NEM

Poverty is the major deprivation of human life. As the country advances, more and more high-rise buildings and eye-catching mega malls are built in the cities and all other forms of modernization also taken place so rapidly, we often forget that some people are still suffering from poor household income and can never afford to enjoy the prosperity of the country. Even the middle class are suffering to make ends meet as everything is getting more and more expensive nowadays. Buying an apartment in big cities such as PJ, KL will cost a fortune, children education is escalating and for a dollar to a dollar, even cars are very expensive here as compared to developed countries like US, Europe or Japan.

Just two days ago while traveling back from KL after a meeting, I was chit-chatting with our plantation advisor in the car. He told me that he spent almost one million ringgit for his two children who study abroad. I asked him whether worth it to do so as I told him that I would rather prefer the kids to study locally which is much cheaper so that more money can be saved for their future needs such as buying a house or starting up a business. He said that would depend on the situation but somehow agreed that studying oversea may not necessarily get a desired outcome, as not all the oversea graduates can get a good employment.

I often talk to a lot of people very senior to me during my course of work. Most of the planters or those working in the plantation industry often revealed the same thing, the cost of education is getting more and more expensive and that is the major household expenditure especially for family with many kids. None of the parents want the kids to be the school drop-out and therefore most of people have to struggle to raise their children and provided them with more and more expensive education in the hope that their children will be able to compete in a more challenging future. To get into local university is so competitive and although there are more and more private universities in the country, they are damn expensive.

PM said that the prime objective of NEM is to increase the per capita income to USD15000 by 2020. For years the issue of minimum wages for plantation workers is still unresolved due to forever dispute on the collective agreements. Mr. Prime Minister will have to engage his persuasive skills to convince the industry to increase the wages of the workers at the same time ensuring that the industry are not transferring the higher wages into their products or services or otherwise it will be back to square one as cost of living will certainly be going up. Seriously speaking, it is timely for the government to uplift the livelihoods of lower income groups and not just keep on churning out one after other mega projects in the way creating more wealth for their cronies.