This link describes exactly how the government "hires" crowds:
http://zewt.blogspot.com/2012/04/free-trip-story.html

They just offer free trips to people and take them to these events. Ahmad Shabery only said they did not pay money. But they don't have to pay money. Just give people free food and free bus ride. No cash exchanged hands. So they can all wash their hands clean.

Even Sultan has to pay for number plate. Why all ministers are eligible for free plates?

Next time... just build a roof over the stadium...

Aiyo, the reason is simple. If you dig out all the scandals and lay them down one by one, the court case will take centuries. He will probably croak by then. So why be afraid??

You are reading the comments out of context. Yes, minimum wages are necessary, but it should not be the first and only step. The labour market in Malaysia is in dire need of overhaul. The countries that have implemented minimum wages successfully have corresponding productivity increases to match the increase in wages. Malaysia does not necessarily have this because some people refuse to work hard and choose to rely on their "entitlements" and "subsidies". These issues must be addressed along with the minimum wage and not dealt with separately. What the government is doing is very short-sighted thinking and can only be seen as "vote-fishing".

On its own, a minimum wage is most definitely a populist move. But this should be accompanied by a productivity movement, campaigning for people to work hard and improve their productivity. Talent is still not being rewarded by merit. Women are still staying out of the labour force. Our able-bodied youth are still being coddled and kept out of the work force. These are things that must be addressed as well to make the labour reforms comprehensive and useful.

Actually, what was reported was that a minimum wage can "create inflationary effects" not CAUSE HIGHER INFLATION. Those are two very different things. One is creating the pressure to push prices higher. But in my opinion, this should probably be one-off as companies adjust prices to cater for higher costs of labour. A one-off price adjustment is by no means considered "higher inflation". It is akin to implementing GST. You will not call that higher inflation. In order to CAUSE higher inflation, it must lead to a sustained price level increase across a broad category over time. This is unlikely to happen under a minimum wage scenario.

I am sorry to say that Idris Jala is only presenting half of the statistics. Maybe even less than that. If you look at the GDP data provided by the Department of Statistics, you will also see that government final consumption expenditure has surged by 21.7% and 23.6% in 3Q and 4Q 2011 respectively. If you convert this into contribution to GDP growth, these 2 components have contributed 2.6 and 4.1 percentage points in 3Q and 4Q 2011 compared with the average of 0.7 percentage points before that.

So to do a similar comparison with that done by our "smart" Pemandu CEO, instead of adding the "oil production" on top of our GDP, let us try removing the artificial propping up of the economy by the government and see where we stand. Using the average contribution as the baseline case, Malaysia's GDP growth in 3Q and 4Q 2011 would have been ONLY 3.9% and 1.8%!!! This would have resulted in an overall GDP growth in 2011 of a "massive" 3.8%!!!!

So Idris Jala, please do not use distorted statistics to make your arguments. The only reason Malaysia is still doing well is that the government is propping up the economy. This means that, when you talk about the other sectors "doing well", they are only doing well because the government is supporting them.

You are being way too kind to them. Do you not think that they would know if the prices that they were paying were far beyond exorbitant? You have stopped short of describing the actual picture.

The plain and simple fact of the matter is overbilling and rent-seeking. The billed amount does not reflect the actual amount of cash that changed hands. It is far more likely that the excess between the market price and the billed price is shared between the buyer and the seller.

First of all, the AG or the MACC must be given prosecuting power. Otherwise, they are just another toothless agency. This is akin to the ICAC of Hong Kong.

Secondly, the recommendations of the AG are all wrong. They recommend the same thing year in and year out and nothing ever happens. My recommendation is easy. The person who signs the contract MUST be held responsible for all accounts of overbilling, unless that person can prove that someone else did it. This ensures the transparency in multi-stages. First, the signatory has to do his/her own research to ensure that overbilling does not occur. Secondly, the signatory will not be in co-hoods with the actual perpetrators. Thirdly, the signatory (usually the director etc) will hire people he can trust to do the work without implicating him.

In short, just make the head responsible for all the lackeys. He would then have no choice but to ensure his lackeys do their jobs. Right now, everything is "close one eye". In Singapore, ANY form of involvement with regard to bribery or rent-seeking is punishable by being blacklisted from the civil service and forfeiture of pension entirely. That is how serious they take corruption. What about Malaysia? In the event we can prove any wrongdoing, the worst case scenario for the perpetrator is that, he/she is transferred to another department. This is an outrage!

It is actually more than double. And this is not just in one year. If you compare the world CPI against Malaysia's CPI, from 1970 onwards, the prices of consumer goods around the world have risen more than 8 times compared with Malaysia. All this has gone into subsidies and whatnot.

This is going to be another black comedy in the making. The best part is, the Malaysian people are paying for this movie production through taxes and corruption. He says he doesn't know. She says she doesn't know. So in the end, who knows?

Claiming ignorance does not absolve you from wrongdoing. If I see a red light and I drive through it and say that I didn't know red light means stop, will I still be breaking the law? I think if you don't know, it makes things even worse. If you don't know and you asked only one person, that shows how negligent you are. Nowadays, if you don't know anything, just GOOGLE la!!

Najib, did you ever study economics? This is the nature of oligopolies. Price collusion is only avoidable through regulation. You can pretend to side with the people in appealing to the telco's to not impose taxes on the people, but remember that you are the one who raised the service tax from 5% to 6%.

Even if the telco's agree to swallow the tax, they can easily just re-price their packages by colluding to increase the price by exactly 6%, but then charge no taxes, and charge it to inflation. After all, our teh tarik has been increasing in price as well. So why not prepaid cards?

There is nothing unfair about the service tax. It is a proportional tax where people who consume more are taxed more (in absolute terms). For those who reload once every 3 months or so, the effect of the tax is negligible.

So don't pretend to side with the people. Simpletons like us understand why taxes have to be imposed. What we cannot understand is, how the taxes are being used to fund corruption and rent-seeking. That is quite simply unacceptable and is an outrage.