TOWARDS the last quarter of 2008, we were assured by political and corporate leaders that the economy was resilient and that the global financial crisis would have little impact on Malaysia because of the strong fundamentals and high liquidity in our financial system.

Nevertheless, in October last year, following the negative reaction to the local stock market, some red balance sheets in corporate reports and increasing lay-offs, the government announced a stimulus package amounting to several billion ringgit.

The first announcement was last October, when the government was to inject RM5 billion into Valuecap to help shore up the local stocks.

The NST of Jan 10 reported a RM7 billion stimulus package has gone down partially for immediate implementation. The Business Times of Jan 16 reported the RM7 billion has already been given to all ministries to be fully disbursed by year-end.

Another report (”Second stimulus package in the works”– NST, Jan 21) stated that a second stimulus package is to be introduced in the next few months to assist companies and workers affected by the economic downturn.

It is quite difficult to interpret from these reports the total amount involved in these packages, and when and how they are to be implemented.

The Economic Planning Unit has stressed Malaysia will miss its growth target if the package or packages are not implemented in time — meaning that the stimulus packages will go to waste and the economy will be in trouble.

I hope both the EPU and the new Project Management Unit will keep the taxpayers informed on how and where these funds are distributed.

The plan to disburse the funds and the results should be made public from time to time in a standard format.

There has been a great deal of promises of greater transparency and accountability. Let the public see this in practice by all those who are entrusted with this heavy responsibility. The public is mature enough to know that not all efforts will bear fruit.

What is more important is that the plans and efforts are prudently directed towards addressing socio-economic problems, among which are the creation of jobs, increasing competitiveness, improving quality and upgrading innovations to reboot the entire system.

The public must be clearly informed by authoritative sources to avoid unnecessary misinformation and rumours.

A. MUSTAFFA BABJEE, Kuala Lumpur

Source: NST – January 30, 2009