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By Chan Huan Chiang.
 LOCALISING parliamentary debate may be a better solution. By such decentralisation, Malaysian aspirations will be better tied to local needs. Transferring the task of resource allocation to the widely dispersed electorate may not be as difficult as we think.
THE complaint that state governments are given insufficient funds to operate at the local level is as old as the nation’s half-century history.
Malaysia is a federation of states and problems arising from fiscal federalism cannot be avoided. Fiscal federalism involves how best to assign to the different layers of government (local, state and federal) various fiscal functions (health, education, police, etc) and how best to collect public revenues (local, state and federal tax).
Ideally, each level of government should raise its own revenue to meet its allocated functions but this is often not the case, as in Malaysia, where state governments depend on the transfer of federal grants in order to have sufficient funds to operate.
The division of functions across the layers of government in Malaysia is laid out over eight chapters under Part IV of the Federal Constitution that covers articles 73 through 91. Article 74 pertains to the subject of federal and state laws, and explicitly divides the making of laws into the First (federal), Second (state) and Third (concurrent) lists. The different lists are found in the Ninth Schedule.
There are 27 items on the federal list, but the state list has only very limited areas to govern, suggesting that governance in Malaysia is heavily tipped over on the side of centralisation. Although the country is constitutionally a federation, it operates functionally like a single nation with a centralised system covering all key areas like health, education and the police force. The argument for so much centralisation is that local aspirations are difficult to achieve, and are best placed under the federal government. This gives rise to a “one-size-fits-all” prescription from the Centre.
This contention then translates to the call for better distribution of public funds to state and local governments, so that spending is left to the discretion of people at the local level. Unfortunately, even if state and local governments have more money to spend, the problem remains as to where that can be spent since there is only very limited scope on the state list where it can utilise the extra cash.
A constitutional change in what goes into the state list and the federal list is not likely to happen anytime soon. So how can power-holders at sub-national levels in Malaysia liberate themselves from excessive control by the Centre?
Maybe the solution is less centralised debate in Parliament. Malaysians elect representatives into the different State Legislatures and into Parliament essentially to frame laws under the state and federal lists. Between the two, state laws are truly locally designed, but federal laws can be made to contain local flavours as well. The idea is to connect state legislators with parliamentarians in public consultations.
All state legislators operate a constituency office where people go to voice their public complaints and receive assistance in their dealings with the government. Due to the limited scope of state governments, many of the issues attended to are mundane, such as waste collection, blocked drains, pot-holes, and occupancy of land. These are hardly matters that lead to better nation building.
However, if the constituency office is also connected to the role played by the parliamentarians (in Malaysia, a handful of state constituencies fit exactly into each parliamentary constituency) then public consultation between local folks and issues raised in parliament can be achieved, and along with this, local aspirations voiced in issues found on the federal list.
There should never be only a single debate during sittings of Malaysia’s Parliament over issues such as health, education, transport, public security, public welfare, etc. Instead, such debates should be about local needs and wants better tailored to local attributes and local circumstances, which elected representatives can champion in
Parliament.
This will, of course, complicate matters to an extent. For example, where public education is concerned, the issues will not only be about designing facilities and curriculum but also about where they are to be implemented in different parts of the country.
Spatial distribution of public services across the nation has so far been left in the hands of a civil service that makes plans and allocates resources from a top-down and central perspective. It should not be too difficult to make small adjustments to transfer the task of resource allocation to the hands of the widely dispersed electorate.
Doing this will heighten public participation and allow the course of the nation to be steered by the ballot box, giving greater diversity and vibrancy to Malaysia’s future.
 ** Reproduced with permission. This article first appeared in the October - December 2009 (Preview issue) of the Penang Economic Monthly. This 11-year old magazine published by the Socio-economic and Environmental Research Institute (SERI) is being overhauled and commercialised. This endeavour is in response to the growing insight among Penangites and Penang lovers that the downward trend in the state's fortunes cannot be succesfully reversed unless they themselves get seriously involved. The goal is to inspire positive action among readers towards attaining a "Penang Renaissance".
For more information, please visit the Penang Economic Monthly site or contact the Socio-economic and Environmental Research Institute (SERI) at 604-2283306.
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