Being grateful is Love, the simple things?

Datuk Seri Idris Jala and the Kelabits have shown that being grateful is a way of showing real humility but it should not be mistaken as being subservient.

THERE was an elderly Kelabit man who had never seen a TV set in his life – not until he visited his son’s modern house.

He sat on the sofa and watched the news and his son noticed that the old man paid special attention to reports on the floods in Kelantan, especially the deaths due to drowning.

The father turned to his son and asked why there were deaths? He was shocked when he was told it was an annual occurrence.

“Why didn’t they just move away from the river? Our people would have just moved to higher ground,” he said.

This story was related to a group of about 30 analysts and journalists at a briefing on Thursday by probably the most famous Kelabit of all, Datuk Seri Idris Jala. The old man was his father Henry Jala.

“That’s how our people are. Our tribe has moved to near the Kalimantan border just to get away from the floods,” said Idris, who is the boss of Pemandu – the government unit set up to implement the New Economic Model and the various transformation programmes.

Pemandu is the acronym for Performance Management & Delivery Unit of which Idris is the chief executive officer. He is also a Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department.

He readily admits his bias towards the rural transformation programme and the key initiative to build basic infrastructure for the rural folk.

“Till today, my village has no electricity supply. Fifteen years ago, our longhouse was burnt down because a woman forgot to put out a candle before going to sleep,” Idris told the audience as he expounded the virtue of the Government Transformation Programme and the Economic Transformation Programme.

(The acronyms of GTP, ETP and Pemandu has become synonymous with Idris.)

The Kelabits, numbering some 5,000, are probably the most successful bumiputra community in Sarawak.

It has been reported that at least 90% of the Kelabits are literate and that some 10% of them have obtained diplomas, degrees, post-graduate degrees and professional qualifications. At least another 1,000 have sat for their Form Five examination.

Besides Idris, the community has got doctors, lawyers, police officers, engineers, millionaire businessmen and top state civil servants.

Ask any Sarawakian about Kelabits, and they will speak of them in a respectful tone with full admiration.
After all, many of the older ones are well-known warriors and war veterans.

One could even say that pound for pound, the Kelabits are the most highly successful community in the country despite their small number.

Idris had told another audience at a more informal setting at Tapis Rouge – a restaurant cum mini-theatre owned by celebrity Datin Seri Tiara Jacqueline – that his people who lived in the Bario Highlands, although led a simple life, were ambitious.

A widely travelled man, Idris told of his life in Holland and Britain and how our country was not that lacking.

“I have always considered my life very blessed. I constantly remind myself that Malaysia has got a lot going for it.

“While we look admiringly at the roses far away, we must not forget the roses that are in our own garden,” he told his audience at his Blues Jam session at Tapis Rouge.

Idris said his favourite quote on this came from management guru Dale Carnegie which went: “It is tragic when we put off living. We dream of a magical rose garden over the horizon and miss the roses blooming outside our windows”.

The strain of leading the Government’s charge to transform the nation into a high-income and developed nation shows on Idris face but his bubbly self seems to shine through whenever he gets his hands on a guitar.

In his closing remarks to the 300-odd friends and supporters who turned up to hear him sing and play the guitar, Idris reminded them that Malaysians must learn to count their blessing and “learn to love the simple things like music, family and roses”.

Come Monday, the 2011 annual reports of the ETP and GTP will be submitted to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak live on TV at 8.30pm.

> Executive Editor Wong Sai Wan is still looking forward to a trip to the Bario Highlands to see for himself the Kelabits in their own environment.

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Shandong workers driven to despair!

Aaron Ngui newsdesk@thesundaily.com

GEORGE TOWN (March 28, 2012): Driven to despair by alleged ill-treatment from her employer, a mother of two from China tried to take her life on Tuesday afternoon by jumping off the busy Jalan Aziz Ibrahim flyover.

Wang Li Mei, 38, was however persuaded by police, who had been alerted by passers-by, to change her mind.

She was among four women from Shandong province in China who came to Penang three years ago to work as reflexologists and who claimed to have been mistreated and their pay withheld by their employer.

The other women are Duan Li Hong, 23, Jiang Yong Ken, 38, and Zhang Ying, 38.

Speaking on their behalf, Pantai Jerejak assemblyman Sim Tze Tzin said the final straw for Wang was when she tried to get her pay, which had been withheld since last December, but was rebuffed.

"She was so upset that she resorted to this desperate act," he told a press conference today after their plight came to light following the incident.

Sim said the four were owed more than RM10,000 each by their employer and claimed they had to work "day and night" from 11am to 1am at the centre near the popular Queensbay Mall here.

He said the four were also not allowed to go anywhere and were only given 45 minutes twice a week to shop for groceries.

"They have to sleep in the centre which is locked from the outside and they do not have a key to exit the building," he said.

All four have since lodged police reports.Sim urged employers to treat employees with respect and dignity.

He said an application for a protection order would be made at the magistrate's court and he would contact the Chinese embassy to assist the four.

When approached, Wang said she missed her two daughters, aged 10 and four, very much.

"I came here to work to lighten my family's burden. Now I just want my money and to go home," she said.

South-west district police chief Supt Mohd Hatta Mohd Zin, when contacted, said police were investigating the case under section 13 of the Anti-Human Trafficking Act 2007.

Boss who allegedly ill-treated Shandong workers out on bail

By WINNIE YEOH  winnie@thestar.com.my

BALIK PULAU: The man who had allegedly mistreated his four Shandong workers at his reflexology centre in Bayan Baru has been released on bail.

The 36-year-old was earlier detained for two days at the Southwest District police station here. Balik Pulau OCPD Supt Mohd Hatta Mohd Zain said investigations were still ongoing.

Four Chinese nationals, Duan Li Hong, 23, Wang Li Mei, Jiang Yong Fen and Zhang Ying, all aged 38, had lodged police reports against the man for mistreating them over a period of three years.

They claimed that they had to work 364 days a year and had not been paid since December.

When Wang resorted to attempting suicide, the man brushed aside the threat, telling her to “go ahead”.

He even offered to inform the Chinese Embassy after her death. Frustrated, Wang tried to jump off an overhead bridge along Jalan Aziz Ibrahim but was stopped by policemen

The four have been sent to a women's protection centre in Kuala Lumpur and will stay there for 14 days to facilitate investigations. Meanwhile, the man, who wished to be known only as Lim, denied mistreating the four.

“They earned about RM1,800 a month and they were not locked up in their workplace at night.

“There are two more Indonesian workers staying there and the key is left at the counter,” he said. He also denied that he had told Wang to “go ahead”.

“I don't know how she cooked up the story. I do have a CCTV footage showing Wang and Duan having a fight in the shop on the same day when Wang threatened to jump off the bridge. I was having a meeting in Tanjung Tokong at that time.”

Lim also claimed that he had helped Duan to send RM60,000 back to China over the past 18 months.

“I keep the receipts of every transaction. I don't know how she could have so much of money,” he added. 

Malaysia's minimum wage, and its implications

Dramatic rise in wages poses upside risk to inflation
  
NOMURA RESEARCH

RECENT news suggests that Prime Minister Najib is likely to announce setting a minimum wage on Labour Day (May 1). This is authorised under the National Wages Consultative Council Act of 2011 passed by parliament in July last year.

Because of the looming general elections, the announcement is likely to be construed as politically motivated, but there are also important economic consequences of a legislated minimum wage requirement.

The minimum wage is likely to be set anywhere between RM800 to RM1,000 per month. If we assume RM1,000, this would imply a significant 17% rise in the wages of unskilled workers, which according to Malaysia's Employers Federation 2010 Salary Survey, are earning an average RM852 a month.

To put this in perspective, it compares with the average increase of wages in the manufacturing sector of only 6% per year.

This poses an upside risk to inflation, in our view. First, overall labour productivity growth, which has been slowing in the last few years to an average of 2.7% (versus 5.3% pre-1998), is likely to substantially lag the potential increase in minimum wages, resulting in a rise in unit labour costs.

Second, while one could argue that the legislation only affects a certain segment of the employed sector, in 2010 the share of private wage earners earning RM1,000 or below comprise nearly 50% of total employment, according to the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research.

Given the significant share, this is also likely to affect wage negotiations among higher skilled workers, and could stoke higher wage expectations.

As is common in other countries (e.g. Indonesia), minimum wages can be perceived as a wage-setting mechanism (which sets a floor to actual wages) rather than just a safety net for low-wage workers.

Finally, given the current strength in domestic demand (indeed Bank Negara's annual report suggests that domestic demand “will continue to be the anchor for growth,”) firms are likely to pass on rising input costs, fueling CPI inflation.

There are also longer-term concerns:

● Minimum wages could introduce rigidities into the labour market that may ultimately structurally raise unemployment rates. We think part of the reason Malaysian unemployment rates recovered quickly during the 2008/09 global financial crisis is that wage flexibility allowed downward adjustment in wages rather than employment losses during the downturn. Indeed, wages fell more sharply in 2008/09 than in the previous recession, and the unemployment rate recovered to pre-crisis levels more quickly and stayed there until now. The legislated minimum wages could reduce some of that flexibility.

● This could also hurt external competitiveness, which, as we have argued before, is facing some pressures that are not due to an appreciating real exchange rate. If a minimum wage of RM1,000 is set, Malaysia's labour costs will be nearly twice the regional average and will be the highest in South-East Asia except Singapore.

We understand that the Government is fully aware of these concerns and has pledged to address them by a broader set of structural reforms under Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak 's New Economic Model and the 10th Malaysia Plan unveiled in 2010.

The problem, however, is implementation has been slow so far and without more meaningful progress, these concerns will likely persist. One key argument of the proponents of the minimum wage is that this is supposed to complement these reforms by imposing a hard constraint on firms to improve productivity and reduce their reliance on low-skilled, low-wage foreign workers.

The risk is the reforms lag the minimum wage implementation, and hence the argument fails to hold, while external competitiveness could suffer.

The extent of the impact will still depend on the level of the minimum wage set, and the enforcement among firms.

While the latter remains to be seen, for the former, we can draw on some findings from academic literature to gauge the optimal level of the minimum wage, i.e. whether it is high enough to improve living standards of wage workers but low enough to keep competitive pressures under control.

A study by the World Bank suggests that a useful rule of thumb for developing economies is that the minimum wage at the national level should be no more than 40% of average wages.

By this benchmark, a minimum wage set at RM1,000 for Malaysia seems appropriate on average, though there is considerable variation across sectors. For instance, it is around 41% of the current average in the manufacturing sector, but about 75% of the rubber sector.

In terms of the near-term monetary policy implications, although headline inflation eased for the fourth consecutive month in February to 2.2% year-on-year from 2.7% in January, we see risks to our current policy rate forecast of a total 50 basis points cut in the second half of 2012.

We think the risk of Bank Negara remaining on hold for the rest of 2012 has already increased given that in its recently released annual report, the central bank continued to assess that “at the current level (3%) of the overnight policy rate, monetary conditions remain supportive of economic activity.”

Minimum wages implemented in May could provide additional upside risks to inflation, when fiscal policy is highly expansionary and commodity prices are elevated.

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