Rafizi is back in the hospital again. I don’t know what to say.
If I criticise him, like I want to, I will feel like a jerk who is hitting a guy while he is down, but if I were to be understanding and wish him well, I will have to answer to my conscience, because my conscience will accuse me of being hypocritical and insincere, and it will be right.
To remain silent, however, I need Rafizi to be a nobody, but unfortunately, Rafizi is still a major somebody in the country.
It is not that I wish Rafizi ill or do not wish to be understanding, but I feel that it is Rafizi’s prerogative to enable the conditions for us to wish him well and be understanding towards his circumstances. He can enable the condition, for example, by resigning from the post of the economy minister, or take up some less significant portfolio, like that of the law minister or the national unity minister. If he can just do that, I am sure all of us can with a full heart and a clear conscience wish him all the best and hope he will recover at his convenience.
The fact of the matter is that Rafizi is not the easiest guy in the world to like and his performance in the important position of the Economic Minister is a major letdown.
His sub-par performance has not yet affected the Madani government significantly just yet, but this might change by the second half of 2024, when the targeted subsidy initiative is projected to kick-off.
The problem with the Madani government is that other than in the field of realpolitiks, it is screwing up on all fronts. Its screw ups are so major that people are beginning to get scared, worried and alarmed. I scarcely saw any decorations or heard any firecrackers this Chinese New Year. Call me racist, but when you see the Chinese scrimping for their CNY celebration, you can’t help but be worried about the state of the country’s economy.
Anwar keeps saying that he had nothing to do with things like Najib’s pardon, Zahid Hamidi’s DNAA, 6 opposition MPs debasing themselves and the august parliament by switching over to the government without leaving the opposition fold or going after Daim and Mahathir’s children to settle personal score, but it doesn’t look anyone believes him.
If they believed him, the ringgit would not have become so determined to cross the 5 ringgit to the dollar mark.
The government can talk until the cows come home about how they are bringing in foreign investment by the bushels, but we will have to be dumber than a loaf of bread to believe that any serious foreign investment will be interested to come to a country where an inmate can receive a pardon even without admitting that they are guilty or where the parliament is such a joke, that opposition lawmakers are supporting the Prime Minister.
To add to this, we also now have a situation where the federal court looks like it is in a collision course against religious forces. Having secular and religious institutions at each other’s throat is bad enough during normal times, but in the troubled times that we are, it is akin to seeing the skies darken and the winds picking up speed right at the time when you are already exhausted from scooping water out of your leaking boat.
If we have some problem occuring once in a while, we will be motivated to solve it, but if we have an endless stream of problems occurring one after another, all we will want to do is just give up.
During this period of difficulties, the only thing that the people, especially the embattled B40 and freefalling M40 class have to look forward to, is the implementation of targeted subsidies that is scheduled to kick off at the middle of this year.
The targeted subsidies initiative, which seeks to re-balance our economic landscape by moving away the bulk of the subsidies, which is currently being enjoyed by the bosses and owners, to the hands of the people and workers, is akin to sturdy lifeboats being deployed at a time when the ship called Malaysia is taking in water. If it is deployed successfully, not only will it save the people from drowning, it will slow down the ship called Malaysia from sinking and buy the engineers more time to save the ship.
The PADU system, which is crucial to the successful implementation of the targeted subsidies, which in turn is crucial to not only save the country, but save the Madani government, is being championed by none other than Rafizi.
And how is our champion doing?
Well, he is just 46 years old , but already he is suffering from heart attacks and slipped disk like he is 100 years old. Mahathir, who is actually 100 years old, spends less time in the hospital than Rafizi.
The PADU system that Rafizi is spearheading is not doing too great either. It was launched on January 2, and after nearly two months, just around 10 percent of people have registered for it. Even if the registration rate remains constant, which is itself doubtful, it will take nearly 20 months for the registration process to be complete, although the targeted subsidy programs are expected to kick-off in the second half of 2024, which is just 3 and a half months away.
For the targeted subsidy initiative to be successfully deployed, what we need is for the price of subsidized items, like that of RON 95, to be sold at market price to the owner and business classes, while the B40 and M40 can purchase enough fuel for their personal use at the current subsidised rate or cheaper.
To put it more simply, for the targeted system to work, we need to sell the RON 95 at 5 ringgit per litre at the petrol pumps in the second half of 2024, but the B40 and M40 will get a ration of say 100 litres of petrol every month, which will allow them to buy RON 95 at the current rate of RM 2.05 or maybe even RM 1.50 per litre.
For this idea to work, you need PADU to work. The fact that only 10 percent of the population has registered for PADU, and the fact that Rafizi, the number 1 man behind PADU, is in the hospital less than 2 months after PADU was launched, and the fact that just a couple of days ago, the Madani government released a mess of an idea called the Madani White Rice initiative, doesn’t make one sanguine about the prospect of successful deployment of the targeted subsidy system.
You can’t just give monkeys a spanner and a screwdriver, call them engineers and expect them to execute a complex idea like the targeted subsidies system. A monkey with a screwdriver is not an engineer. It is just an ape with a delusion of standing.
If Rafizi was at least seen to be running helter skelter before falling apart and suffering from a heart attack and a slipped disk, at least our hearts could have gone out for him. If somebody looks like they are genuinely trying to help us, but failed for reasons that are outside of their control, we are not such heartless people to not appreciate their effort, simply because we did not receive any benefits.
But the only thing I remember rafizi for is for such arrogant and pompous statements like “ kalau harga ayam mahal, jangan beli ayam” or “kalau tak ada duit nak makan di luar, jangan makan di luar” and his envious and absurd attempt to mimic Khairy Jamalluddin’s popularity, by running a podcast to “burn” all of his critics, just days after the PADU initiative rolled out.
When you see a person who has a track record of saying arrogant and hurtful things towards you, and who was busy doing podcasts to burn his critics instead of focusing on his job, and who ended up in a hospital after performing poorly in his job barely two months after starting to the job, it is not sympathy, understanding or appreciation that fills your heart.
Looking at how everything is shaping up, I really feel that it might be best to postpone the deployment of the targeted subsidies until the middle of 2025 and replace Rafizi with something less fragile and sensitive to do the important job of deploying these lifeboats policies to buy ourselves sometime while we figure out how to fix our underperforming economy.
There is no reason to believe why the Madani government might not last until 2025 afterall. If there is one thing that the Madani government has excelled in doing so far, it is in executing realpolitik measures to crush any opposition to its reign. Despite the heavy cost to the integrity of our system and institution, one thing its success will do is secure the reign of the Madani government for the foreseeable future.
Seeing that it has time, maybe it will be good for the Madani government to delay the implementation of the targeted subsidy programs until next year, so that we might at least have hope that the life boats are coming, even if we can’t see it just yet.
As for Rafizi, all I can say is go home man. Do the country, the government, your party, the people, and most importantly, yourself, a favour, and just go home and take a break.
You are breaking down faster than Mahathir although you are half his age. It should be clear to you by now that you are not cut out for this and it is unfair to us to be stuck with someone who is clearly not cut out for this leading the way.
You are starting to look like Custer and we are starting to feel like the 7th calvary at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
Nehru Sathiamoorthy is the author of “While Waiting for the World to end”. He was a columnist at FMT and a frequent contributor to the South China Morning Post, The Star, Malaysia-Today, MalaysiaNow, MalaysiaKini and Focus Malaysia.
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