Najib's 10MP

Najib Razak had announced the 10th Malaysia Plan (10MP) to transform the country into a high-income nation (eh, what happened to Vision 2020?), but failed to give us the nuts and bolts on how to achieve this grandiose plan. Yesterday’s announcement did not divulge details that will attract RM115 billion yearly over the next five years, and needing to grow private investments almost six-fold and the economy by six per cent annually until 2015.

.

This ambitious and big-thinking prime minister proposed that the RM230 billion five-year plan will have 52 high-impact projects costing a massive RM62.7 billion – more than five times the 22 projects costing RM12 billion tendered in the Ninth Malaysia Plan (Webpage http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/10mp-big-numbers-that-dont-add-up/, posted June 11, 2010). It would seem that Najib is going to spend, spend, spend. If he intends to make 10MP a sure success, then he’d better understand the effectiveness and impact of previous five-year plans too – so that he can skirt around the snares that will surely come his way. After all, we are living in challenging times and in an ever-changing environment.

Still, it is not incorrect to describe the 10MP as being long on proposals and short on details. The billion-dollar question is whether Najib can pull off his goal to speed up investments and slash subsidies (and while he's at it, to also plug government leakages in spending, expel cronyism and erase corruption) to boost competitiveness under his reform agenda. This is my biggest worry.

As an aside, the one item that I am relieved to read about is that the government is committed to reducing the fiscal deficit from 5.3% of the GDP in 2010 to less than 3% in 2015 (The Sun, June 11, 2010, p 2). It is important that the country is in good financial health. Can Najib do it? Will he do it?