Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced the formation of a talent corporation in the 10th Malaysia Plan (10MP) to seek out the Malaysian diaspora, and Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop said yesterday the task was to attract half of the 750,000 Malaysians working abroad.
“When will Najib and his ministers wake up and realise that the twin crisis of human talents and investments confronting the country are more than a matter of economics?” Lim said in a statement today.
Nor Mohamed, the minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, had also said yesterday that seeking out the Malaysian diaspora for the top brains was necessary as the government aimed to hit the target of RM115 billion per year in local and foreign investments to turn the country into a developed nation by 2020.
“It is shocking that Nor Mohamed could come out with such an unrealistic and ‘tall order’,” Lim said.
The Ipoh Timur MP pointed out that all previous government policies to check the brain drain have been dismal failures while the escalating tensions in the country were driving even more Malaysian to leave.
“Unchecked escalation of the rhetoric of race and religion would have the effect of giving a major push to a greater brain drain from the country instead of pulling back talents from the Malaysian diaspora to return to serve the country,” he said.
Lim also cited an article “FDI — more than economics” by Dennis Ignatius in The Star daily today highlighting a serious loss of confidence in Malaysia, which suffered an 81 per cent plunge in foreign direct investments (FDI) in 2009 compared with the previous year.
The FDI declined from RM23 billion in 2008 to a mere RM4.4 billion last year while there was massive RM25.4 billion outflow of capital.
Ignatius had attributed the declined to corruption and scandalous mismanagement of public finances which he described as “recurring with frightening regularity”, referring to the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone scandal as an example and pointed out that the nation was “helplessly careening from one major scandal to another.”
His conclusion is that real and effective political leadership is needed to tackle corruption as well as the growing racial and religious divide.
Lim, however, pointed out that this prescription is not new because the “New Economic Model cries out the same message”.
“But are Najib and his Cabinet capable of acting on this prescription with Malaysia at the crossroads?” he asked.
