KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 26 — The Pakatan Rakyat's (PR) 100-day reform plan is similar to the government's New Economic Model (NEM) except that the opposition pact is committed to seeing it through, a PKR leader said last night.
PKR director of strategy Rafizi Ramli claimed that the 100-day reform agenda, as listed in its "Buku Jingga", contains issues found in the NEM launched last year by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
"But for the past one year, there has not been a single action to show that they (Barisan Nasional) are serious about reform," said Rafizi at the "Buku Jingga" forum last night.
Among the reforms promised by PR within the first 100 days of taking over Putrajaya is to implement a special RM500 monthly allowance for teachers that would cost RM3.2 billion annually, according to Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
PR also promised to repeal the Internal Security Act (ISA), abolish the toll system by instructing Khazanah Berhad, Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) and other government bodies to take over highway assets from the concessionaires, as well as offer free wireless Internet access to those in urban and semi-urban areas.
Anwar had said that it would only cost the country RM19.2 billion to implement PR's reform plans.
Early this month, Najib derided PR's promises as "too good to be true" and claimed that they would bankrupt the country.
Last night, however, Rafizi stressed that PR could afford to fulfil its reform promises by restructuring subsidies given to independent power producers and energy companies.
"All it takes is a stroke of the pen to abolish gas subsidies to corporate bodies," said Rafizi, who had drafted the "Buku Jingga" before its launch at PR's second annual convention.
"Then we will have RM19 billion to pay for all the things planned in Buku Jingga," he added. Rafizi also told The Malaysian Insider later that "Buku Jingga" and the NEM shared similar goals in reforming the economy.
"There is not much difference between Buku Jingga and the NEM, in the sense that, they recognise that serious economic reforms are necessary," said Rafizi.
"There is the general acknowledgment that we must move away from the 30 per cent Bumiputera equity target but raise household income instead," he added.
The PKR strategy chief pointed out that the NEM's ambitious goal, however, was shot down by Malay right-wing groups like Perkasa.
"The difference is that part in the NEM was rejected," said Rafizi.
"But our commitment is to move away from the 30 per cent Bumiputera equity target to raise income regardless of race. At the end of the day, the Malays will benefit the most because they are the largest group in the lower income bracket," he added.
In December, the PM unveiled the second part of the NEM report. It lacked concrete measures to reform the New Economic Policy (NEP), which affords the country's majority ethnic Malays preferential quotas including for businesses, although it did pledge to target aid at the poorest 40 per cent of Malaysians regardless of race.
Rafizi also claimed that PR's commitment to political and economic reform would draw Malaysian professionals overseas back home.
"The first step we can do is to show that we the government have the sincerity and commitment in carrying out reforms. (Then) you will see 80,000 to 90,000 Malaysian experts overseas coming back" said Rafizi.
Najib recently expressed confidence that Malaysian talent based overseas would return home as his administration creates high-income jobs through big-ticket infrastructure projects, as outlined in his Economic Transformation Programme (ETP).
Talent Corporation was launched on January 1 to arrest the country's brain drain problem.
Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad echoed Rafizi's views and said pledges of fair treatment would encourage Malaysians to return to their homeland.
"They will be more willing to come back if the wealth of the country is shared equally,' Khalid told The Malaysian Insider.
"If they see a cleaner and more responsible government, they will want to come back," said the PAS MP, adding that a higher salary alone may not convince Malaysians to continue staying overseas.
It was reported that about 700,000 Malaysians are currently living abroad, with half of them in Singapore, while the rest can be found mostly in Australia, Britain and the United States
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