PUTRAJAYA, Jan 10 (Bernama) -- Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak lambasted the opposition's 100-day reform plan, which was unveiled last month, describing it as populist and irresponsible.
He said the plan was unrealistic because it did not state the source of fund to finance the undertaking.
"We should not be too populist to the extent of pawning the country's future. We should not act that way; it's irresponsible and will cause our children and grandchildren to suffer.
"In fact, it won't take that long; in just two years, according to our estimates, our country will become like Greece if the plan is implemented without regards to the country's means to implement it," he said at the Prime Minister's Department's monthly gathering here, Monday.
Last month, the opposition pact unveiled a 100-day programme which they said they would implement if they win the coming 13th general election.
It contains nine agendas including the management of the country, economy and education.
The plan includes asking Khazanah Nasional Berhad and the Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) to facilitate the takeover of highway assets by the government to abolish tolls, revamp the subsidy structure to reduce subsidies for the private sector and shifting it to cover subsidies for the public, increasing teaching allowances to RM500 per month and getting rid of Felda Plantations to allow farms to be managed by Felda's second and third generations.
Najib said civil servants were knowledgeable and would be able to see the follies of such plan.
"I'm always of the opinion that if it's too good to be true then it probably isn't.
"If we believe in something that is too good to be true, then we are deceiving ourselves and we will be taken in by our own errors," he said, adding that the opposition's plan was all about populist measures but made no mention about the source of funding.
Citing buying a better car or a bigger house as an example, the prime minister said, any plan to do so should be based on whether one had the means to finance the purchase.
He questioned how would the opposition implement and fulfil what they had outlined in their plan.
Najib also called on civil servants to rev up the momentum further this year in implementing the country's major agenda and policies.
The prime minister added that all policies and plans implemented by the government were formulated out of its sense of responsibility to the people, something which he said was very much unlike the opposition's 100-day plan.
He also hoped to repeat and build on the success the government achieved last year when it steered the country past the adverse effects of the global economic crisis.
The government had also successfully kicked off it major plans such as the Government Transformation programme (GTP), National Key Result Area (NKRA), Economic Transformation Programme (ETP), National Key Economic Area (NKEA), New Economic Model (NEM) and the 10th Malaysia Plan (10MP).
He said civil servants and public service institutions were crucial in making sure the government's plans were implemented and delivered to the target groups and to the people in general.
"I hope that these can be implemented promptly, in accordance with all the rules and financial procedures, so that we can achieve the vision of making the country a developed nation," he said.
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