pakatan Harapan component parties.

There are no other names, and certainly, there is no deadline for Dr Mahathir to step down, either.

However, there are lingering doubts among cynical Malaysians, simply because politicians have a bad record of keeping their promises. They can’t even keep their election promises despite putting these pledges in black and white in their election manifesto.

Politicians are known to reverse decisions, earning mistrust in the process, and Dr Mahathir is no exception. It doesn’t help either that there is a history of acrimony between him and Anwar.

To complicate matters, Anwar has also gained a nemesis – from within his party – who wants Dr Mahathir to continue as PM forever, so that the wait will turn into nothing eventually.

It is no secret that Datuk Seri Azmin Ali, who has fallen out with his boss, would want the PM’s post, too. It’s natural for politicians to be ambitious.

And let’s not write off Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail. Because she is the Deputy Prime Minister, and if anything should happen to Dr Mahathir, God forbid, she is next in line to assume the post to ensure a smooth transition if the plotting turns complicated.

That raises another point. We have an unusual situation where the successor – Anwar – has no role, no post and no clout in the government. He has been reduced to delivering speeches at universities and events, and that’s about it. In our entrenched political patronage system, it has put Anwar in a fix.

So will Dr Mahathir hand the reigns over to Anwar by May? Not a chance. It wouldn’t be like Dr Mahathir to stay away from the limelight as the host of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Kuala Lumpur next November.

He would surely want to be on that stage, basking in the global limelight, standing in the middle and flanked by US President Donald Trump, Chinese premier Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

In all likelihood, Anwar will have to wait until 2021 for the succession to happen, and if we listen to Dr Mahathir, it could be 2022.

But if the waiting game stretches for too long, patience will wear thin, and consequently the rot of distrust and discontent will set in.

So while we know that Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat will be succeeding Lee Hsien Loong soon, the press will still be posing the same question to Dr Mahathir and Anwar over the next three years.

Big test: The latest by-election will be closely watched as it takes place in Tanjung Piai, which has been called a mixed constituency seat. — Bernama

An upcoming by-election could prove how far we have come from the divisive and degenerative politics of race and religion.

THE Tanjung Piai by-election will serve as a good platform for our politicians to stop, or at least, refrain, from using the race and religion cards simply because the Parliamentary constituency has almost equal representation of Malay and Chinese voters.

It has an electorate of over 53,000, of which 57% are Malays, 42% Chinese and 1% Indian. It’s hardly inaccurate to describe this seat as a racially mixed one.

The relentless recycling of toxic issues, a forte of some of our politicians, will only backfire if they cross the line.

An issue may be hugely appealing to one race but appalling, and even offensive, to another community. That’s the tale of plural Malaysia.

It was reassuring to hear Umno vice-president Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin expressing hope that the Tanjung Piai by-election will be about a healthy and moderate contest for a more democratic Malaysia.

Similarly, Johor Pakatan elections director Datuk Salahuddin Ayob has pledged that Pakatan Harapan will be moderate in its campaign, pointing out that with Tanjung Piai being a mixed constituency seat, “support from one community will not be enough.”

It’s good that these two leaders can sit at the same table and think of the greater good for a mixed-race electorate and Malaysia. Hopefully, leaders from PAS will also read the narrative.

Malaysians, and not just Tanjung Piai folk, will be glued to this by-election since this is the biggest test for both sides.

For Umno and PAS, this is the time to prove, beyond reasonable doubt and the lofty promises, that they truly embrace multi-culturalism and inclusiveness.

Their pact, while strategically sensible, is viewed as an alliance that campaigns only for the interests of the Malays and Islam.

That has spooked many Malaysians, and is certainly not going to help their cause in winning in the next general election, especially if they don’t stop their aggressive approach.

The right thing for Umno and PAS to do is to support a candidate from an Opposition party, in this case MCA, and prove that politics transcends race.

Not all the 222 Parliamentary constituencies are Malay-Muslim majority, and no party can form the next government without Sabah and Sarawak, which have 25 and 31 seats respectively. In Sarawak, from the 31 seats, 10 are Malay-Melanau majority, while 21 are non-Malays, and for Sabah, 11 of its 25 seats are in non-Muslim areas.

It’s not far-fetched to assume that PAS has near-zero appeal in these two states, and that the voters there have little patience for firebrand politicians who preach race and religion.

In the case of Umno, it won 88 Parliamentary seats nationally, with 14 in Sabah and one in Labuan. Of the 73 seats in the peninsula, about 30 are small constituencies in rural areas, reads a report.

The 40-plus other seats are mostly Malay-majority, with mixed ethnicity seats, which have a sizeable number of non-Malay voters within the constituency. It would be foolish for a politician to write off these non-Malays.

Statistics indicate that there are 83 mixed Parliamentary seats where Pakatan won in the 2018 general election. Pakatan apparently secured 88% of these racially mixed seats, while Barisan National only managed 10. PAS failed to win a single ethnically mixed Parliamentary seat.

Last week, the Selangor government-linked think tank Institut Darul Ehsan reported that support for PAS in Selangor has fallen to a mere 8% – almost half of the 15% vote it received in 2018. But, of course, the findings will be questioned with the think tank being state funded.

It claimed that PAS has three kinds of supporters – the hardcore, non-members who back the party’s ideals, and PAS voters who are neither members nor supporters but vote for the party based on personal reasons or are attracted to the party’s alternative offer.

Increasing the number of racially mixed Parliamentary seats will be the best way to sustain moderate politics.

It will end the use of race and religion because candidates will know it would be foolhardy on their part.

But it would be challenging, too, since the Malay-Muslim population has shot up while the Chinese and Indian electorate is shrinking. There are more foreigners than Indians in Malaysia, and that’s a fact. The result is there are absolutely no Indian-majority seats.

It would also be more difficult to carve out racially-mixed seats in east coast states like Kelantan, Terengganu and, to some extent, Pahang, as they are predominantly Malay.

So, Sabah and Sarawak must continue to be the bastion of moderate and multiracial politics, and these two states will likely be the ones to hold the fort.

However, there is a suggestion that Malaysia can have up to 140 mixed seats out of the 222, and it would be up to the Election Commission to draw up such boundaries to ensure there are no clear racial majorities.

The dynamics of politics will change, and politicians would have no choice but to campaign across ethnic lines. The appeal of communal politics will also be neutralised, and that can only be good in the long run.

After six decades of independence, we are heading down a slippery slope if our politicians continue to harp on race and religion.

Harking after a home: Officials have acknowledged that the lack of affordable housing is one of the issues that sparked the unrest in Hong Kong, which has been going on for months. — AFP

Owning a house is the standard ambition of any individual, however, getting there is increasingly becoming not only a local, but global struggle.

THERE’S a lesson to be learnt from the protests in Hong Kong – politics is about selling hope. So if the young people living in a depressing environment feel they have no future, then the alarm bells should ring loudly.

In the case of Hong Kong, the leaders – mostly technocrats and government officials – didn’t see it coming, or maybe they were just indifferent.

Many young people in Hong Kong feel they stand no chance of becoming a homeowner in their lifetime, and officials have acknowledged that the issue is one of the causes that sparked off the unrest.

The controversial Extradition Bill, which allows a Hong Kong resident to be sent to mainland China to face trial, was merely a catalyst. Those protesters couldn’t all possibly believe they’d fall on the wrong side of the law and face the consequences, could they?

Last week, former Hong Kong chief executive Leong Chun-ying was in Kuala Lumpur for appointments with businessmen, opinion leaders and officials, to update them on developments on the island.

I was among the lucky Malaysians picked to hear his thoughts and views on Hong Kong, while he, too, listened to our concerns during the two-hour closed-door meeting.

My co-host and meeting organiser, Datuk Seri Azman Ujang, and I both feel that of all the problems faced by any country in nation-building, none deserves greater priority than housing the people.

What expectation could be more basic than having a roof over our heads, and with it being a decent and affordable one at that? And when we talk about affordable, it should be truly attainable by the low-income people who form the bulk of the population in most countries.

Azman, the Bernama chairman, rightly outlined the consequences of the failure that stems from a lack of will in resolving the housing problem of the masses. And as he said, this could easily lead to people pouring into the streets protesting issues not even directly related to housing.

It’s a fact that many poor Hong Kong people live in a room less than 75sq ft, and millions live in deplorable conditions.

More recently, “nano” flats – tiny apartments less than 200sq ft – have fast become the norm in overcrowded Hong Kong.

According to a South China Morning Post report, the cost began at HK$2.85mil (RM1.52mil) for an apartment no bigger than an average Hong Kong car park space, but the lack of interest forced a rethink by the developer.

But what’s mind-boggling is that while there are plenty of poor people in Hong Kong, or many who feel poor, Hong Kong’s fiscal reserves stood at HK$1.16tril (RM620bil) as at the end of January.

In a report, Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau said there was a surplus of HK$86.8bil (RM46.2bil), bringing the cumulative year-to-date surplus up to HK$59bil (RM31bil).

All this wealth belongs to Hong Kong and not mainland China, so a lot can be done with that money for a population of just seven million people, especially low-cost housing!

In comparison, Malaysia’s official reserve assets amounted to US$102.03bil (RM425bil) as at end November 2018, while other foreign currency assets stood at US$51.6mil (RM215mil) for the same period, Bank Negara said. Malaysia has a population of 32 million.

It can’t be denied that Singapore has done well in housing its population, with over 90% of the seven million population reportedly living in homes of their own, and the home-ownership ratio is said to be the world’s highest.

The Singapore Housing Development Board (HDB) deserves global recognition for its feat in solving the housing problem of the people, especially the poor.

The middle-class and poor must be able to have a roof over their heads. That’s an essential human need. No country can have peace and stability if the poor are not able to own a home in their lifetime.

A prosperous and satisfied middle-class will lead to political stability. A huge middle class will also mean greater purchasing power, and this will lead to a better economy with spillover effects for everyone.

When there are angry citizens protesting everything from the escalating food prices to housing, then even the elite (including politicians and businessmen) will not feel safe. In South Africa, the rich live in houses with high walls and electric fences to protect themselves, but that’s not the best way to live. It’s living dangerously.

Malaysian politicians who still wield the race and religion card will realise that at some point, these will be “dead issues”.

With well-documented shrinking numbers, the Chinese and Indian population will no longer be the proverbial bogeymen in the future. Instead, it is class stratification that will be a matter of concern.

Last year, it was reported that the gap in income between the rich, middle class and poor in Malaysia had widened since 2008, according to a study by Khazanah Research Institute (KRI).

In its “The State of Households 2018” report, the research outfit of sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional Bhd noted that the gap in the real average income between the top 20% households (T20) and the middle 40% (M40) and bottom 40% (B40) households had almost doubled, compared to two decades ago.

The report, titled Different Realities, pointed out that while previous economic crises, in 1987 and the 1997/98 Asian Financial Crisis, saw a reduction in the income gap between the T20 and B40/M40, post-2008/09 Global Financial Crisis (GFC), those disparities had not reduced.

But the Gini coefficient, which measures income inequality in the country, had declined from 0.513 in 1970 to 0.399 in 2016, denoting improvement in income inequality in Malaysia over the past 46 years.

Explaining the phenomenon, Allen Ng, who is the lead author of the KRI report, said income of the T20 households had continued to grow, albeit at a slower pace than that of the M40 and B40 since 2010.

“However, because they (the T20) started at a higher base, the income gap between the T20 and M40/B40 had continued to grow despite the fact that the relative (income growth) is actually narrowing post-GFC, ” Ng explained at a press conference after the launch of the report yesterday.

In his bestselling book The Colour Of Inequality: Ethnicity, Class, Income And Wealth In Malaysia (2014), economist Dr Muhammed Abdul Khalid wrote that “the future does not look rosy for Malaysia; the current policies are encouraging wealth disparity between rich and poor, and between ethnicities.

“Unless bold and drastic actions are taken urgently, a harmonious future for Malaysia is uncertain. There must be an urgency to give every Malaysian economic security, a better and sustainable future.”

Muhammed, the managing director of the research and consulting firm DM Analytics Malaysia, said last year that contrary to popular belief, most Chinese (70%) are wage-earners, as are most Malays (72%). In fact, the poverty gap between races has dropped compared to 40 years ago, though the disparity remains.

And what about Malaysia? We have a disastrous, if not scandalous, record, particularly the pathetic business activities, dealings and performance of the 1Malaysia People’s Housing Programme’s (PR1MA) set up to build affordable homes.

More than RM8bil has gone up in smoke because PR1MA’s management failed to meet its targets, despite all the assistance and facilities accorded to their projects by the previous federal government and most state governments.

PR1MA reportedly built only 11,000 homes, compared with its target of half a million residential units to be delivered by the end of 2018. That’s less than 5% of the original plan.

PR1MA Malaysia was set up to plan, develop, construct and maintain high-quality housing with lifestyle concepts for middle-income households in key urban centres. Its homes are priced between RM100,000 and RM400,000.

PR1MA is open to all Malaysians with a monthly household income of RM2,500 to RM15,000.

A total of 1.42 million people registered for PR1MA, a promise of one million homes by 2020, but only 16,682 units, or 1.6%, of the target, were completed between 2013 and 2018, costing the government billions in public funds.

Poor management, exorbitant land acquisition costs and unsuitable sites have turned the people’s housing project into a major financial flop. PR1MA’s failure, which could cost the new government billions, is apparently already saddled with ballooning debts, rendering the loss-making company untenable.

It’s the responsibility of the government to build affordable homes – not the private developers. Private developers, especially those who helm public listed companies, have profits and dividends to answer for to shareholders. They are in the business of making money, and with the expensive land bank they have acquired, they need to build expensive homes, too.

Even if there are requirements with the obligated mixed homes for social housing needs, it still won’t resolve the problems.

Our politicians shouldn’t pass their responsibilities to them. They just need to have qualified and competent professionals with integrity to run a set-up like HDB. Obviously, the people who ran PR1MA didn’t do their jobs. We can help Malaysians own homes, or at least rent them at affordable rates, if we’re truly committed. The question is, are we?

As for Hong Kong, there is another lesson the young protesters need to learn: a full democracy doesn’t guarantee you a home and a decent job. Just ask the homeless in the United States and Britain.

Forest fire in Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan province, Indonesia on September 14, 2019. -Reuters

IT’S now decades into this rinse and repeat story, and miraculously, little has changed. The familiar sound bites of promised action are as hazy as the sickening weather this region continues to suffer from every year.

Honestly, it’s disgraceful that people in these parts have to put up with the smoke from the forest fires in Indonesia’s Kalimantan and Sumatra.

Since 1997, the slash-and-burn practices there have led to debilitating haze problems in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and the surrounding region.

Last week, Malaysia had to close more than 400 schools, as smoke and ash spread to more areas, stretching from Thailand to the Philippines, plunging air quality to unhealthy levels in their wake.

This annual transboundary problem has environmental, health and business implications. The difference now is that, incredibly, Indonesia has the audacity to blame Malaysia for the smoggy hazard.

And this time, the situation is more worrying because reports indicate the number of blazes in Indonesia’s rainforests has jumped sharply, as satellite data showed last week.

As the fires rage on, spreading toxic fumes across South-East Asia, concerns are arising about the impact increasing worldwide wildfire outbreaks have on global warming.

This has happened at a time when huge blazes are also singeing their way through the Amazon in South America because of the same reason – clearing jungle land for agriculture.

Slash-and-burn is the cheapest and fastest way to prepare land for cultivation, but it produces haze which is harmful to humans and wildlife.

Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Minister Yeo Bee Yin has rightly said that her Indonesian counterpart, Siti Nurbaya Bakar, is “in denial” after Jakarta insisted fires in Malaysia had caused the smog there.

“Let the data speak for itself,” Yeo said in a Facebook post, sharing figures from the Asean centre which showed only a handful of hotspots in Malaysia compared to the hundreds in Indonesia.

The number of “hotspots” – areas of intense heat susceptible to fire that’s detected by satellite – jumped sharply in Indonesia on Wednesday, according to the Singapore-based Asean Specialised Meteorological Centre.

Reports reveal that there were 1,619 hotspots detected on the Indonesian part of Borneo and in Sumatra, up from 861 a day earlier, according to a tally from the centre which monitors forest fires and smog outbreaks.

In 2002, Asean members devised and settled on a transboundary haze agreement – which Indonesia is part of – in response to the catastrophes of 1997 and 1998.

At that time, fires burned some 45,000sq km of forests in Kalimantan and Sumatra, and like today, the wind reportedly swept the acrid smoke across the region, polluting the air in Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand in the process.

What was even worse was the timing of the haze crisis, with it happening during the devastating Asian Financial Crisis. Many of us can recall how the gloomy skies mirrored the sombre mood of Malaysians, with barely any optimism in sight.

It took 11 years after the treaty came into effect for Indonesia to ratify the agreement in 2014, but has our neighbour effectively enforced or enacted regulations at the national and local levels?

The problem with agreements, laws and rules is that they mean nothing if there is no proper enforcement. The voluminous agreement merely ended up a useless stack of papers which no one has paid serious attention to.

If this pact was properly executed, we wouldn’t be here choking our lungs away, and wearing those fiddly face masks which are more Hong Kong protester gear than ours.

I am not an expert on Indonesian law, and I could be wrong, but I have been told that none of Indonesia’s national laws make special reference to haze or pollution resulting from slash-and-burn activities.

In fact, Indonesia doesn’t categorise the spread of haze from forest burning as a disaster, say the media outlets there.

A news report said that for Indonesia, haze is merely the result of forest burning, especially when it’s manmade. Not categorising haze as a disaster prevents the country’s national and local disaster agencies from either responding accordingly or effectively.

Astonishing as it may sound, Asean has set a goal for a haze-free region by 2020 – that’s next year – as part of the agreement. No one can be blamed for thinking this a lofty goal. Truth be told, it’s even laughable.

Rightly or wrongly, the perception is that Indonesia has not been serious in its efforts to curb the problem. Many feel the country has maintained a “noncompliant” stance, and with the burning continuing every year, Indonesia has no one to blame but itself. It shouldn’t get overly sensitive because it deserves a dressing down.

“Local administrations throughout Indonesia should be informed about the policy. Only this way can we ensure that policies are synchronised and implemented effectively at national and local level,” reads academic portal The Conversation.

The writer, Dio Herdiawan Tobing, a research associate at the Asean Studies Centre at Universitas Gadjah Mada, detailed his trip with his research team to Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan, one of Indonesia’s hotspots for land and forest fires.

“We wanted to know how local administrations view an agreement between ASEAN countries on haze pollution that Indonesia ratified two years ago.

“We were surprised to hear that the acting head of Central Kalimantan Environmental Agency, Humala Pontas, admitted he didn’t know much about the agreement. He asked: ‘What is contained in the agreement? Which part of the haze does it regulate? Are there any provisions that contain economic or other means?’”

He wrote about how the Environment and Forestry Ministry – the government body responsible for tackling threats to the environment – barely seems interested in enforcing the Asean haze agreement. It’s more focused on “project- based” action, such as distributing firefighting pump machines to the community.

“It was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in charge of international agreements, that actively supported Indonesia’s ratification of the haze treaty.

“As a consequence of the discord between the two ministries, two years into Indonesia’s ratification of the agreement, and local administrations are still not aware of it.”

But this isn’t the time for finger -pointing, and if Indonesia feels that it can put out the fires with its thousands of soldiers, then we must just place our faith in them. It’s very unlikely they will accept assistance from other Asean countries, including Malaysia.

The Indonesian government may also wish to consider an incentive programme to help discourage the slash-and-burn practise because penalties alone may be insufficient in nipping this once and for all.

More importantly, it’s not good enough putting out the fires. Asean wants a sustainable solution to this. We don’t want to go through this time and again. We’ve just had enough!