Recently, what happened In Sri Lanka has left many Malaysians terrified? The incidents simply portrayed what the people will go through if a country is dry and has no money left in the coffers. There have been daily power cuts and shortages of fuel, medicines as well as food. A shortage of fuel caused buses, trains and medical services vehicles to come to a total stop. The country didn’t have enough foreign currency to import fuel as well as basic necessities. As a result, inflation increased from about 15% to a massive 54.6%. The prices of basic necessities simple plummeted. Schools closed and people were asked to work from home to save costs. And the final straw was, that the country failed to pay interest on its loans, thus prompting International markets to stop offering help. Things got out of hand when there were protests all over the country. Finally, the President resigned and fled the country and the acting president declared an emergency as the situation became very serious with civil war and chaos everywhere. Form a great country it has become a god-forsaken country. All these incidents that happened in Sri Lanka have created a lot of FEAR among Malaysians.
Many Malaysians are living with this FEAR that Malaysia may face financial difficulties like Sri Lanka. Day in and day out normal Malaysians and as well as experts are warning the government to check and balance the country’s spending. Many are always voicing their fear and dissatisfaction with the present financial management because they understand that economic and financial management is vital to keep the country afloat and stable. There are times when fear is beneficial. Courage doesn’t appear at the expense of fear, but when we triumph over it. Many are fearful when they see that the authorities concerned not doing much to curb unnecessary spending. We are still battling with Covid 19. Though we have moved from the epidemic state there is no guarantee that the scenario that happened in early 2020 will never happen again. There are still thousands of cases every day that may explode if action is not taken. So, we must not be complacent. The government has lost a lot of money due to the total lockdown and also spent billions to help the people get over the humungous problems caused by the pandemic. Malaysians are of the opinion that the country must be on an austerity drive to strengthen its financial standings to face future uncertainties.
A big majority of Malaysians are still shocked and uneasy about corruption and massive losses of money especially, the loss of more than RM 40Billion ringgit in the 1MDB fiasco. It was proven in court that a lot of money was siphoned by Malaysians themselves. This goes to prove that many Malaysians put their family and personal interests before the country’s interests. So, it is not easy for Malaysians to trust the present people who are managing the country’s finances. Another issue that is creating a lot of fear is the ongoing corruption cases. Many past leaders who were championing the people’s interests before are now facing big corruption cases. The phrase ” You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” is becoming very popular among Malaysians. It is happening in many areas and departments; the police, immigration, schools, hospitals and more importantly among the religious leaders and of course the politicians who happen to be champions. The question is; how much money the country has? Won’t we go broke if the present trend continues?
Many countries all over the world were hit badly as a result of the Covid 19 pandemic. Their economy was badly affected so they had to cut down on some ongoing and also on projects already planned. This was done to avoid going broke. One question always asked is; Why does Malaysia keep on building record-breaking skyscrapers. At one time we had the Petronas Twin Towers. It was the pride of the country. But the question is whether all the office has been taken up. Anyway, at that time the country and Petronas were doing well. Now, we have The Exchange 106 and the PNB 118. Do we need so many skyscrapers? Why do we spend so much money on such projects when we owe a lot of money internationally. Lately, the finance minister disclosed in parliament that at the end of June the Federal Government debt is RM1.045 trillion. On top of it RM43.1 billion ringgit was allocated for debt service charges. That’s a humungous amount of money. The money spent on servicing the debts alone can do so much to help needy people. A lot of people do not have proper houses with electricity and clean water. Many are struggling to educate their children and provide basic necessities. Sick people have problems paying bills for chronic illnesses and here we spent over 40Billion ringgit for servicing the country’s debts. Are we not trying to pay off or reduce the debts? What will happen if we go on borrowing?
It’s time Malaysians take count of what’s happening. The country has been bestowed with a lot of natural resources. We also have many brilliant scholars. They may be able to turn us around. We cannot be using money that is not ours. This is common knowledge parents usually teach their children. We must keep for the rainy day and it’s not happening now. It’s time we acted or else we may end up badly.
Palaniappan Karuppan is a content writer under Headliner by Newswav, a programme where content creators get to tell their unique stories through articles and at the same time monetize their content within the Newswav app.
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