Bank Negara is too slow and doing too little!

Bank Negara has announced that it will reduce its overnight interest rate by 0.25% with effect from 1st December. The current rate is 3.5% and the reduced rate would be 3.25%!How can the economy waits for the BNM to wake up?

The world economy is changing by the minute if not by the second and yet the Malaysian central bank makes an announcement to reduce the over night rates effective a full week after the decision has been made to reduce it!!

The FED in the US fixed the key rate at 1% in order to minimise the effect of the recession and to let the home owners and business a breathing space. Most economist would agree what the FED did was correct under the circumstance. Malaysia would not be able to be isolated itself from the world crisis and as far as we know, there are a lot of Sarawak companies asking employees to take a month leave until further notice. Some in the export-based companies are asking the employees to take a pay-cut to deal with the problems.

2009 will see much difficulties for the businesses as well as those in the employment sector. Many would face lay-off and salary reduction and many more would file for bankruptcy. And many have term loans or housing loan and business loan with the bank. Like the saying goes "the bank only offer the umbrella during the good time..", i guess that is very true. I was a banker once and i know how the banks operate during the bad time, they simply take away the umbrella from the small businesses and the consumers while trying to protect the giant corporations because of their high exposure.

We do not have the safety nets for the unemployed while the advance countries offer social welfare programs to their citizen. How are the average going to cope with high interest rates during the time of recession? The government is not offering much hope except to say that Malaysia would be able to handle the economy crisis because of our high Foreign Reserve, that is bull to the ordinary people on the street. It seems that the BN government is lost as what direction to take as it fumbles on many issues and notably among them is the ECONOMY!

This morning in my weekly press conference, i lash out at the BN for their failure to address the problems of the people while spending all their resources and energy on party's in-fighting. UMNO, MCA, SUPP and PKR are all having leadership struggles. I asked them to prove me wrong and i challenge them to tell the people what we have to gain from their internal strife. Instead of govern, the BN is wandering in the bush.