Cabinet should decide six issues intimately connected with the programme of national economic recovery at its meeting in Pulau Langkawi tomorrow

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Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang

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(Petaling Jaya, Tuesday): In his speech at the administrative and diplomatic service annual dinner last night, Mahathir said that the uppermost objective of the proposed National Economic Action Council (NEAC) is to determine Malaysia’s recovery from current setbacks affecting the ringgit and the local share market.

He outlined five "necessary steps" to ensure the success of the national campaign to enhance Malaysia’s competitive edge in the world market so that speculative attacks by currency traders have no crippling effects, namely:

• Controlling prices and domestic expenditure through import reduction and minimising wastage of foreign exchange;
• Optimising exports to erase current account deficits and generate trade balance surplus instead;
• Improve productivity and quality to create higher demand and generate greater revenue for Malaysian products;
• Upgrading the people’s knowledge and efficiency.
• Stamping out any form of graft that impedes national advancement.

The Cabinet is meeting in Pulau Langkawi tomorrow and it should decide on six issues which are intimately connected with the programme of national economic recovery. They are:

• Immediate restoration of the prices of palm-oil based cooking oil to government-approved levels. The government's credibility on this front is at stake as prices of palm-oil based cooking oil continue to increase despite the Government's announcement that prices will not be raised and the condemnation by the Prime Minister of the raising of the prices of palm oil-based cooking oil as "unpatriotic and saboteurs of the national economy".
• Suspend the implementation of Fomema monopoly for the medical examination of the 1.7 million foreign workers until there is a full resolution of the controversial financial, medical, ethical and legal implications of the latest "privatisation" exercise by the government, the issues outstanding include:

1. Doctors who conduct the examination and is held responsible for it is remunerated less than the laboratory in the scheme;

2. The possibility of abuses in allowing employers to choose their own doctors to conduct the medical examination;

3. The issues of consent, confidentality and redress, grievance resolution procedure and registration fees.

• Scrap the saman ekor or the postal summons system as tens of thousands of motorists are victimised by a most unfair and unjust system and for the government to show that it is responsive and sensitive to widespread complaints by the people.
• Declare an all-out war against corruption and all forms of abuses of power as they impede national economic advancement and recovery, and send out a clear and unmistakable signal that the government is finally serious about creating a new culture in politics and public life with zero tolerance for corruption by immediately enforcing the Anti-Corruption Act 1997 which was passed by Parliament in May, received the Royal Assent and gazetted in September - rather than defer its enforcement until sometime next year.
• Formally approve the holding of a People's Summit by NGOs in the Asia-Pacific region to coincide with the 1998 Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) Summit to be held in Kuala Lumpur in November next year, in recognition of the role of NGOs in the building of a national as well as global civil society.
• Decide that the proposed National Economic Action Council (NEAC) should be a nationally unifying body to spearhead national economic recovery with the participation of all political parties and interest groups to mobilise entire national energies and efforts to overcome the current economic crisis and chart the economic revival of the country as well as ensuring that the NEAC is constitutionally legitimate and proper by receiving the sanction of Parliament by way of a formal motion before the end of the current Parliamentary meeting.

(2/12/97)