By Mohammad Danial bin Mohd Yusof
GOMBAK, 28 October 2014: A forum entitled “Budget 2015: An Analysis” was conducted by the Presidential Secretariat Student Representative Council today to provide the IIUM community with a better understanding on the recent 2015 budget, which was recently presented by Prime Minister, Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib Tun Razak.
On the panel were Head of Economy Cluster and Management, National Professors’ Council, Prof. Datuk Dr. Noor Azlan Ghazali and Chief Executive Officer of Harakah Daily, Dr. Rosli Yaakop. Among the guests who attended the programme were Deputy Rector (Academy and Planning), Prof. Dato’ Dr. Mat Tahir Mat Azhar and Director of Corporate Communication Division, Dato’ Hamidon Abdul Hamid.
The forum started with discussion by Dr. Rosli Yaakop who introduced the two terminologies in the country’s economic system: capital economy and people’s economy. He stressed three problems Malaysian citizens were now faced with: the rise cost of living, widening divide between the rich and the poor, and the rise of debts among citizens.
“If the 2015 Budget has a positive answer to these problems, then surely it is people’s economy,” he added.
The second speaker, Prof. Dr. Noor Azlan, spoke from different perspective. He said to speak about economy, we must have the right context of it. He said that the country’s economy now was much different from that of the 1970s. He also said that the economy in Africa is different from Malaysia.
He claimed that although many people said Malaysia is a poor country but we are not poor as we have the least percentage in terms of poverty rate. He added that the economic depression did not originate from Malaysia but from other countries.
Dr. Noor Azlan further said that we need to set a target so that we can easily achieve 2020 vision. We need to optimise the use of technology to develop our country. He added that when a person progressed, the state would progress as well.
According to Noor Azlan, our policies are very dependent and it would be dangerous to the citizens if the government still did not take initiative to make changes to our country. There were two expectations of 2015 budget, one that concerned individuals and nation, and the other, goodies and opportunities.
The talk by the two speakers took about one hour and the rest of the time was occupied with question and answer session.***