KUALA LUMPUR, July 12 ― “Touched” by the viral video of law graduate “Zahra” who griped about her struggles living and working in the city during a recent forum with Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, a DAP federal lawmaker sought today to list suggestions on how it would be possible to give the youth and others like her better lives.

To do so, Kluang MP Liew Chin Tong said the entire Malaysian economy must be dramatically restructured and the process must start by boosting the salaries of those in minimum wage jobs like garbage collectors.

“You must be thinking that I am joking. How could one fathom the possibility of a garbage collector being paid RM2,000 per month in the current job market.

“But it is possible if we re-organise our economy,” he said in a statement.

By giving better wages to those at the bottom rung, Liew said a rising tide would occur, allowing Malaysia's graduates to rake in monthly earnings of at least RM4,000.

Explaining further, the DAP national education bureau director pointed out that contracts for garbage collection and urban cleansing are oftentimes given by the local authorities to “crony” contractors who would take a cut from the work before handing it over to a subcontractor.

By the time the job reaches this subcontractor, he said the job would no longer be seen as lucrative employment and unskilled foreigners would be hired at lowly monthly pays.

“Can we pay the all-rounder one-man show garbage collector RM2,000 a month? Is it possible? The answer is a firm 'yes'.

“The key is to remove the crony-contractor who profit from his 'cable' to get contract and the abundance supply of unskilled foreign labour,” Liew said.

The same could be applied not just to garbage collection but to almost every other sector in Malaysia, he said.

Malaysian industries should be in pursuit of higher skills and values instead of making easy profit from the use of unskilled foreign labour, which adds little value to the economy, the lawmaker added.

“How to pay Zahra better? Get rid of the cronies who profit from importing unskilled foreign labour, reduce the presence of unskilled foreign labour in our economy (especially in the services sector) and make available resources for a massive push for skilled and technological upgrades should be high on our agenda,” he said.

“When I was 20 in 1997, the Asian Financial crisis hit Malaysia. Since then, the Malaysian economy and politics have been muddling through without major reforms and transformations.

“I was very touched and emotional when I watched Zahra's speech. We have wasted my generation. Let’s not waste hers,” he added.

In the video of Zahra that went viral earlier this week, the law graduate was seen telling deputy prime minister Muhyiddin of her struggles to survive in Kuala Lumpur due to the high cost of living.

“I blatantly say, we young Malays don’t care about racial or political issues, because what is more important to us is the issue of survival,” she said in the video uploaded by the Malay Economic Action Council (MTEM) on Tuesday.

She added that perhaps the only way to survive in KL was to “marry rich,” which garnered brief laughs from the audience.

“Maybe I have to marry rich to escape my economic troubles? It sounds funny but that’s the reality,” she said.