Management of Self

The things that we do sometimes that land us in hot soup.We go at great length to help a friend only to end up in trouble.One thing for sure the lessons can be very expensive.It has a lot to do with management of self.

KL, KL

It was interesting to watch YB Muhammad Aziz of Sri Gading in Parliament interrupting the Deputy Minister of Federal Territory while he was rounding up answers to questions raised by Members of Parliament. YB Muhammad was disappointed with KL. He said there is nothing good about KL, traffic jam everywhere, a slight rain will choke the whole city, food is not only expensive but tasteless, hawkers do not keep their stalls clean, toilets are dirty and so on.It was really a bashing of KL.Those living and working in KL will definitely agree with YB Muhammad Aziz. Not a single day passes in KL without the traffic woes. Just imagine the hours lost on the road just to get to work or to get home. Public transport?The LRT?Packed like sardines, bad odour all over, no air-conditioning, not enough coaches.Buses not on time.Impossible when the jams are all over. The LRT has not enough lines to cover the city.One has to leave one's car in the hot sun in an area where there is no security.One get the impression the city planning of KL is really haphazard.The problems are not new.Approvals for development at places that obviously will create problems to existing housing estates as in Medan Damansara are given.While we try very hard to beautify the city including changing the kerbside turf in some areas a number of times, a number of areas such as the wet market of Chow Kit Road has not seen any development for the last 51 years! It would seem that it is impossible to bring about change to the place.Other areas such as Lorong Haji Taib continue to be the "drug areas".Even the police feels insecure and remove its beat.
The growing number of illegal visitors is all over town.Some areas are being "controlled" by them posing all sorts of social problems. There is the nigerian area, the myanmar area, the bangla area, the vietnamese area (recently they threw a dog's head in the common garbage area of an apartment area).It appears that we are extremely generous with foreign visitors even those who overstayed.If only a census is carried out in Kampong Baru and Kampong Pandan one will find the population has swelled with Indonesians, legal and otherwise.
Judging from the way the city is managed currently, whatever objectives of future plans for the city will be difficult to achieve.The city is managed by a Minister, a Mayor and a Director -General.What else do you need to make it a comfortable place to live?

The Stimulus Package

Now that petrol price is no longer an issue, what has surfaced as contentions for public debate is the recommended 3% reduction from the employee portion of the EPF monthly contribution.Although the intention to place higher disposable income in the hands of the workers is noble the other side of the argument is that EPF is meant to save for post retirement. Perhaps some people may not appreciate how difficult it is to just survive after one's retirement.That you need as much savings as you can to get along with life unless you manage to continue working.Somewhere in the equation a salary earner with a 11% EPF deduction may not have a taxable income whereas a 3% deduction will throw him into the taxable bracket. Try those with a RM2750 monthly income.In any case it is better to save for the rainy days than to spend it now.

As to whether the RM7 billion stimulus package is enough to maintain a reasonable growth figure for next year no one for sure knows. One thing for sure is crude oil prices has fallen more than half of its peak of US$147 in mid-July this year (at around US$55 per barrel) and so is palm oil and rubber.This will place a strain on revenue.One needs revenue to spend to generate growth.The good news is interest rate is lower but the banks are saying its not going to help them generate more lending.Why? Because banks may be afraid to lend.The construction sector seems to benefit most with the RM7 billion package but if the contractors get the jobs the ringgit will trickle down to the workers, who are mostly foreigners.The haste to spend may also pose problems.Implementation problems. Simply put, those who deserve do not get and those who do not get the jobs.Small roads, big roads, urban roads, rural roads, bridges, schools, houses etc will be the focus.Lets hope it works.China is setting aside US$565 billion stimulus package, South Korea US$300 billion, Singapore unlimited.US itself is already allocating US$700 billion, initially meant to buy up the banks' toxic debts but has since being diverted elsewhere including Citigroup.Our stock market has lost more than RM600 billion since the beginning of the year.The KLCI is not getting any better.In the meantime the ringgit is weaker against the US Dollar which is in a recession.From a high of RM3.10 six months ago it is now RM3.61 (as of Monday 24 Nov 08) so anything we buy we will have to pay more.Some will say but our products will be cheaper and more will buy but since everyone is almost in a recession, they will buy less.

The human factory

I must say the Vice Chancellors of our universities are superhuman.Their appointments are for a 2-year term during which time they are expected to inject new thinking into the universities, shift paradigm and catapult the ranking to a higher number.Really what can you do in two years when you are at the top, even four years for that matter.Royal Professor Ungku Aziz was at University Malaya for 20 years from 68 to 88.Recently one of the VCs contract was not renewed.That in itself is quite normal.What was not were the words and sentences used to describe why it was not renewed.They gave the impression that she was not doing anything much.Well Dato' no use arguing with the politicians.Its your own fault getting mixed up with university's administration.Should have stayed in the private sector, the banking sector for instance. I can imagine the problem in the university.I was once a Dean in one of what is now a university for a few years. Besides having to deal with all sorts of student behaviour, the staff members and the division heads pose endless dimensions of conflicting human behaviour.Those who deserve to be promoted do not get promoted.Some will rot until retirement times. Just because they dont belong to the right group.Those who know how to "carry" (ampu bodek) regardless of whether they can teach will go to the highest point in the scale.In-breeding is of course practice everywhere.We get mostly those with no experience.Up till now the Universities and Colleges Act do not allow lecturers to get part-time experience.It is in the process of being amended. The whole Act has killed students' motivation.They have become introverted and if we look at the future graduates in most universities they lack most of all self-confidence and communicative skills.Major reasons why most of them are unemployed.In the meantime the universities in the private sector develop by leaps and bound.Clearly there is a need to eliminate the many duplication of programmes and a need to sit down with employers to match industry's needs with universities' output.And that's not even half the story of the need to have the right ingredients of human capital to catapult this nation to be the first fully industrialised Muslim country in the world.

The world is not enough

The world is in a recession.The G20 gathering in Washington on Nov.18 came out with basic principles about having "college of supervisors" to examine books of investment companies operating globally.It reminds me of an example given by one of my university professors during the good years of the 60s and 70s.He said a lubricating company had a complaint of a leak with their cans.What would they need to do?Some students would say came out with a new design.The professor said, "Yeah, in the meantime the cans continue leaking!"This is exactly what happens with the G20 leaders. They came out with a 11-page communique in terms of what the future should be but not what they need to do to plug the leak now.Global stock markets are down or in such wild swings that one doesn't know what will happen next.Britain, Germany, Japan and of course US are already in a recession.Citicorp had to be rescued by the US Government and so was AIG, sponsors for the Manchester United.Growth figures in China is in a 19-year low, 7.5%.Back home the growth for next year projected to be 3.5%.Just yesterday Bank Negara lowered the interest rate to 3.25% and the statutory reserve rate to 3.5%.While it is acknowledged generally our financial institutions are not caught with the sub-prime mortgage problems or the derivatives linked to them, the world economy is slowing down and being an export oriented economy our exports are going to be lower.Already income from petroleum and commodities are much lower. Crude is trading around US$55 per barrel, more than half of the peak of US$147 in mid-July this year.Palm oil is a quarter of its peak and so is rubber.While the good news is petrol is at RM2 per litre but prices of goods still remains high.Red chilli for example has gone beserk as high as RM18 per kilo!The Government cannot do much with non-controllable items.So less chilli for your cooking.