Living beyond the means 2

It was in June 2004 when I wrote about Malaysians bad habit of being over dependent on foreign labour to support their lifestyle. As a developing country we cannot afford it, and it is a habit that even a developed country do not indulge in.

The situation has become desperate and Abdullah Badawi expressed his government desire to arrest this runaway problem when he gave the closing speech at the recent UMNO AGM.

Unfortunately, typical of politician, he is not expected to walk the talk. It was in June 2004 that his Minister of Human Resources announced that in three months, a training centre under the Ministry, will start training locals to become professional domestic helpers. It was also reported that the Ministry will embark on structural adjustment programme to help manufacturers become more capital intensive and thus relying less on labour. Nothing had been done, and the Prime Minister is now merely repeating the same thing that was said in 2004 to pacify the citizen.

This problem has become a vicious circle, and by the year 2010 the Minister of Human Resource had said, if nothing is done, the number of immigrant labour in Malaysia will increase to more than five million.