Gov’t unwilling to address elephant in national budget 

Shahidan dares opposition to accept 50pct pay cut

AntiRacial: Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Shahidan Kassim, we all know even your salary is cut by 100 percent, you and your colleagues still can manage as ministers.

Ministers like you who keep finding fault on the opposition to please your master might get additional “allowance” every time you bring up an issue against the opposition.

Will you accept 50 percent pay cut after GE14 when you are relegated to the opposition bench?

Donplaypuk: Only someone like Shahidan will ask opposition MPs to take a 50 percent pay cut when criticised about the bloated civil service.

The number of MPs is fixed by the constitution, while the size of the civil service is entirely under the control of PM Najib Razak and his incompetent government.

For 2017, the budget for civil service pay is RM77.4 billion or 36 percent of the government expenditure, up almost 10 percent from 2016. Why?

Has there been a huge increase in productivity? No. Might it be an election year? Yes. By all accounts, our civil service is over-staffed by at least one-third.

The pension cost to be shouldered by future generations will be huge. Instead of addressing these huge problems now, Shahidan has turned the civil service into a kind of welfare department for political gains.

This is the Umno/BN we should throw out at the next GE because they don’t care about bankrupting us and turning Malaysia into a third world country.

GE14Now!: For BN politicians to take a 50 percent pay cut is not a problem because their salaries are really not all that significant against what they are allegedly getting out from the country.

What’s a 50 percent payout in the PM’s salary against a ‘windfall’ of RM2.6 billion?

Clever Voter: Shahidan should not be so emotional over the debate on the size of our civil service. Neither should opposition be so defeatist. They should ask us, the taxpayers.

The government money is our money. They have no right over this.

The problem with patronage system is all about political support and not about providing value to society. It’s about paying for our right to exist and not about exercising our rights.

Anonymous 539281478077880: Shahidan, it’s no use “getting out of your head”. Think carefully about the civil service which is indeed bloated. No one can deny it. Don’t try to cover up the truth by raising your voice.

Look into the government agencies where many “unwanted” are idling about or warming their chairs. Many in the government offices are seen busy with their cell-phones.

I personally had to reprimand an officer who was on the cell-phone in the next counter. The reason: no work. If these types of people make up the civil service, then we might as well downsize it.

At least millions of ringgit can be saved. I’m not accusing all civil servants. But please check periodically and you would know the truth. Also, please check the cafeterias. They are full of workers at odd times.

Nehru: Frankly, BN members can go with zero salary but opposition state assembly members and opposition parliament members need the salary as that’s all they get, while BN can get allegedly from 1MDB and SRC.

Grey Matter: Indeed, Umno MPs don’t need their salaries, their alleged ‘dedak’ (animal feed) is much, much more.

The Rukunegara is nothing more than a placebo

David Dass: Our country is changing dramatically. In Sabah, the Christians were the majority at one point in time. Now they are not.

At one time, the non-Muslims were close to 40 percent of the civil service and the police and armed forces. Now they are less than 10 percent. At one time, the Chinese were 36 percent of our population and the Indians 12 percent, and now they are 26 percent and 7 percent respectively.

At one time, it was considered unlawful for an educational institution to exclude students on the basis of race – now the country’s largest university, UiTM (Universiti Teknologi Mara), does just that. At one time, the majority of Chinese children went to government primary schools along with Malay and Indian kids. Now most Chinese kids go to Chinese vernacular schools.

At one time, most Malaysians went to public higher educational institutions. Now more Malays go to public colleges and universities and more non-Malays go to private colleges and universities.

Whilst I do not support making the Rukunegara a preamble to the constitution because it is not written as a legal document, I understand the intention of the promoters of this idea. And that is to provide a context and a construct to frame the principles set out in the constitution – the unity of all, the equality of all – under one God.

And why is that considered necessary? Because there are loud voices calling for, and pushing for, interpretations of the constitution that would make Malays ‘dominant’ in the sense of ‘ketuanan Melayu’ and promote the superiority and supremacy of Islam over all other religions.

As commander S Thayaparan points out – the constitution is an adequate document. It clearly states that all Malaysians are equal under the law and enjoy the equal protection of the law and also guarantees freedom of worship. If our constitution properly understood, interpreted and applied, nothing further is necessary.

The promoters of the Rukunegara Preamble see the movement in the federation and are troubled by it. We have a retired chief justice and a retired High Court judge actively advocating a view of the constitution that is patently wrong.

Malaysians are a diverse nation made up of people of distinct ethnicities and religions. We have always respected our differences and lived peacefully together. All our democratic institutions and agencies of government should recognise everyone as being equal and treat them equally.

Judges should uphold the oath they take to uphold the constitution and to promote justice without fear or favour.

Proarte: A brilliant analysis on the Malaysian dilemma. How can Rukunegara ‘unite Malaysians’ when there is a stipulation that there should be a belief in God? What if one is an atheist, polytheist, animist or a spiritualist?

To my mind, the preamble is nothing more than a smokescreen and not even a placebo. In actual fact, it would make the constitution more divisive and exclusivist then it is already.

It does nothing to repudiate the supremacist and exclusivist tenor of the Malaysian constitution or to offer solutions to this blot on our national conscience.

Our current constitution allows for freedom of worship. The Rukunegara would be in conflict of this by forcing citizens to believe in God.

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