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Malaysia, just like certain other countries, has this tradition on Budget day: the prime minister and his finance ministry officials will pose with a suitcase. He’ll then tease the press by pulling just enough white space of the official budget document from the suitcase for the photo-op.
It’s one of those traditions that take about an hour. And mainstream press and pundits would even comment about the PM’s choice of attire and how his get-up symbolizes this or that.
Amusing, isn’t it? Or just a waste of time.
During the tabling of the Budget, PM Anwar Ibrahim skipped a number of crucial items in his speech ostensibly due to a lack of time. He would have had enough time had he just dashed to parliament right after the customary Friday prayers for Muslims and a short lunch after.
This is, in many ways, metaphorical of Malaysia. We’re caught up with all the customs and traditions but fail to execute where it matters most.
The country’s budget for next year had some interesting ideas but it fell short on ideas to execute.
That also applies to the items in the budget surrounding tech and startups. There were some interesting perks, but there was still an adherence to “the old ways.”
For instance, there is a 15 million ringgit (around US$3.5 million) matching grant for government-linked companies (GLCs) to invest in startups. GLCs, as their name suggests, come with a whole bunch of privileges and perks, so much so they underperform against their private sector peers.
Now, 15 million ringgit is a small sum. But it boggles my mind why we need to throw public money to get public institutions such as GLCs to invest.
Grifters will disagree, saying that this is a good start since we need to begin a cycle of sorts.
But this is the same thing with foreign VCs. They hype up Malaysia only when they see an opportunity to suck money from the government. Not that they actually believe in Malaysia, because if they did, they would move in on their own effort.
We don’t need to use public money to incentivize the incentivized aka GLCs.
What would have been great, you ask? Further shrinking government agencies involved in startups.
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