By X'roy Bogel
Labour Day 2020
Today we celebrate International Labour Day like we have done for many years but this day will be different, very very different and sadly so.
The day the Malaysian workers are supposed to be celebrating the "Crowning Glory' of their sacrifices from yesteryears, to see the country emerge as a "Fully Developed Nation" Vision 2020, sees the workers lamenting because this can't be so and not through their own doing by that of the people entrusted to lead them in this effort who failed them miserably by Corruption, Nepotism and Cronyism.
Did I say celebrate?
Celebration is really a misnomer of sorts, because there is absolutely no reason to celebrate, in fact today the 1st of May 2020 was supposed to be a day the world would ahve saluted the Malaysian worker for making the nation a fully developed nation.
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| Once a common site in the Kinta and Klang Valleys. Now all gone |
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| Malaysia wast the world's largest producer of Tin |
All that sacrifice, enthusiasm, devotion, diligence, competence, hard work and dediccations was made rubbish of because the careless leadership allowed Corruption, Nepotism and Cronyism (CNP) be the order of the day and no matter how hard the Malaysian worker worked he could not be productive and the leadership has till not realised it, because at the end of the day all that money that went to people through CNP went into the products and services of the Malaysian worker rendiering hsi best efforts futile. How was the Malaysian worker to compete.
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| A Rubber Tapper |
Today 1st May 2020 instead of being the day of crowning glory for the Malaysian worker celebrating his achievements of a fully developed nation, he is watching the nation slide down like it never has before, so today it is like attending a requiem service in remembrance of the Malaysian worker, not because of the covid 19 virus but because the great efforts of the Malaysian worker made over the years that had placed the nation among the most Productive Nations in The World was wrecked by the very people entrusted to see that the pride of the Malaysian worker was treasured and to have supported the Malaysdisn workforce in maintaining its status as among the most productive workers in the world.
By the mid seventies the Industrial world had realised that Malaysia was a place to invest in, it was peaceful, the people of different races lived in harmony, the workers all spoke English, and most important of all Malaysia had demonstrated that its workforce was second to none in the world, it was the most productive workforce.
Malaysia was the leading producer of Rubber, Tin, Palm Oil and was heading in the mid seventies to become the leading producer or semiconductors and a little later the domestic air-condition industry players were eyeing Malaysia with a commitment to make Malaysia the largest producer of domestic air conditions.
So what happened, why are we in doldrums today?
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| No not covid 19 frontliners but our operators in the Semiconductor Industry (TI) |
First there was that Maminco Scandal, the Company Maminco was set up soon after Mahathir became Prime Minister, Mahathir had many of visions during his tenure as PM, this was probably his first, but sadly all were blurred visions and even his vision 2020 which is supposed to mean perfect vision was so terribly blurred we are now in 2020 and instead of being a fully developed nation on the doorstep of becoming a failed state, with huge liabilities, money stolen from our coffers that even won the previous Prime Minister and lets not forget a Mahathir appointed one was bestowed the title of Kleptocrat by the US DOJ. We are now in danger of lagging behind our neighbours Cambodia, Myanmar, and Philippines who all look set to overtake us, they seem to have got their act in order and are certainly moving forward, but thanks to Mahathir we are on a slide which presently looks irreversible considering our political situation.
One of his first visions as I'd like to call it was to corner the London Tin Market, and how silly could this man get, he went to try and fool the market, the London Metal Exchange at that time was 103 years old, they had been trading all those years and knew every trick by every con man to try and manipulate the market and here comes a man without the faintest idea of what he was doing trying to corner the market.
The tin priced was artificially jacked up by Maminco to unrealistic levels, leading the US to release its stockpile and the price of tin fell to below fifty percent forcing mines in Malaysia to close down as the price of tin made it unprofitable to mine. One of Malaysia's biggest Cities became a ghost town and Ipoh is still trying to recover from that disaster, thanks to Mahatir Mohamed.
Because of his careless exploits and maneuvering attempting to raise the price of Tin, a commodity, the tin trade collapsed and he Malaysian tax payer lost a total of RM1.6 billion mostly paid for by the Employees Provident Fund - Workers Money. That was mighty slap on the face of the Malaysian worker 1.5 billion at that time would be equivalent to about RM5 billion today and the Malaysian worker paid for it by way of his retirement savings.
This plunder of the EPF would become a norm moving forward to fulfill the crazy dreams of these .base and crooked aristocrats who only had selfish motives and were so full of themselves, they did not seem to have any semblance of decency, they were experts at spending other peoples hard earned monies to fulfill their own selfish desires and it never bothered them that this money came from wage earners, people who toiled day and night to make ends meet and who set aside this little (EPF) for retirement. Well to this day that money from their retirement fund is insufficient for the majority of workers once they retire and this government is full aware of it too but still did what they did.
Taking from the worker who built this nation and who made it among the most sought after destinations for Industrialists from the world over without a care for his future seems to be the specialty of these UMNO and UMNO bred bred idiots thieves.
Today with the numerous scandals many of which dug into the provident funds of workers foreign investors are reluctant to invest in Malaysia the way they used to in the past.
It is not wages that made Malysia lose its competitive edge, too often that is the excuse, Japan, Sweden, Germany, the UK and the rest pay much higher wages to their workers and their workforce are still productive, if it was wages we should still be more productive com[paring the wages, it was the three factors identified by Anwar Ibrahim whilst he was still in UMNO -Corruption, Cronyism and Nepotism, that ate into our Productivity.
The Party UMNO had been ruling since independence and the members of the party began becoming dependent on the party literally for funds which they never had to or cared to pay back, and where do you think these funds came from?
Without making any judgements the Mahathir boys became Millionaires and billionaires in record time, favoured contracts were won by them and they owned the best businesses in town, even his daughter is reported to have hefty funds and assets stashed away. He himself is rumored to be a billionaire a few times over with most of his wealth held in proxy by cronies.
The UMNO party faithful of course played follow the leader, because they were now used to the game, it was money politics those with loose cash that they could dispense with ruled the roost, if you wanted support you had to have the funds, initially these were in the from of reward trips to places like Medan and Phuket for supporters, gradually it became contracts, for projects which would be given out to the Chinese contractor to carry out and eventually even big projects many of which would halt half way because the money for the project was already spent lavishly by the crony who got the contract, then the government would then use its machinery to rescue the project project.
Who pays the price for all the corrupt practices?
If one conducts a detailed a supply chain review of how this money affects the country it will boil down to firstly becoming the greatest productivity deterrent, because even if the poor worker gave 200% of his effort he would never be productive because the cost of corruption which is so many times more than his wage and the wages of all his fellow workers put together goes into the service of products and services the workman toils and sweats blood and tears for with end result being his productivity coming to naught and his job taken away and new opportunities being created in other countries at his expense.
Aren't we seeing that even today?
Vision 2020 my damn stinking foot. In 2020 all that has happened is the Prime Ministers of Malaysia from Mahathir Mohammed onwards have all become billionaires, that seemed to be vision 2020.
Now to list the scandals that has deprived the Malaysian worker :
Maminco Scandal 1985.
Perwaja Steel Scandal 1980's another dream by a man who knew nest to nothing about the industry and probably got played as usual or played the rest of us. Loss 10 billion Ringgit
Bumiputra Malaysia Finance (BMF) Scandal 1980's, 2.5 Billion Ringgit loss and one innocent life taken a BMF officer a Workman in the process in Hong Kong.
Bank Negara Forex Scandal 1990's Loss RM30 Billion.
Malaysian Airlines Financial Scandal -1990 Loss 9.4 billion Ringgit
Port Klang Free Trade Zone Scandal - 2000 12.5 billion ringgit loss, but key members of MCA thenand even now made in the billion just by land transactions.
1MDB Scandal - ongoing - 42 Billion the details are on going much of which have already surfaced and as usual there is evidence that public funds were abused for this purpose.
There are many more than just this, there are even those with dealing with oil exploration and our rights being old to other countries.
Then there is the the Deposit Taking Cooperatives where ordinary Malaysians placed their life savings in these schemes only to lose all, many even committed suicide once they realised their loss.
The question that has never been asked and of course never been answered is who pays for all this loss?
Its always a rescue package at the expense of the Malaysian worker.
It is the ordinary Malaysian worker - the padi planter, the rubber tapper, the Palm Oil Harvester and weeders, the Lorry, Bus and Train drivers, the Doctors in the front line, the Nurses, the hospital Attendants, the Policemen, the foot soldier, the postman who comes to your house daily, the meter reader, the factory worker, the drain sweeper, the rubbish collector, the clerk in the office the executive, the manager every workman in the country has paid for all these fiascos, both in effort and in real cash they had been collecting for their retirement..
Now go find out who took all or substantial parts of these monies and enriched themselves at your expense whilst due to Covid 19 your very job is at risk.
On Monday the 4trh many fo you returning to your jobs will be faced with the stark reality that your jobs are at risk, is this reason to celebrate?
No matter how exalted your position if you fall under the definition of workman as defined in the Industrial Relations Act 1967, your existence is under threat not only from Covid 19 but from a corrupt system in this country where the aristocracy seems untouchable.
HAPPY WORKERS DAY?
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