I have got this invitation from my my mother’s uncle (grandpa i guess) to attend his son’s wedding in Kuching, Sarawak. It was way back in July actually that we have this word of mouth invitation.

So i guess i’ll be covering and digging anything that is interesting in Sarawak So the delegates to this invitation would be - Alia, Nik Arshad, Ayah, Chek, Adik, Baby and off course me .

We’ll be flying with Air Asia to be frankly savvy on this 11th of December to 14th 2008…which is tomorrow.

I’ll give some sights on my trip.

Adios!!!

If i recalled back, and base on the record in this blog, i have been in this blogging blogosphere for more than 2 years now. I tracked back my first post on this blog which is on the 1st November 2006. Damn, it’s 2 years plus now.

Alongside that two years time, i find blogging is something which is very personal yet at the same time you are publishing your own materials throughout the world. When i started this blog, i was actually thinking that i could monetize this blog. But to no avail, i might not be able to unleash the potential of this blog due to my hectic and busy schedule committing to my daily job.

Well, let’s just try it out again.

When i gave a thought, i think that i should have adhered to the fundamentals of blogging where you should be able to provide information to your friends, colleagues and your targeted audience.Being resourceful i guess.

I think i have some reservation on this.

The second part of Tun Teddy…Enjoy

[In this second article of mine, I would discuss 1) the problems of governmental bearing in deciding economic policy (figures and economic indicator), 2) the importance of price, 3) the problems of Malaysian consumer ethics, demands and future consumptions, and 4) the importance of restructuring food subsidies – under the purview of KPDNHEP.]

1. It seems obvious that figures and economic indicator were not a bearing/ factor in any of the governmental decisions whenever dealing with the disbursement of government funds such as subsidies. As this article is written, Malaysian government had spend almost RM 42.6 BILLION (yes in Billion – Capital B) in a bulk, for the whole 26 millions people disregards of who should the money goes to, what terms, which target groups, what priorities or any workable efficient plan for the food subsidies to reach the right individuals. As such, there were leakages and most often this subsidized food do not reach the targeted consumers (even though how big the number is).

2. I want to go back to the history of the subsidizing programmes as it is important for us to understand why it was implemented before so that it will shed us clear lights for any future decisions in dealing with this issues. Our country’s subsidy programmes were carbon copies of planned economies adopted by the Communist state in Russia. We should know that Communism and socialism were systems of restraint – both by design and through their inefficiency. By design, Communist governments substituted planned economic development for growth through market – incentive system (this will include large social safety nets and governmental spending i.e. government staffs). In the red (Soviets) old days, they were basically just three stores in Moscow – bread, milk, and meat – and virtually no private automobiles. As a result, it was relatively low-impact society in terms of consumer consumptions. By implementation there were no confrontational issues in consumerism plus the Communist economies were corrupt, inefficient, and not very productive, and this also restricted everything from their people’s energy consumption to their caloric intakes (food).

3. But in today’s world, things have significantly changed. There are a real growing of domestic populations and middle-class earners. As in 1970 the gini coefficient shows a clear in-equality 0.755 to much better 0.445 in 2008 (1.0 – total in-equality, 0.0 total equality), but still the government out of its lavish spending and self-ignorance continues to subsidizes its people. Disregard of the economic indicator, this government continues to subsidize its citizens in a bulk. This later had creates a problems in the early warning systems for the government in handling any market glitch especially in the supplies of food.

4. According to the World Bank, the spiking demand (that happens due to the growing middle class over the years) was not immediately translated into higher prices for consumers, owing to years of massive subsidies for food in Malaysia. This helped to keep some food supplies artificially low even as domestic consumption and domestic demand (plus the world) was growing and more middle-class mouths to feed. This is what was known as a classic market distortion. Malaysian government over the years had neglect and forget the importance of price itself.

5. Price does not only means the values of a particular items (in this context food), but also represent the nature of its resources, market potentials, the timing for the government interventions – as such I would like to state here that price is the most accurate early warning systems for the government to deduct whenever dealing with consumerism. But such things does not happen in Malaysia due to our methods of subsidizing every food even market economies have change fundamentally in the previous years - The consumers were demand driven, as so many more people suddenly are can or will be living a middle-class lifestyle.

6. As we entered the new age of market efficiencies, we are still ignorance of how figures that were in numbers such as per capita – if we have more capita – and a 40 to 50 percent increase in population is pretty much baked into the cake already – we’re going to have a lot more pressure on resources. These resources can be food and it has been food for the previous years. I did talked about the changing standards of the consumer demands on future food – it has also been engineered to be more nutritious, so people get healthier and healthier from less and less food.

7. The future demand would insist on higher and higher standards of items and the produces would try to get much comfort for the consumers from fewer resources. This would also require the produces to innovate, research - lab testing and eventually it would lead to the increase of the price. As such the produces would ask for market prices that will help them to obtain higher value for their products. And this government would turn bankrupt just to feed the people that can fend off themselves. There is no efficiency in dealing with such method of disbursement and as such I can say that this government never know why it decides on such a decision in the first place but merely just spending spree.

8. After years of bad policies, this type of spending spree would nurture bad consumer behaviour that would requires a heavy work of social restructuring. Plus our people don’t exactly know what happened in the planned economic systems such as in Russia. I give you an example, in Russia today, if you dare to talk about controlling prices or subsidizing food openly, the next day metro police would find you dead in a garbage can – the Russia mafia would killed you as they had a hard time getting food on their tables for their families everyday during the planned economies era. I hate to portray such an example, but it is necessary.

9. But such things were hard to explain to the Malaysian consumers because it involves ethics and ethics are not laws. They are not imposed by the state. Rather, they are norms, values, beliefs, habits, and attitudes that are embraced voluntarily – that we as a society impose on ourselves. Laws regulate behaviour from outside in. Ethics regulate behaviour from the inside out. Ethics are something you carry with you whenever you go to guide whatever you do. This is where we should start with.

10. We have to develop new habits and attitudes toward consumption. Otherwise, whatever technologies we devise will simply be used to extend our current habits of profligate consumption to the huge, burgeoning middle classes of the crowded Malaysian for more demand with more governmental spending. To say that there must be an allocation of food subsidies for every household would be fools errand. As growth is not negotiable, especially in the current world where everyone can see how everyone else is living. To tell people they can’t grow is to tell them they have to remain poor forever.

11. I believe the best method would be the issuance of food stamps through the Jabatan Kebajikan Masyarakat. Through this food stamps, the right group can obtain the subsidies food at the Jabatan Kebajikan Masyarakat branch offices (all over Malaysia – I do talked with one of their officers over this matter). The adoption of the same mechanism when this agency had to allocate poverty allowances to the hardcore/ abject poverty group is most simple solutions. The middle class earners would feel ashamed of themselves whenever thinking that they deserved the government money for their food and this will change the consumer ethics. As such, this government can save up to RM 40 Billion a year is a simple mathematical calculation (1970 – 40% abject poverty group, 2008 – 1.4% abject poverty group). I deserved Datukship for this!

12. I do understand that this is not a very popular decision to take, as individuals would save their own neck but remember the inconvenient truth - because no one would wants to commit individual suicide; we are all committing collective suicide through the continuance of the food subsidies to the middle class earners.

Ok, i’ve mentioned that after my seminar in Malacca, the very next day i had to fly straight to Kota Kinabalu Sabah for some site visitation on an official duty.

I would not like to mention much on the official duty, leave it as it is to be, but i like to share with you guys of this new retail venture by prominent local airlines company, Air Asia. Now, Air Asia through Tune Money do hell a daring venture, despite their famous RM9.90 room rates per night with its famous tag of ” 5 star rooms with 1 star prices”, they also venture into this retail industry.

Now, what type of retail have they ventured into? I must say that they have ventured into this concept of departmental store type of retail business, except that there is no groceries compared to Jaya Jusco. This departmental store is known as “Tune Store” as the picture below explains ( i snap it at One Borneo Shopping Complexes)

This really looks like a modern shopping style of departmental store concept- its a concept where you have a department type and sections of consumer retail product such as ; gents; ladies; toys; kids and etc.

Well, even its locationwise is unique, located at the One Borneo Shopping Complexes, they have an arrays of products to offer. And the best part is, they Tune make it complements whereby there is a tune hotels attached to the One Borneo. My colleague said thay, despite the RM9.90 pre advanced booking through the internet, you will have to pay for the towel, airconds usage and other things in place from their range of top up services, with that in mind, when added up everything, my coleague said it is better to to book a proper hotel as the cost adds all together remain similar.

I bought shoes for Nik Arshad, very nice yet reasonably priced at Tune Stores……Forgot to mention that i stayed at Mercure hotel, it is not so good hotel as it is too cramped and the dollar paid for its rate does not translate to what i’ve got.

Alia and I was on a course, or must i say a seminar??? well actually it is called the “Bengkel Jalinan Kasih” held on 24th to 26th November 2008. Well, the objective of this seminar is to search for a married couple from the public sector.

The basic requirements to join the seminar is that the couple must both serve the public sector. Now, the organizer which of course is JPA, says that this is actually a new type of course introduce in the spirit to share, educate, trained and equipped married couples about :

1. Understanding spouse’s work.

2. Caring your other half always by means of verbal and action ( i like this most)

Now, the activities is likely to be sort of knowing other people’s feeling. We were deployed at the village nearby Serkam to hangout with the village old folks. So what Alia and i planned is as to hold to conversation all way long until the activity ended. And we did it without any further excess baggage…heheh..

We must admit that we really enjoyed the seminar and the best part is that we are able to not to engage in the professional mode throughout the seminar, we were made compulsory to hold hands, be passionate about your spouse is all that matters.

This is a great article i would say taken from my office mate’s blog Tun Teddy. I find it interesting for us to read. Bravo Teddy!!

[Salam all, in my article this time I will explain the significant correlation between three issues i.e. securities, food subsidies and the behaviour of the Malaysian consumers - how the development of security issues post-Cold War period would determined how world wide consumer behave including Malaysian consumer thus precipitating a needed change in the way the government in this context - KPDNHEP in dealing with food subsides (flour, sugar) in the future to come.]

1. During the Cold War period, security issues were looked at merely in the context of military issues, particularly the U.S. vs U.S.S.R. context. But after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and after the whole world saw of how Communism and Socialist economy ravages the Eastern European and Russia economy, security were defined more into a detail perspective. As such came the term called as human security. According to Human Development Report, there are seven specifics elements that constitute human security which are:-

i) economic security (freedom from poverty);

ii) food security (access to food);

iii) health security (protection from disease and provision of health care);

iv) environmental security (protection from pollution and resource depletion);

v) personal security (physical safety from torture, war, and criminal attacks);

vi) community security (survival and cultural identity); and

vii) Political security (freedom from oppression).

2. Having stated the seven above elements that constitute human security, I will only touch on two issues which are economic security and food security. Economic health is an extricable part of national security. It is prerequisite to the pursuit of national security – both in internal and external dimensions. It provides the means to neutralize some of the domestic sources of conflict, makes the state less vulnerable to external pressure and penetration, and makes possible the allocation necessary resources to counter internal and external threat.

3. This is relevant to the developing states such as Malaysia, where a deteriorating or stagnating economy and distortion in income distribution can give rise to exacerbate already existing domestic conflicts and thus threaten the very idea of the state. As such the government of Malaysia after gaining its independence has embark on numerous social projects of providing its citizen with nutritional food, optimal healthcare and economic opportunities to mend oneself from an extreme or an abject poverty.

4. Among the introduced social projects were 1) the distribution of toilet bowls to the urban and rural peoples of Malaysia, spearheaded by the Ministry of Health aimed to inculcate hygienic habits and to deter/ prevent endemic such as cholera, TB, etc (just to name two); 2) the introduction of food subsides on certain food items such as flour and sugar as a nutritional programmes spearheaded also by the Ministry of Health in cooperation with the Ministry of Industrial and Commerce. These two programmes were launched and planned by the Economic Planning Unit under the auspices of its then Minister Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie after consulting the former Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak and his Chief Secretary of State in 1970.

5. To cut short, the New Economic Policy and the National Development Plan had proved to be a success in bringing up the well being of the Malaysian citizens as a whole. From having a 40% (1969) of its citizens in an abject poverty group, the percentage had decrease enormously to 1.4% in 2008. As such, the transition of abject poverty to a relative poverty among the Malaysian citizens can be seen everywhere from individual own property, narrow gap of gini coefficient, and the well being of the Malaysian consumer as a whole. As such, the definition of security were also re-defined into a more complex issues from the rights of a community to the rights of a minority group to the rights of an individual to own an assets, to procure, to compete and to questions issues that matters. One of these issues is food security.

6. I did mentioned above of how our government had spend millions of ringgit to distribute free toilet bowls and taught the urban and rural citizens of Malaysia on how to use it properly. Before the programmes, most of the Malaysian citizens would resort in a traditional ways in answering nature calls and this had made them vulnerable to endemic diseases. After much success, such programmes has been stopped due to the increase and mounting cost (try to imagine how much toilets bowls would cost the government in the current market) and also the cost of manpower to teach every citizens to use toilet bowls properly. Such things were an alien today and we would also laugh on such idea that the government need to subsidize its people to shit properly. But that is how the situation before. Forgive me to portray such example, but that subsidizing programmes even though how nauseating to you all is the perfect example for me to relate on the issues of food subsidies that the government is spending today.

7. The toilet bowls subsidies have stopped but the food subsidies are continuing. Even though the abject poverty of the Malaysian people has decreased enormously from 40% to 1.4%, the government out of its ignorance still continued subsidizing its people disregard of its citizens’ per capita income, gini coefficient, or its incidence of poverty. Even though the definitions of poverty have changed from abject/ extreme to a relative poverty, hundreds millions of ringgit are still spent today to cater the food subsidies.

8. Figures of Real per capita GNP that is considered an important indicator of the standard of living, since income provides the basis that allows people to sustain themselves and their families, while the distribution of income reflects equity and balanced development were not a point of reference for the government in its subsidizing programmes. The real per capita GNP doubled from RM3,120 (RM3,734 in nominal terms) in 1980 to RM6,130 (RM12,051 in nominal terms) in 1997 as a result of the high economic growth. It showed clearly that most of the Malaysian can fend for themselves and do not rely anymore on the government subsidies except that 1.4% of its abject poverty groups. But the amount of government subsidies that were planned still figured for the rest of its 26 million citizens.

9. We know that with the effect of the globalize world, the market economics have become the norms in virtually every country in the world, including Malaysian which educating its consumers to ask for a better and perfect products. For a market to keep producing perfect products for the consumer, a cost is needed for products innovations and safety test. As such the government will end up bankrupt to keep subsidizing its growing citizens with its growing demands and its growing standards for its consumed food. Even though, millions and millions of Malaysian new consumers and producers were able to buy or sell their goods and services – as an individual or companies – and were able to collaborate with more people in more places on more things with greater ease for less money than ever before, the Malaysian government still subsidizing its people with food that their own people can procure.

10. Amid the path that the Malaysian consumer is walking with their own version of economic well being – a car, a house, and air conditioner, a cell phone, a microwave, a toaster, a computer, and an i-Pod – the Malaysian government still subsidized its people with food on the table. With the increase of the consumer demand standards asking for better and quality food, try to imagined how much the government had to subsidized its people with the right flour and flour only – not to include sugar, rice or health care/ free hospitals. As such this government would go bankrupt in 2020. So much of the great vision of self-sustaining economy.

11. Based on the points I stated above, I asked for a review in the government food subsidies that should fend off only for those 1.4% of abject poverty group and not the whole 26 million peoples of Malaysia. The right way to deal with the food subsidies is to float the price of these items based on the current markets and the introduction of food stamps for the 1.4% abject poverty group and this food stamps should be obtain only at the Jabatan Kebajikan Masyarakat. Currently, Jabatan Kebajikan Masyarakat is handling an abject poverty group with its social safety nets such as a personal allowances for those that is living below poverty line (RM 700 a month or USD 1.00 a day). This is the right group that should be getting the food subsidies. As such, the government can decrease the amount of its un-needed spending for the rich, and the rich/ “haves” fend for themselves. At least, the “haves” consumers would feel ashamed of themselves whenever thinking that they are getting free food on their tables’ everyday with the Jabatan Kebajikan Masyarakat food stamps printed on their food receipts.

My colleague and i were having breakfast this morning as we stumble upon an interesting discussion which is bribery. One of my friend is an officer with the enforcement division of the ministry. He was arguing that many cases and activities which involves crimes be it commercial or civil may never stop. We argued why? he replied that it is because of this bribery activities.

From the conversation, he is neither optimistic nor pessimist that there is bribery activity going on , he just quote an example of how he would do lots confiscation on the illegal CDs and DVDs and it was like a never ending story. And these people would not stop even the risk associated is very high.

Now, the element of bribery is a strong factor to consider, which he says that, despite having laws, regulations and strong enforcements equipped with legal frameworks technical know-how, the issue still remains and will be there…So…what he mentioned was, in an organized crime, bribery towards certain parties still is an ongoing activity between at least two (2) parties.  (I don’t want to elaborate on this!)

So… i made a joke, if there were stops to this criminal activities, you as an enforcement officer wouldn’t have anything to do right….???

Hehe!

Went up to the office and start work!

This picture below explains everything, its on the 22 November and i joined the event as i’m one of the loyal s here….hehehe

KPDNHEP Event Banner

My wife, Nik Arshad couldn’t miss the opportunity of joining this event, as for the past 3 years there were no such events for the family of the office to gather, mingle and chatting around, sharing and laughing in an activity made by the organizer.

I wish to thank the organizer of this successful event. Without their brain and hard work contribution….Thanks again to Liyana and Linda. Girl Power i guess!

liyana and linda

Well,, some facts about the Family Day, It is a Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumers Affair’s Family Day officiated by the Minister, Y.Bhg Dato’ Shahrir Samad.

Cheers!

I just came back from Malacca this afternoon, i was invited to join a seminar on “Bengkel Jalinan Kasih” by JPA (Public Service Department). It was indeed fun and it is a special course for my wife and me because the basic requirements is to attend the seminar with your spouse. It’s a couple programme i must say, taking discussion on the marriage life and sharing the experience of every participant from their marriage story…i’ll tell you later in details for my next post.

There you go…now i am instructed to fly to Sabah next morning for some official site visitation to some of the hypers and supers. What is hypers and supers??? i’ll explain that too inmy next post..

So…till then..tata!!

Got some work to do. extremely important work to do actually. I was instructed to go to this Perdana Putra Buildings last Saturday on the 15th. This building houses the office of the Malaysian Prime Minister and its important agencies. This building too, is where the Chief Secretary General office’s is.

Visitors Have to enter into this post guard building

Back to the instruction, i was instructed to go to Bahagian Kabinet dan Hubungan Antara Kerajaan (Cabinet Division and Inter Government Relation) to have a look at the minutes….and this is very confidential.! Hehe…nothing special about it. But this division is responsible of holding the weekly meeting of the Cabinet Minister in the country chaired by the Prime Minister. As a secretariat, this division is responsible for the commencement of the meeting and its smoothness, gathering feedback from other governmental agencies and its kind. Despite that, this division is also responsible for other event of meetings…meeting of PM with the Menteri Besar’s and Chief Minister of the state and the list goes on to the top official of the government.

Scenery of the building before entering the post guard.

Nevertheless…..since post independence, this division have created a magnificient contribution towards the development of the countries. This iswhere the institutional memories have kept those critical and important decision of the well being of the country and the nation….