Malaysians are known to be one of the worst group of people …… when it comes to reading ….. or the lack of it.

Parents have the most difficult of task in encouraging their children to read as much as possible ……. this being one of the main means in building a good English vocabulary …… for communication purposes.

Alas, not many children are prepared to do so …… and this may explain the abysmal standard of English amongst Malaysian children when compared to say 25 to 30 years ago!

It stands to reason therefore that it is the older generation Malaysians who articulate it much better.

Unfortunately, their commentary on the plight of Malaysia’s serious short-comings are hardly HIGHLIGHTED in the mainstream press and if they do, they are generally confined to the small print.

This may be due to the attempt by the current administration to create a ‘feel good’ Malaysian environment ….. as a precursor to the calling of the next General Elections!

But to be fair to the press, some of the concerns are reported and printed in the media …… but targeted only to sections of the public eg economic news, property news etc …. ie they are not targeted and highlighted for the attention of the Rakyat at large.

Let’s look at one example starting with ex-Bank Negara Malaysia Deputy Governor, Lin See Yan, who was quoted as follows in last Saturday’s Star Biz Week whilst commenting about Malaysia’s economy:-

• In this country we love form rather than context and in the process of assessment, we bastardised the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

• We try to keep KPIs for the sake of the numbers. Even in education we look at how we are ranked, and we break it down and see how we can play with the numbers in order to meet (KPI) criteria so that we can be upgraded.

• That is not the way, we must start from meritocracy. If you don’t do that, you can meet your all KPIs but you are still be back to square one.

• As far as the Government is concerned, I am not worried about the Government per say.

• I’m worried about the government agencies which are piling up debt. If you look at the development expenditure, it’s the agencies that are the big spenders. What sort of return on capital are we are getting?

• We say the right things – liberalisation, bringing taxes down, taking away subsidies, but in reality we do the exact opposite.

And this is coming from someone who has seen it all ….. from the time he was Deputy Governor to Tun Ismail Ali in Bank Negara Malaysia to this present moment in time.

Doesn’t it make you shudder to think that our country’s bureaucrats have allowed the system to de-generate to what it is today?

They are now kidding themselves into believing that everything is still hunky-dory and that there is this light (artificial, I am sure) at the end of the tunnel.

Do you now know why we need a two party parliamentary system into order to keep the checks and balances working?

Click HERE for the full interview given by Lin See Yan and others to The Star.