The Selangor welfare plan will be unveiled when Pakatan celebrates their first 100 days between June 18-20. But since YB Lau Weng San has called for feedback, let's do an anticipatory feedback.
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There is talk of the establishment of trust funds for the poor, underprivileged and elderly in Selangor.
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Possible sources of funds
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Selangor has a projected state revenue of RM1.34 billion (Edge March 17,2008). With a projected administrative expenditure of RM670 million, the state has a 50% revenue surplus. So, clearly Selangor is sitting pretty from a financial standpoint.
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The state government is likely to use the budgetary mechanism of assigning specific revenue sources to specific trusts. It is also likely to use professional fund managers to manage these trust funds in order to grow the wealth using prudential investment criteria.
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Apart from the financial advantage, what also sets Selangor apart from the other states is Tan Sri Khalid who had an excellent track record in running Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB). There is no doubt that Khalid is parlaying his PNB management experience for the benefit of harnessing the Common Wealth of Selangor for the long-term benefit of, initially, the poor, underprivileged and elderly in Selangor.
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The end of rent-seeking policies?
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Although it is not unique by any measure this social welfare plank of Selangor is significant in that it signals an intention to move away from the rent-seeking policies that has dogged Malaysia's economic policies. Whether other features of Selangor's economic policies will escape rent-seeking tendencies remain to be seen. But the signalled intent is already a refreshing start.
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Non-discriminatory approach
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Another key feature of the nascent welfare policy is the absence of any ethnic discriminatory themes. The criteria appears to be objective. For the poor, there is likely to be a means test-approach. What constitutes "underprivileged" needs to be articulated in due course. As for the "elderly" it is a clear demographic cut-off and eligibility will literally be based on the date of birth.
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Can other states learn from this?
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States like Kelantan actually have very enlightened social and welfare programmes. Kelantan has done so via statutorily enacted bodies. It has created scarce revenue sources for these statutory bodies via alienation of land and natural resources in favour of specific statutory bodies.
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But a resource-starved and deficit state like Kelantan can learn from the professionalism that will feature in Selangor's state apparatus. The one thing Khalid has is a long list of names of professionals that he has personally dealt with during his time in PNB and Guthrie. We can be certain that he will be generous in sharing the contact list!
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This augurs well for the Pakatan-led states. It is a positive and concerted beginning.
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But I should hasten to add that this is also something that BN-led states can learn from. In this respect politics must take a backseat in favour of proper economic management. This, of course, assumes the absence of vested interests, cronyism and vestiges of rent-seeking behaviour.
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