KUALA LUMPUR, June 2 — Merely having a high “average” income does not mean a country is developed, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said last night as he poured doubt on the Najib administration’s ability to achieve Vision 2020.
Dr Mahathir, the man who mooted the vision back in 1991, said the current administration is focusing “too much” on using per capita income to measure development, which he said could be misleading.
“We are not going to achieve the kind of development that would qualify us as a developed country by the year 2020,” he said during the Foreign Correspondents Club of Malaysia dinner at the Istana Hotel here.
The longest serving prime minister said among the criteria that needs to be fulfilled before Malaysia is considered a developed nation is having 100 per cent literacy, with a majority of highly educated people.
There should also be a large pool of professionals with a doctor to population ratio of 1:200, he said, as an example.
Dr Mahathir said the country also has to be highly industrialised in “modern industries” much like in Japan and Korea, with good paying jobs and a low unemployment rate.
Although a harsh critic of the press freedom, he said in a “sophisticated society”, the media should practice investigative journalism.
Dr Mahathir added that salary increases should be contingent on productivity levels, which he said needs to be improved without resulting in a spike in costs.
He also stressed that the leader of a country must be able to manage freedoms and civil liberties in order to maintain peace and stability.
“It’s great to be free but if you don’t know how to manage freedom, if your leader is not willing to be unpleasant, unpopular, but is concerned about the development of the country and is prepared to be unpopular in order to ensure that the country remain stable and peaceful, so that everybody can enjoy a good life, if the leader does not know how to handle this then of course the country cannot have peace, no peace, no development.
“So I have given you a fair idea about what leadership is about what development is about and how we should go about it,” he said in his speech at the dinner.
Dr Mahathir has been at the forefront of the attacks on Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his government, and has been actively pushing for the leader’s early resignation, believing that if he stays in government, it could cost BN Putrajaya in the 14th general election.
Chief among his concerns are the prime minister’s handling of the controversy surrounding 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), the state-owned investment firm that has amassed a debt worth over RM42 billion since 2009.
In March, Najib ordered the Auditor General and Public Accounts Committee to investigate 1MDB, amid growing demands for explanations over the state investment firm’s allegedly opaque investment decisions and for its RM42 billion debt.
1MDB was incorporated in 2009, after Najib announced the decision to turn the Terengganu Investment Authority state fund into a federal agency.
Since then the fund has been dogged by negative publicity over its finances and debts with the most recent being the controversial land deal with Lembaga Tabung Haji.
