Malaysians are starting to fill the pinch (or shall I say the punch) of inflation.
As the Southeast Asian nation's central bank projects headline inflation to hit 3 percent by the end of 2022, Malaysians on the streets are already struggling to make ends meet.
With Malaysian employers labeled among the stingiest in Southeast Asia, people in this country are also facing stagnation in terms of salary growth.
As the war in Ukraine drags on and China continues with its zero-Covid policy, this has caused ripple effects economically for many countries worldwide. Sri Lanka is the hardest to hit as inflation soared to record highs of 54.6 percent. The cause? Corruption.
For Malaysians, they draw many parallels with Sri Lanka - especially as many of their politicians have been engulfed in numerous corruption scandals.
#PotongGajiMenteri.
#PotongGajiMenteri pic.twitter.com/8njTOarzzk — Fahmi Reza (@kuasasiswa) July 4, 2022
All of this pent up frustration recently surfaced through a Twitter hashtag, which has since gone viral: #PotongGajiMenteri. In Malay, it translates to, 'Cut the minister's salary'.
The idea behind the movement is simple: Cut the salaries of ministers and channel these funds to support the people economically.
One of the major reasons for this movement to even happen is the fact that many of these ministers - majority of them viewed as incompetent by Malaysians - have bloated salaries.
In 2020, it was revealed that on average, a Malaysian minister makes an average RM55,650 (US$12573) a month. Their salaries include travel, entertainment, housing, and car allowances. And if you're a people's representative, you enjoy additional salary increments.
"The time has come for the prime minister (Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob) to mandate all Cabinet ministers to take a pay cut of 20 per cent," @XavierNaxa posted on Twitter.
Many also feel that politicians should be paid the same amount as teachers.
How are Malaysian ministers responding to this movement?
Rural development minister Mahdzir Khalid has slammed the idea because he opined that it won't solve the economic issues Malaysia is facing. There are other effective methods, he claimed.
“The prime minister and his team in the Cabinet have put in a lot of effort, especially ministers who are directly involved with the economy and the prices of goods, like the finance ministry and those related to the economy, commerce, agriculture and public works."
“They meet twice weekly to find solutions like the one the prime minister announced yesterday, to not raise electricity tariffs and float the market price of chicken,” he said, according to a report by FreeMalaysiaToday.
Mahadzir was actually responding to a suggestion made by former international trade and industry minister Rafidah Aziz who had proposed the idea of ministers taking a salary cut.
Should Malaysian ministers take a salary cut? What do you think? Let us know in our Twitter poll:
Should Malaysian ministers take a salary cut? What do you think? #PotongGajiMenteri ???? — Mashable Southeast Asia (@MashableSEA) July 8, 2022
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Cover image sourced from Fahmi Reza / Twitter.
