Generous Giving

I am not rich nor am I poor / struggling. I supposed one can say that I lead a “comfortable” life. I do try to make small little donations to charities/society every year, if possible. I wish I could have been more generous, but it is hard when one has to think about saving for one’s retirement and old age – after all, the financial planners have been telling us all that we need RM 1mil to retire! Plus we Asians tend to feel obligated to leave part of our wealth to our family members / children after we have passed away.

Hence, I have great admiration to those who have little/barely enough but still make it a point to donate whatever little they have for good causes - these are the generous poor. I think their donation is much more meaningful than mine and that of the rich, especially those who donate only millions when they have billions.

The heroic efforts of these generous poor seldom make it into the news. One exception – a Chen Shu Shu from Taiwan, who was voted one of Time Magazine 100 Most Influential People in 2010. Ms Chen, a vegetable seller in the market, earns little but donates her savings regularly to those who need.

Of course, then there are the extremely generous rich who had donated/pledged to donate their entire fortune i.e. 100% (or at least 99%) of their wealth for noble causes during their lifetime and/or after they have passed away. The extremely generous rich include:

America’s Warren Buffet – this investor who frequently makes it to the list of the richest man in the world had said “More than 99% of my wealth will go to philanthropy during my lifetime or at death”

China’s Chen GuangBiao who is the CEO owner of a recycling co in Jiangsu. Chen said he will donate his entire fortune after he dies. He currently donates 50% of company’s profits to charity every year.

China’s Yu Pengnian – a real estate tycoon who gave his entire fortune estimated to be over $1 bil to charity, his heirs received nothing

Russia’s Vladimir Potanin - Announced that he will donate all his wealth to philanthropic purposes over the next ten years. First Russian entrepreneur to do so

India’s Dorabji Tata – one of the founders of the Tata Group, the second largest conglomerate in the world. Donated his entire wealth to a philanthropic trust

UK’s Anita Roddick – founder of Body Shop. Ms Roddick, who had passed away, left nothing to friends and relatives in her will as she had already given it all to charities

Celebrity actor Jackie Chan – who also said that he would donate all his assets to charity

Celebrity actor Chow Yun Fat – who said he’ll donate 99% of his fortune

Of course above list is not comprehensive, as some of the rich may prefer to give away their entire fortune quietly. Anyhow, hopefully, this will inspire/encourage all of us to be more generous.

The GivingPledge (founded by Buffet and Bill Gates) lists wealthy Americans who have pledged to donate at least 50% of the wealth away. See www.givingpledge.org

Exhilarated to learn someone's reading this blog

I have not blogged for the past week or so. Not so much because I am busy but because I have ran out of topics to write about. But I do still check my blog almost everyday (sometime more than that), just to look at the statistics. How many page views I had that day, who are the audience etc.

I am happy when I know someone (whom I don't know) sorta browsed thru this blog. Of cos, I can increase traffic by telling friends, family, acquaintances about my blog. But you see, I didn't tell anyone....some of them that I do blog, but don't know my blog website

Back to blog topics.
* Politics --- I try to stay away from political topics not because I am not interested (in fact, I follow several political blog sites) but because so much have been written and said by both sides of politics. What else can I add?
* Food - well, i am exactly a food lover and don't eat out that often. Not knowledgeable in this area enough to write about it
* lifestyle / IT - gee, i am not trendy nor into gadgets. Don't have iPhone, Berry, iPad etc.

I like to write about something *which I care about and/or *can add value by doing bit of research and analysis and/or *can help someone somewhere out there. Thought social-cultural and other issues which affect our daily lives would be a great start.

Retrenchment Fund - will it ever be a reality?

It was reported in the local papers a few days ago that the Government is prepared to set up a retrenchment fund. This “big” news did not trigger much reaction nor raised many/any eyebrows.

This is because the Government has been talking about setting up such a fund since 2007 but there has been little progress thus far - see table below.

Date	What the Government Said…..	Source
Oct-11	Government is prepared to provide a retrenchment fund but needs to first devise a mechanism to sustain it. “We have always wanted to start the fund. It’s just that we do not know how long (the fund should support its receivers)” “(There are) people who are forced into unemployment when some enterprises suddenly closed and are unable to take care of the needs of the workers, including the payment for retrenchment” “We cannot keep using public money to help the workers out. Maybe in the initial period it is ok but subsequently, we need a sustainable system”	News article quoting Human Resource Minister
Mar-10	“We are already in the process of introducing the Retrenchment Fund for private sector workers”	News article quoting Human Resource Minister @ certificate presentation ceremony for training course conducted by the ministry
May-09	The setting up of the Retrenched Workers Fund will be likely realised after the International Labour Organisation (ILO) completes its risk assessment report on it by the end of this year "We are open on this, if what the ILO suggests meets our needs and can be implemented, the government is willing to go ahead with it".	News article quoting Human Resource Minister @ Titiwangsa MIC delegates meeting
May-09	The government, through the Human Resources Ministry and the minister concerned, was continuing discussions with all parties involved. "And when the ministry is ready, (they) will come up with a proposal to the cabinet (for further action)"	News article quoting PM
Oct-08	The Government is in the midst of studying the implications of setting up a retrenchment fund for workers before going ahead with it “ The ministry has held discussions at various stages and we have now asked actuarial and International Labour Organisation experts to help us” “The study will take six months after which we will make a decision and implement the fund based on its findings”	MOHR website article - Human Resource Minister, Parliament reply
Jan-07	The government would go ahead with its plan to set up a retrenchment fund for workers despite objections from the Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF),	News article quoting Human Resources Minister @ ground-breaking ceremony of Socso HQ

At this rate, I very much doubt that Malaysia would see the implementation of such fund any time soon.

Why is the proposed Fund all about? How would it help retrenched workers?

· Retrenchment Fund is also known as “Unemployment Benefit Scheme” or “Unemployment Insurance”

· Fund was first proposed by Malaysian Trade Union Congress (MTUC) in 1998 following the Asian financial crisis which saw some thousands of workers losing their job

· How workers will benefit (based on MTUC’s proposal)

o Payments of retrenchment benefits to workers where companies fail to do so – e.g. company A closed down and did not have sufficient funds to pay workers, Fund could be used to pay workers their retrenchment benefits as provided by law

o Fixed monthly allowance to retrenched workers (who are continuously unemployed for more than 3 months) till they secure a new job

· MTUC further suggested the Government provide a dees capital of RM 500mil to Fund and employers and workers each contribute RM 1 (yes, only one ringgit) to Fund per worker per month

· Similar funds/schemes have been implemented in China, Thailand, Korea, Japan, Vietnam , India

More economists are getting gloomy on the global economic outlook. Malaysia is also at risk, and may see more workers (especially in the vulnerable export-led sectors) being retrenched in the near future. Let’s hope the proposed Retrenchment Fund is put in place soon

Only 8% of arrested criminal offenders were eventually convicted??

I believe I am not alone when I say I worry about my safety as well as my family members and friends’ safety all the time. How can I not be? My friends, family members and I have been victims of robbery , snatch-theft, burglary, pick-pocketing etc. in the past.

Were our perpetrators ever caught? I don’t know …but I know that I have not heard of anyone (the victims) being asked to appear in police stations /courts to identify / to testify against the suspects before.

Yet, it still came as a shock to learn that only 8% of arrested criminal offenders were eventually convicted in court. If the risk of being caught and punished is so low, wouldn’t this only emboldened criminals and encourage more people to commit crime? Aren’t we then sending the wrong message to criminals and criminals-to-be that crime pays?

The focus have always been on our police force to maintain law and order ( and hence reduce crime rate) -- our police gets most of the blame for this current social issue but our prosecution office does not get as much heat (at least not from the media and, citizens). I think it’s time for us to pay more attention to our prosecution unit, which forms an equal importance in whole criminal justice system.

***********************************************************************

According to our 2009 Attorney General Annual report, Malaysia has a total of 352 Deputy Public Prosecutors (DPPs) stationed at Putrajaya and the states’ prosecution units. 272 DPPs are posted to the various states and districts throughout the country

These 272 state DPPs had to review 216,000 investigation papers or cases in 2009 (and decide whether to prosecute, dismiss or request further investigations). So, on average each state DPP had to look at 794 cases a year, in addition to attending to their other job duties like preparing for and conducting criminal prosecutions in courts, giving lectures/training etc. To me, as a lay-person, that sounds like a lot of work.

Compare our numbers with neighbor Singapore -- Singapore has a total of 108 DPPs who reviewed a total of only 41,000 investigation papers in 2009. This works out to be 308 cases per DPP, less than half the workload our of DPPs.

Well, one can argue that perhaps our DPPs are more efficient that their Singapore counterparts. But are they? Out of the 216,000 cases reviewed in 2009, only about 19,000 were brought to the courts. In other words, only about 9% of the arrested criminal offenders were eventually charged in court (stats not available for Singapore). And out of the 9% offenders that were charged in court, about 86% were actually convicted (conviction rate data from Attorney General Report 2009).

What do these stats tell us? Are our police are arresting the wrong people? Are our police arresting people without sufficient evidence? Are our DPPs dismissing far too cases (w/o charging)? Are our DPPs’ standards too high? Unfortunately, I don’t have enough information to provide the answers.

Yes, the government is adding more policemen and CCTVs (on the street) to combat crime. In doing this, we are attempting to deter crime by increasing the THREAT of BEING CAUGHT. However, this is not sufficient. The THREAT of BEING PUNISHED if caught should equally be emphasized on. A world with no or little threat of punishment would only emboldened criminals and encourage criminals-to-be.

Budget 2012 - no goodies for me

Some good news for civil servants. And those with household income below RM 3,000

But I fall under the middle-income category - there's nothing for me

No tax reliefs, reduction in tax rate, no additional EPF contribution from employer, no special assistance from the government

How to cope with inflation??

Budget - what is in store for me?

AM watching live coverage of the Budget
Am curious to know what's in store for me.....hope it will be good news!!

Malaysia's 1 million civil servants

Malaysia is said to have "one of the highest civil servants to population ratio in the world." According to Public Services Dept, Malaysia had a total of 1,076,761 civil servants in 2010 (Source: 2010 Data from Human Resources Management Information System, PSD). This means we have 1 civil servant for every 26 citizen in Malaysia, or a civil servant to population ratio of 3.8%. PSD does not provide a breakdown of civil servants employed by department / profession type.

Just how bloated is our civil service? It has been widely mentioned in various newspaper articles that we have the same number of civil servants as Japan although Japan has a population of 120mil (*Note: Japan's civil servants number has been put as 1mil, but data is not verifiable. Wikipedia also mentioned the 1mil figure)

A closer examination showed that the Japan's widely quoted 1 mil figure is incorrect. A check with Japan's Statistics Bureau Home Yearbook showed that the country has about 3.3mil public employees (both local and national) in 2008. Unlike Malaysia, teachers, police, fire fighters etc are considered local public employees. Also in Japan, general admin staff working at perfecture- and city-levels are also local public employees and hence, included in the total civil servants tally. I am not sure if our state-level employees (i.e. hired by respective states and not federal government) are included in the 1.1m figure given by PSD although I believe it is not. Based on above numbers, Japan's civil servant to population ratio is about 2.8% vs. Malaysia's 3.8% (Malaysia's ratio could be higher if PSD's figure excludes employees employed by respective states).

Interestingly, the Japanese government has also done a comparison with other developed nations in 2007 -- in the US, the ratio is about 4.6% (based on 2005 data of 13.28m civil servants for 290 mil population) and in the UK, ratio is about 9.3% (based on 2005 data of 5.6m civil servants for population of 60 mil). *** note: for comparison purposes, Malaysia's ratio was about 3.3% in 2005, Japan: 2.9% in 2005 ***

Are we then more efficient than UK and US? Perhaps...again, a closer examination of the data showed that in the UK, they have about 1.6m health personnel vs. our 130,000. This means UK has 27 health personnel for every 1,000 of its citizens whereas we have about 5 health personnel for every 1,000 Malaysians. Also, they have 24 teachers per 1000 people vs. Malaysia's 14 teachers per 1000 people (ideally we should look at teacher: student ratio but number of students in UK in 2005 was not available)

It is hence important that we analyse the breakdown of civil servants by occupation type and compare ratios with that of other developing countries (vs. developed countries which tend to have better health care / education service etc).

To get a rough idea of who forms our 1.1mil civil servants , I have compiled the number of employee data from the various better-known government agencies and summarized them into table below. Note that most of our icvil servants are teachers, armed forces and police personnel as well as doctors and nurses employed in public hospitals/clinics.

Will continue to update table as I get more data.

Type (civil servants)	Number	Data source
Teachers	408,764	Jan-2011, Ministry of Education website
Armed forces	134,000	2008, World Bank
Public health personnel (comprising mainly doctors, nurses and community nurses)	128,996	Health Facts 2010, Ministry of Health website
Police	98,747	Feb-2010, newspaper article quoting Home Minister
Prime Minister’s Dept*	43,544	2010, parliamentary reply by Minister in PM’s Dept
Fire and Rescue Dept	12,400	2011, newspaper article quoting Housing and Local Government Minister
Immigration Dept	12,168	2009, newspaper article quoting Immigration Dept Director-General
Royal Malaysian Customs	12,000	2010, newspaper article quoting Customs Dept Director-General
Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL)	12,000	2011, news article on DBKL unions & CUEPACS
Prisons Dept	10,287	2007, newspaper article quoting Internal Security Ministry parliamentary secretary
Inland Revenue Board (LHDN)	10,000	2010, presentation by IRB Deputy DG
Forestry Dept, Pen Malaysia	5,403	2009, FDPM
Dept of Statistics	3,314	2010, DOSM Strategic Plan 2010-2014
National Registration Dept	Over 3,000	IBM customer profile website
Valuation & Property Services Dept (JPPH)	2,101	2011, JPPH website

*Includes personal offices of PM and DPM and 45 agencies such as MACC, AG’s office, Election Commission, Human Rights Commission, Public Complaints Bureau etc.

And table below shows how our number of civil servants has increased over the years:

2006	894,901
2007	943,927	+ 5.5%
2008	1,003,152	+ 6.3%
2009	1,053,938	+ 5.1%
2010	1,076,761	+ 2.2%

Source: HRMIS, Public Service Dept.