Too many underpaid foreign workers in Malaysia?

Reading this report Foreign workers strike outside the JCY HDD Technology Sdn Bhd building in Kulaijaya on Tuesday.Respect our laws, Police say gives me the creeps. We have about 5 million underpaid and overworked foreign workers here, many more uncounted because they are illegal. This is the tip of the iceberg, and we have not seen the worse.. Fueled by plenty of illicit liquor being freely sold at so many 'outlets', hot weekends reminiscent of Singapore's Little India will soon be an event of normalcy, that's my warning.

Which comes to my confusion regarding FDIs or foreign investments. During my early working days in the 70s, we were told that those huge semi conductor firms are given tax incentives to invest and manufacture in Malaysia, due to our tax incentives (pioneer status), good infrastructure, and educated and smart workforce, and an amicable administration. One big reason touted was the availability of tens of thousands of young local [read Malaysian] workers, who keep production costs very low.. Now these low costs are replaced by overworked and underpaid foreign workers who send 80% of what they earn home, thus depriving Malaysia of a significant local consumption churn due to domestic spending. These foreign workers do not add value to our living standards, and contribute more destruction to our environment due to habits brought in from their native countries. Not to mention using up some of our dwindling potable water resources.

What then do these FDIs like JCY HDD bring to our nation? Do they pay taxes, or do they have extended tax holidays like those who come before them, like Motorola? Do they retain their export earnings and spend them in Malaysia, or do they, as expected, repatriate them overseas, like their underpaid foreign workers do with their meagre wages.

If these foreign investments do not benefit our nation as much as before, and give much needed employment to our locals, and provide the necessary transfer of technology, are we then doing the right thing by encouraging them, and then find our countries deluged by so much foreign labour, with increasingly undesirable social consequences that we are seeing today, and more frequently in the near future.

Is this the correct way to achieve "high income status" whatever that means ?

Tam
P Jaya

Thugs allowed to set agenda in Malaysia

Hi Azmi,

Whenever I read your columns, which I crave for like some who crave for sheep placenta, I find myself always nodding slowly in agreement. This time, my head was nodding so vigorously, as if I just had consumed a bottle of those 'kuda' pills.

In my weekly kopi talk with old friends, the impression that we get is that, not only are the cowardly leaders thinking of their own votes, but it is those same vile leaders who are 'setting' up the thugs to mouth their 'innermost feelings'.

Worse, all of us think that it is "informal" 'Government policy', when an individual wants to behead protestors for non issues, and another wants to replace Malaysians with the 5 million legal/illegal aliens in our midst, the leaders pretend to be deaf.

I have always challenged my elected representatives on issues close to the heart, and I hope more will do the same, civilly but firmly.

At the present moment, we the down trodden can only suffer, albeit not in total silence, as we feel that our leaders are not matured enough to agree to dissenting views, preferring to use thugs to force their say.. In Chinese Cantonese, we call that behaviour, "Yeh Marn"; yes exactly the type of behaviour demonstrated by gangsters and thugs.

Tam YS

Quote from *Thugs allowed to set agenda*.......  " It is a place where cowardly leaders think only of their votes and not of making a stand against vile people and their vile deeds. There is so much going on which is going to affect our basic needs of hearth and security. While the wheels of capitalism turn, we the ordinary folk are going to find it harder and harder to just make ends meet. Yet we allow thugs to set the agenda. We allow non-issues to become national debating points. We allow the vicious to go on screaming malicious words with God on their lips and hatred in their hearts..."

" We can challenge our elected representatives into a corner. Force them to tell us where they stand. We can support the downtrodden. We can gather together in huge numbers to make a stand not for any political reason, but to show the bigots that they are not the only ones in this land and that their cruel philosophies are not welcome.

Global warming, it's irreversible

More alarming news on climate

By 2100, the quantity of 'greenhouse gases' in the atmosphere will be deemed 'unlivable'

Balkans flooding threatens Serbia power plants, 37 dead

The worst floods in the history of Serbia, and even before that! {not seen in a 1000 years}

MAA has forecast total vehicle sales in Malaysia to grow 2.2% to a new high of 670,000 units this year.

One main reason for the current situation... the ever increasing use of motor vehicles. Which company in the world is willing to commit to lower sales?? Where is the political balls to tackle this?

Cryptocurrency conundrum, or bitcoin woes

Reading an excerpted article in Star today, "Bitcoin Mining boom sputters"  and in Star2, 'paper version' "Cryptocurrency conundrum" {unfortunately I can't find the online version}, what started as in 'individual' pursuit has become the monopoly of "miners", not unlike the De Beers Diamond monopoly and a host of other Muscled corporations. Also Reading through this, "Beginner's Guide to Mining bitcoins" it sure looks like the "free lunch" phase of bitcoin mining has long gone.

Which makes me think. Who owns those bitcoin AVMs in Bangsar KL, and Gurney Plaza, Penang? Miners, or exchange companies,{like our money changers?}

Either way, the "investing" small time public is already screwed. Getting your bitcoin at its intrinsic value, and holding it for eventual profit is a dream. Who has to pay for those massively computing "mining equipment and electricity bills" and who will pay the Transaction fees for the money exchangers? Hahahah, we already know,,, the suckers!

Well, you can expect a lot of those suckers to be around Bangsar and Gurney Plaza, or else how do those Nigerian scammers con Audit firm owners of millions of ringgit, among many others

Water shortages, illegal immigrants exacerbate the situation?

I wish to refer to your report, It's worse than 1998, 80 days of water left. and I agree we are indeed in dire straits. With timber continuously being felled due to concessions being awarded annually to Timber corporations, compounded with illegal logging rampant in the catchment areas nationwide, an imminent emergency situation now seems more likely than ever.

However, I would like to point out some statistics put up to explain the increasing water shortages, and I quote, " ... During the country’s worst recorded water crisis in 1998, 4.2 million people had to survive on 2,553 million litres per day (MLD), a shortage of 105 MLD. This time around, 7.1 million people need 4,900 MLD but only 4,367 MLD is available – a shortage of 533 MLD...." This is a critical situation, but I think it's even more critical than the statistics have painted. Did LUAS include the 2 million or more, registered and illegal foreign workers that we have 'imported' since 1998? Foreigners are not included in the official census of the State, correct me if I am wrong, and if we include the water requirements of the aliens working and staying here, ie., 7.1million +2 million, our current expected water shortage would be even more severe.

I am not sure then, if an Emergency situation already exist, are we not cognizant of the fact? The public would require some assurance from the authorities on this, and expect the correct decision to be taken to ameliorate our sufferings based on accurate facts.

Precious resource: what about the foreign workers?

Foreigners getting out of hand!

Reading this story in TheStar, Assaulted orang asli group claims cops sided with attackers... quote "A group of orang asli are crying foul over what they say is police inaction after a few of them were assaulted by about 100 Myanmar nationals over land disputes, " one can't help but wonder if Malaysia has reached the "tipping point" in its continued exploitation of cheap low skilled foreign labour, many "imported" illegally. We have mentioned that unfettered and uncontrolled use of so many underpaid workers, who have no loyalty to the nation, will cause harm to our social fabric, besides consuming much of our limited natural resources such as potable water and arable land.

Two days ago, some foreigners killed a police officer brutally, and the latest incident shows the impunity that the Myanmars have acted, though it would seem with tacit backing? But what is unacceptable is the fact that foreigners, some maybe illegal migrants can attack our orang asli, the true natives of the land over land disputes?

What a shame!
Foreigners getting out of hand!

Who do we blame for water woes?

I refer to the letter, Who do we blame for water woes? by S. Param in which he alluded that the current water shortage cannot be totally caused by the unpredictable weather as a consequence of global warming. Politicians playing their usual politics have also been a significant reason, he maintains, and the 6 year delay on the Langat-2 dam is evidence of that.

While I agree with him that this could be true, the Langat-2 tunnel project is just a project made necessary due to decades of blatant exploitation of our natural resources and wanton destruction of our limited forest reserves and catchment areas that has brought on the current plight.

In addition to taking steps like the Langat2 tunnel to overcome our water shortages, we must also be vigilant to other exploitative efforts by insensitive politicians and ever greedy business cronies to inflict further long term damage to our environment with direct consequence to our future ability to have sufficient drinking water.

In today's report in The Star, Better jams now than no water, environmental groups have expressed serious concern at the imminent expressway project KLORR that will cut through Selangor's water catchment areas and forest reserves. The project, if pushed through by unscrupulous politicians and business cronies, will have the material effect of reducing our water catchment capacity, not to mention the destruction of pristine forests and the loss of diminishing wildlife. The Forest Research Institute also expressed its consternation in an earlier report FRIM comes under threat

Malaysians, and politicians, must wake up to the fact that we cannot continue to have more "Langat-X" type projects to keep our citizens satiated. The destruction of forest reserves (set up for the good of future generations) will cause drastically reduced water retention in the local situation, and will even contribute to global warming in the international context.

Progress and development must be made in tune with Mother Nature, or we suffer its wrath!

please help a family in distress!

Dear friends,

I am writing this to seek assistance for an extremely unfortunate family, who is struggling daily to survive, but which seems to be hit by more adversity or as the Malays call it, "Jatuh ditimpa tangga"

Background. Sometime last year, my wife and her kind friends met a lady Saraswathy who was supporting 18 children together with her husband who is a lorry driver. 7 of the children are her own, the others belong to her brothers, one of whom died in an accident, while the other took his own life! When we met her, she has just moved out from the low cost flat in Taman Medan, as that place was infested with drug addicts and petty criminals, and she feared for the safety of her 'brood'. As she was working in the Assunta Hospital kitchen, the church pastor kindly introduced her to a kind lady, who allowed her to rent the house beside the Assumption Church in Jalan Templer PJ at a nominal rate.

We have been supplying rice and oil and groceries to her and the family on a monthly basis, for more than 6months.

Situation now. When my wife and her friend went to deliver the monthly rice and oil quota this morning, we found her to be in a desperate situation. Because she has to take time off from her kitchen work to send her several children to school on her motorbike, the 'new' supervisors at the kitchen saw that as shirking, and she is now out of a job! The family try to make some money by selling fruits and nasi lemak outside the church.

I am therefore asking you, my compassionate friends, when you read this letter, if you want to consider assisting her in any way. Having so many children who need to be schooled is really challenging, and she is trying to prevent them 'falling into the wrong hands'.

If you can see a way to assist her in the short or long term, please call Saraswathy 016 909 0503. If however you are too busy to do it, you can contact me and my wife and her friends are happy to help you carry out your wishes.

Thank you very much, and have a blessed day

Cost cutting measures a farce?

Coming from the recent Government announcement of 11 cost cutting measures, including cuts on travel and entertainment allowances of civil servants and the cessation of all Government renovation works, this announcement that 100,000 public sector posts to be filled is indeed a surprise!

100,000 posts will represent a further increase of close to 10% of an already BLOATED public sector, not including those thousands in the GLCs. Imagine the burden on our future generations, the pension and other liabilities that the Government has to fork out.

The public will have a right to question if the Government's announced measures to cut cost is done in all sincerity, or is it, as many like to say just 'sandiwara'?

100,000 Government vacancies a surprise

Malaysia's top brass not corrupt, says Dato Zaid???

Joke of the month by Datuk Zaid Ibrahim

" Malaysia is of course free of corrupt practices amongst top civil servants, political leaders, police officers and judges. This probably explains why we have not heard of any “big fish” being hauled up except for a few discredited former grandees. "

http://www.thestar.com.my/Opinion/Columnists/All-kinds-of-everything/Profile/Articles/2014/01/03/Corruption-a-thing-of-the-past/