PUTRAJAYA: Only 16 of the 95 proposals recommended by the National Recovery Council (NRC) were implemented by the government and the months of delay to act on them is not acceptable, said Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
The NRC chairman said it was perplexing that despite being presented to the Cabinet and endorsed by the ministers, the recommendations have yet to be implemented fully.
"The NRC has, from its very formation, proposed these recommendations to ensure no disruption of supply which will disturb productivity, increase inflation, and decelerate national recovery.
"As of today, 95 recommendations from the council were brought to the government for consideration and presented to the Cabinet. Of that, 69 recommendations are on main issues impacting the economic and social recovery and 26 more on administrative issues.
"The Cabinet had decided on 89 of these recommendations so far, with nine more still being decided on," he said in an eight-paged statement after chairing the NRC meeting at the Finance Ministry here on Tuesday (Sept 27).
Muhyiddin lamented that despite the endorsements of the Cabinet, only 16 of the recommendations had been implemented fully but the implementations were not satisfactory, such as the issue of lack of foreign workers in small medium enterprises (SMEs) which affected national recovery.
He pointed out that NRC was informed that there had been a request for 1,152,276 foreign workers from all industries in the past nine months but only 76,000 were brought into the country as of Sept 12.
“This was despite the requests for 467,223 foreign workers having been approved.
"This showed that the foreign workers brought in is way too low for the usage of the industries," he said, adding that the Prime Minister must address the problem which was affecting the SMEs adversely.
“If no action is taken to implement these recommendations, the country may face bigger economic problems, as predicted by economists worldwide,” he added.
Muhyiddin also said specific recommendations by the NRC to assist the SMEs such as moratoriums with restructuring of loans were also not implemented properly.
"This was taken to the Cabinet and endorsed on May 18. I raised this again on Sept 12 and the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Yaakob said that he will consult the ministries concerned.
“Only last week, the Entrepreneur Development and Cooperative Minister said that he will consider this.
“Did the Cabinet then not discuss this recommendation (which they endorsed) four months ago? Or are these recommendations presented to the Cabinet but not discussed in detail?
"This is very disappointing, as such a recommendation to assist the recovery of SMEs which contribute 37% to the GDP does not get the attention of the government. Such delay in taking action is not acceptable," he said.
Muhyiddin pointed out that there were many Cabinet ministers on the NRC, along with top civil servants, top experts from all fields and industries as well as representatives of opposition parties.
"NRC is an advisory body to the government with no powers of enforcement. Recommendations of the council are brought to the Cabinet and upon endorsement, it must be implemented by the relevant ministry or agency.
"As the chairman, I have no powers to instruct ministers or secretaries-general or department heads. This is the power of the Prime Minister and the NRC has done its part," he said.
In recent days, there has been much tit for tat between Muhyiddin, Ismail Sabri and a number of political party leaders over the former prime minister’s criticism over how the government has not managed the recovery of the nation.
