The most powerful prime and finance minister in the world

Democracy is about separation of power and basic internal control principal dictates that segregation of duties as a corner stone of effective check and balance. Having the prime minister doubling up as the finance minister is already a deliberate and gross impropriety design of Malaysia’s executive branch.



However, a not very known amendment to the Income Tax Act 1967 has magnified the abovementioned weakness by unquantifiable folds.
Back in 2005, after the nation gave Pak Lah an overwhelming mandate to run the country (with already well documented results), the then prime minister cum finance minister gave himself a most overwhelming and stunning instrument of power (or potential avenue of abuse).
Section 127(3A) of the Income Act, 1967, has been amended as follows:

Sara Rakyat 1M, AS1M and national debt?

The latest BN flagship roll out in election year is the attention grabbing Sara Rakyat 1Malaysia which is already very well explained in this post.  
Kudos to the analyst for such an insightful piece of writing!
A responsible and proper government should be giving its people an environment where they can get good employment and business opportunity, clean and efficient governance. A responsible government should not be telling the deprived segment of population to borrow money and engage in equity investments.
The key selling point by BN administration is guaranteed return. No unit trust or investment manager in the world would dare to guarantee returns on investment.
Besides, if one is earning between RM500 to RM3,000, how much surplus that individual or family can afford to borrow and invest? They probably need a job and a fixed salary more, not some investments which pays a token RM50 a month but not immediately usable for buying household goods
Anyway, intrigued by the promise of “guaranteed return” I decided to find out more about this matter.

Is it really better off under BN than Pakatan?


It is customary for us to be lectured to be grateful to BN as they are the only one who can safeguard Malaysians’ well being.
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SEREMBAN, Oct 15 — Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin told Malaysians today to be grateful to the Barisan Nasional (BN) government for its many efforts which have improved their lives.
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He urged the Ampangan folk against following in the footsteps of people from Selangor and opposition-held states who voted for the opposition during Election 2008.
“It’s not easy to be the government; the opposition is only good at making promises which they never have to fulfil,” he was quoted as saying in Bernama Online.

Budget is also a form of a promise, i.e. a promise to deliver at a predetermined planned price. BN’s ability to fulfill promises is also open to scrutiny as we can see so many mega cost overruns whether it is for Bakun Dam, KLIA 2, PKFTZ or the new palace.
 Let's not talk about all those surpluses in Pakatan administered states for now.
I went to Jabatan Statistik Negara to evaluate the DPM cum Education Minister’s claim and come up with some interesting statistics.....