I HAVE been watching the discourse between Osman Jailani and Pemandu. The whole discussion is very much about Osman asking Pemandu to wake up and Pemandu’s insistence that it is wide awake.

Pemandu admits that the gross national income (GNI) is not running as planned. But, that’s only because of global uncertainties, it says 50 other countries are seeing similar dips.

But my question is why have key performance indicators (KPIs) been at 100% (often more) year in and year out if things are not going as planned? Are the KPIs irrelevant?

And as late as 2014, Pemandu claims that we have achieved 50% of the target in the journey towards US$15,000 by 2020. (Note: The USD GNI/capita chart went MIA in the 2015 annual report.)

Are they now telling us that this may not be the truth?

But this monitoring of progress in US dollars is very confusing to a layman like me. It’s as confusing as being the “lowest cost of living country” in US dollars. We are very much ringgit people.

Is progress going as planned based on ringgit GNI/capita? I think this would be a more meaningful number for most Malaysians.

Sadly, it’s not.

It was never on track from day one. And have continued to lag even with the 5% bonus from the rebasing exercise circa 2015.Thus, we have a situation where Pemandu is telling us that we are ahead of schedule whereas where the tyre hits the road, we are behind.

But who really cares about GDP or GNI anyway? Especially if an RM100 increase in GDP only translates to an RM8 increase in actual income for the B40?

GDP is an esoteric number that is beyond the comprehension of most common folk, so let’s talk about something more relevant, that is, jobs and wages instead. Has Pemandu met its target of creating more high-income jobs?

Again, it insists it has excelled. But, the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) in its RMK11 documents says otherwise. EPU notes that only 121,000 high-skilled jobs were created between 2010 and 2014. And, even of the employed graduates, 533,000 are underemployed. Isn’t this a huge waste of resource? Can Pemandu pretend that all is well even as EPU highlights such numbers?

Children graduating and earning good jobs and wages were once the best hope for poor families to have a better life. Even that hope is now a dream despite the proclaimed successes of the Economic Transformation Programme.

Pemandu’s slumber must be pretty deep.

Next, let’s consider its claims of catalysing the diversification of revenue streams, etc… did it really do anything?

We had an enforced dip in oil revenues in 2015.

Were there any new revenues to offset the lower oil and gas revenues?

I see nothing new… except for the goods and services tax (GST). Is collecting more tax from the rakyat an innovation and creativity that we should applaud Pemandu for?

Another claim is the reducing fiscal deficit, which is commendable if achieved via sustainable means. But if it’s via keeping large chunks of expenditure off budget e.g. MRT, LRT extension, private finance initiative, I think it’s not very good, to put it kindly. Eventually, these debts must be paid by the government anyway, so why keep it off budget and tell us that current debt load is lower than it truly is.

The interest payments of government debt are now almost RM30 billion annually, i.e. about 13% of revenues. If we add on the interest of the off budgets, it could well balloon beyond 15% i.e. highest level since the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

I am not an economist but paying RM15 interest when gaji is RM100 is not comforting at all.

To conclude, nobody can forecast with any degree of certainty beyond a year or two. And the last few years have been quite tumultuous globally.

Pemandu cannot keep up the charade that everything is going as planned.

The plan needs a review and a re-set. Admit the failures, embrace the real successes and do not fear the changes that need to be made.

Osman has done his part to wake Pemandu up… if that is not enough, let’s do our part, too.

By the way Pemandu mega-projects budgeting suck i.e. MRT – RM47 billion and the High Speed Rail RM16 billion.The actual cost maybe three times higher but KPI is still 100%. – May 4, 2017.

* Ismail Abdullah is a The Malaysian Insight reader.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.