Comparison between Malaysia and United Kingdom

A land without law would lead to the destruction of peace and harmony. In the same tone, a country without policies will result in dissatisfaction and disunity. Policies are defined as an action plan to influence or determine decisions that proves to be advantageous and expedient whereby the government, private or business. A country undergoes a policy change due to a variety of factors which may include economical, political, social, and climatic. Here, we shall delve into a number of policies in two countries, Malaysia and the United Kingdom. Despite having different goals and objectives, both countries has one vital similarity that is to serve the best for the citizens. It is with pleasure that we study the policy changes that happened in the political, economy and education sector of the respective countries.

POLITICAL POLICY CHANGE

MALAYSIA

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) (Malay: Suruhanjaya Pencegahan Rasuah Malaysia, (SPRM)) is a government agency in Malaysia that investigates and persecutes corruption. The MACC was modelled after top anti-corruption agencies, such as the Independent Commission on Anti-Corruption (ICAC) in Hong Kong and the Independent Commission against Corruption in New South Wales, Australia.

MACC use different methods to employ the policy change. In September 2003, Cabinet approved the requirements for minimum anti-corruption capacity for departments in the Public Service. The anti-corruption standards are minimum and it is the duty of the departments to the related department responsible to make sure the correct pathway on how its member should work on. In Malaysia the role of the policy makers are unequalled and many. The main role of the policy makers is to protect and make sure anti-corruption and ethics are drafted, accept and act in accordance with the principle. Secondly, gathering all the necessary things to put into effect according to or by means of a definite plan to give effect to the policy. Thirdly, they should guide the implementation of the plan that takes place.

There are basically many important roles that have to be played by the policy makers to ensure the success of the policy. Mainly there are four essential roles. The first most important bring the duty to ensure ethics and anti-corruption policies are drafted and adopted. They ensure and compile an implementation plan to give effect to the drafted policy. Secondly, they have the role to monitor the issues related to corruption in which they play a prominent role monitoring the implementation of the plan and the resolution of corruption cases. Thirdly they also play an important role in ensuring that the implementation plans are informed to the stakeholders and other alike as well as companies and other institutions. Last but not least they play an essential role in ensuring that the act of reporting corruption is encouraged among workers.

There are mainly five factors that can be look upon in validating the relevancy of this policy. These five aspects are; Fraud prevention plan, Strategic objectives related to fighting corruption, The efficiency of the role of policy makers, anticorruption unit or unit that does similar work, existence of whistle blowing policy and mechanism, departmental policy or mandate on anticorruption. On the view point of the fraud prevention plan there are 3 statistical values to show how the plan is carried out .15% of the departments have fraud prevention plans of excellent quality together with evidence of implementation and integration, meanwhile. 40% have fairly good policies in place whilst the remaining 45% have no or poor quality fraud plans. In addition 71% of unit heads have relevant experience in combating fraud. Secondly, strategic objectives in relation to fighting corruption have also been introduced. 10% of departments have clear written objectives which are well integrated with other objectives and with evidence of planning and monitoring against the objectives. 45% of departments have written objectives where the strategy can be deduced from while 45% have poorly formulated and applied objectives or no strategic objective in place. Thirdly is the presence of anti-corruption units in a company. Statistically shown 57% of departments have a dedicated anti-corruption unit. Furthermore, in the view point of the whistle blowing policy, statistics have shown that 35% only has the policy in place and 30% of departments have a mechanism and policy in place, while the rest doesn’t have both. Lastly, only 40% of departments have a fairly comprehensive mandate or policy of reasonable quality, together with evidence of implementation in place. Meanwhile the remaining 60% have no or very basic policies, of poor quality. Clearly the policies have played an adequate role in ensuring the objectives prevail. Although it does need some form rectification to ensure its applications are deemed at its best.

The Anti – Corruption Act 1997 (Act 575) is an essential provision that monitors the policies that are drafted by the policymakers, it consists of punishments, jurisdiction of the authority, the definition of words, the procedures involved and etc. It was drafted by the Anti-Corruption Agency, to make further and better provisions for the prevention of corruption and for matters necessary.

UNITED KINGDOM

The controversy over the nature and uses of political policy which was initiated more than four decades ago is widely known. While it should clear by now that the case stacked by the behaviourists against political policy has been overstated and normative reflections on politics remain profoundly relevant to contemporary political analysis, the future path of political policy is once again uncertain. Under the circumstances, there is a perceived need among political theorists to reappraise and renovate political policy. In fact, the task of reappraising and renovating has been underway for some time now [1] . But except for a few notable cases in which synthetic efforts did broaden our understanding of some of the important policy issues and accordingly our conception of political policy, reappraisal and renovation have seldom ventured beyond the familiar path set by the traditional mode of theorizing in terms of method as well as substance. It may be argued that this is not particularly unfortunate because political policy has its own logic, form and subject matter.

Over the years, in United Kingdom, there are a lot of policies with regard to political field being implemented and adopted in United Kingdom all this while, such as education policies, drug policies, alcohol policies, health policies, socio-economic policies, climate change policies, energy policies, housing policies, immigration policies, nuclear policies, child protection policies and some others governmental policies. Most of these policies had to certain extent being changed to meet the current circumstances and daily situations. This policy change is based on the law changed made through the authorised legislatures which will reflect new social values or development with society.

The important policy change that had taken place in Unite Kingdom in these recent years is the Environmental Policy. Earlier, the laws often focused towards the protection of rights that are associated with the ownership of properties could be indirectly, protect the environment. However, subject to the changes in circumstances and lifestyle, more recent laws have been created and made so as to protect the environment itself. In the United Kingdom, the environment is usually defined to mean air, water and land. The regulatory bodies which in charge of the responsibility for protection of the environment are mainly the Environment Agency which covers England and Wales, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland and the local authorities The intention of this policy is to protect the environment and also to integrate the environment for sustainability. Under this, the releases of the industrial wastes to air, water, and land were to be controlled separately. Besides, the 1990 Environmental Protection Act has introduced the concept of Integrated Pollution Control (IPC) which intended to ensure that all substances were to be managed and handled in a way which minimises their harmful and detrimental effects on the entire system of environment. IPC has from the time it evolved, being part of the European environmental policy, later into the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC). In addition, the Environmental policy has also embraced the approach of the sustainable development in which economic and social factors are all taken into consideration alongside with the environment. Several government strategies which aims were to make progress towards sustainable development have been successfully produced, which the latest has set the framework for Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) [2] . The SCP is intended to extract the most productive usage of renewable and finite natural resources, and at the same time to reduce the wastage and also to change the patterns of consumption patterns. The result of such change is that the current environmental policy is an assortment of both the older and newer approaches towards the regulation.

New Environmental Policy Instruments (NEPIs) have emerged during the last decade with the aim to be more flexible than merely command and control regulation. On top of that, they are also intended to stimulate innovation and to reduce the costs in monitoring and enforcement. The examples on the types of NEPI used in the UK include the Landfill Tax which is a charge on the disposal of waste to the landfill with aim to encourage waste producers to produce less waste and to use alternative methods of waste disposal, and to recycle, the Climate Change Levy which is a charge on energy usage and is applied to all parts of business sector in order to encourage business to develop and use energy efficient technologies, the 100% Capital Allowances Scheme which is available for those companies investing in energy efficiency technologies, whereby it is a tax relief on investment in a range of Government approved energy-saving equipment, the UK Emission Trading Scheme which is a scheme where participants can trade with greenhouse gas emission allocations. A total acceptable emissions level for all participants is determined and later will be divided into units and distributed among them, and lastly the Renewables Obligation which requires and needs the electricity suppliers to supply and provide a specific proportion of their electricity from renewable sources, for example, wind or wave power. After a slow and gradual start, now United Kingdom is recognised as a leader in designing the NEPIs. Most NEPIs are implemented as part of a mix of policies, such as the tools which are used to tackle the climate change include the Climate Change Levy, Climate Change Agreements, and the Emissions Trading Scheme, and tax on fuels. There are some concerns that some policies may in contradict with another and that this may lessen their effectiveness, but they may also affect the competitiveness of different sectors of industry.

Till the most recent, the UK environmental policy had been discussed in the general election 2010, where the key issues cover the latest news and Liberal Democrat, Labour and Conservative environment policy overview.

COMPARISON BETWEEN MALAYSIA AND THE UNITED KINGDOM

In Malaysia, each policy are drafted and adopted in a way that reaches the people and be useable to them because each policy can influence the lifestyle and life of the people of the country to increase their standard of life, increase their monthly income and finally increase the national income. Besides that, if we look into the role of the policy makers, they have to very careful to give effect to the policy and it can be done through compile an implementation plan. And not only that they will also monitor and guiding the implementation of the plan that they made. Next, each policy has to be reported to internal and external stakeholders on implementation progress and resolution of cases that involved. All these steps are important so that the policy can be useful to society.

As for United Kingdom, it is slightly different in the scope of purposes as compared to Malaysia in terms of political policies changes, which United Kingdom made changes towards their policy to uphold the welfare and comfort of its citizens, so that every person can enjoy their most fundamental and basic needs in their daily life, provided that all the policies will be amended from time to time so as to meet the present requirements. For example, the nuclear policy has been altered in order to provide peaceful life to all nations and prevent unnecessary war, at the same time protects the people’s rights. Besides, the climate change policy in United Kingdom is a result from the changing global climate which is too drastic which now results in lots of disaster and unusual phenomenon, thus changes had been made in order to control the event of occurrence of unfavourable natural disasters as well as to slow down the rising temperature and also to reduce the greenhouse gases on the earth. These political policy changes do show significant result in their achievements which their objectives are achieved in almost all its parts.

In the coming of recent corruption crisis in Malaysia and environmental policy in UK, both nations came up with legislation and policies related to the issue. Although both nations’ aim was to combat their policy there were differences in the way of implementation. Primarily there are two aspects in which they differ, the implementation and the effectiveness. In short, political policy change is important not only in Malaysia and United Kingdom, but to all countries all over the world, the only difference is their purpose of such changes and the speed in which these changes take place.

ECONOMICAL POLICY CHANGE

MALAYSIA

Policy change occurred when the Foreign Investment Committee (FIC) in increasing the Bumiputera equity and the inception of the New Economic Policy (NEP) had failed to took place. FIC has replaced by a unit under Economy Planning Unit which is under the Prime Minister Department. On the other hand, a new policy change which is known as Ekuiti Nasional Bhd (Ekuinas) which is an unique investment framework is invented last year. Actually, Ekuinas is a commercially driven organization.

The Companies Act 1965 acts as the general and principle act. Other than that, statutory protection and remedies are also provided to minority shareholders to the companies in all over the Malaysia. There is also other related law such as Security Commission Act 1993 and Security Industry Act 1983, which is provided for the listed company in Malaysia only.

Security Commission provide two listing requirements. The first is the mandatory imposition of thirty percent Bumiputera equity and the second is the provision for twenty five percent public spread of which thirty percent to be allocated to Bumiputera list recognized by our Ministry of International Trade and Industry. [3] Notably that, the allocation had increased from thirty percent to fifty percent of the twenty five percent of public spread requirement. However, these new public spread imposed by Security Commission does not replace the FIC’s guidelines as well as influencing Ekuinas.

In September 2009, Ekuinas is established as a fund set by the Federal Government. They are focusing on helping the Bumiputera entrepreneurs. In order to achieve its goal, Ekuinas is committed in a market- friendly and transparent manner. This policy is using the taxpayer’s money to increase the Bumiputera equity and participation in business. This policy change is funded with RM500 million. Therefore, 10MP will receive RM3.5 billion but in three separate funds and another RM1 billion in outsourced funds [4] . Hence, the total investment is RM 5 million [5] .

The primary objective of Ekuinas is to deliver financial value on its investment. The target for Internal Rate of Returns is to restrict the commercial discipline. The minimum target and aspired by Ekuinas is 12% of its portfolio investment. The secondary objective of Ekuinas is to elevate and built up equitable Bumiputera participation within the Malaysian economy. There are four key dimensions that prove Ekuinas wish to go across namely to enhance corporate equity ownership [6] , to enhance management participation and entrepreneurship [7] , to surge up the employment across the diverse industries and lastly, is to improve the supply chain partners.

The investment focuses on established growth companies with strong track records and the expansion on its next stage. Now, Konsortium, as a substantial shareholder [8] , is selected by Ekuinas for the reason that it has leading position in the overall market. Konsortium also has strong presence in the automotive, coal shipping as well as haulage business in Malaysia and it had collectively contributed to around 70% of the company’s revenue. However, the focus point of Ekuinas is to enhance the Konsortium’s operational efficiencies in order to seek the grow revenue and earnings through aggressive marketing and acquisition of new clients. It also focuses on cost saving as well as to improve margins. [9] Konsortium also provides an attractive entry for our new policy change, Ekuinas into sizeable logistics sector. It also provides wide opportunity for Bumiputera to participate in a sector that subsequently will drive our nation’s growth. The achievement of a majority stake in Konsortium is actually represented by the Ekuinas’s third direct investment after the Alliance Cosmetic Group and Tanjung Offshore Bhd. Recently, mandatory general offer [10] for the remaining shares of Konsortium has been triggered and will be extended to other shareholders of the company.

Abdul Rahman Ahmad responded [11] positively because he believed that the sectors have a very high potential to grow. He claimed that the Ekuinas is not going to invest in the business that linked with the existing SPVs that set up especially for Bumiputera because he believed that the government-linked company will drive commercially.

Lastly, I believe such policy will upsurge our economy if it operates according to the plan. The government had taken steps to initiate the programme. Although, such programme seems to be beneficial to the Bumiputera, but it also beneficial to the other races too. In my opinion, when the economy in our country had grown, it will automatically benefit to the people in our country no matter what races are we.

UNITED KINGDOM

Resembling every other economy, the UK was strike hard by the global economic crisis. After over 15 years of strapping and broadly-based growth, the UK economy contracted sharply during the crisis. Other superior economies were similarly affected. The UK’s economy begins budding for a second time in the final quarter of 2009.

This year, a new economic policy has been made, a Double Taxation Agreement between the United Kingdom and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China [12] was signed in London on 21 June by David Gauke MP, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury and Professor K.C. Chan, Hong Kong Secretary of Financial Services and the Treasury. The Agreement generally follows the OECD Model Double Taxation Convention. [13] 1415161718After both the countries have carried out their legislative procedures, the stipulation in the agreement will come into effect the following calendar year. [19] 2021

The treaty follows the OECD model by incorporating the standard on the information exchange. [22] 23However, this does not require a spontaneous exchange of information [24] but upon request. A 0% and 3% reduction of interest and royalty payments respectively in the rate of withholding the tax in the state is what attracts the corporate. [25]

Possibilities of certain private equity funds to use a Hong Kong company for financing debts comes into existence when a 0% preservation tax on interest paid by a UK corporate borrower to a Hong Kong lender treated as an interest of a foreigner in Hong Kong as non – taxable. When a Hong Kong company can satisfy the limitation on benefit (LOB) provided in the interest article, it results in a simpler yet attractive alternative of capitalizing with equity to make direct loans in UK using a Hong Kong company [26] 27

Those LOB provisions are meant to limit the advantage of the importance of the article to Hong Kong companies that are listed to the UK authorities that they were not been set up simply in order to get the advantage of the treaty. For instance, a private equity fund using a Hong Kong company as machinery for its investment on the region of Asia should be able to get a clearance provided with the right fact pattern. These LOB provisions are the most sophisticated implemented by Hong Kong in its treaty negotiations for now. [28] 29

Even though the provisions in the royalties article are differ from the LOB, one similarity is the standard restriction that prevents any person who has the intention of obtaining benefit from the article by means of creating or assigning an IP license that pays royalties. This may avoid current situations like Hong Kong companies acting as mediating licensing companies from licensing the IP license that it holds to reap the benefits in respect to the interest article. [30] 31

COMPARISON BETWEEN MALAYSIA AND THE UNITED KINGDOM

In Malaysia, they create a company to circulate with the economy like Ekuinas, for the Bumiputras. The government uses the money that is collected from the taxpayers in order to assist the Bumiputra entrepreneurs only but not other races. This means that money is used in the country itself of in other words intra country flow of finance. Whereas in the UK they implement and initiate schemes that applies to the entire corporations in a brilliant way. One example is through the zero% tax and interest that should be paid by a UK company that has got its finance from a Hong Kong lender. This helps to reduce the outflow of money which saves the country an enormous amount of money.

In addition, the policy in Malaysia is applies in a sense that the income is generated from the returns by the companied that they have invested in. For instance, a public transport and trade company has brought back about 70% of Ekuinas modal. In the UK, the money is circulated in the country itself because no tax is being charged on the interest if it was financed by the Hong Kong company. This simply means that no extra money is being drained to other countries especially Hong Kong because it is a joint treaty between the UK and Hong Kong.

Other than that, the policy change in Malaysia focus on the potential company only whereas in United Kingdom, they start by introducing out their principles for escalating financial sector regulation and the international financial institutions. They tried to predict the future crises. In other words, policy change in Malaysia attempts to surge up their economy by doing such way but the purpose of the policy change in United Kingdom attempts to overcome the deficit in its country and to stabilize the economy of all over the world.

Lastly, the difference between policy change of United Kingdom and Malaysia is that Malaysia gives priority to Bumiputera whereas United Kingdom gives priority to overcome the budget deficit which is to maintain the confidence in the economy and support the recovery.

EDUCATIONAL POLICY CHANGE

MALAYSIA

In Malaysia there are many policy changes in education that has been done in the past few years. One of the most well-known education policy change that invited many important debates in the nation was Pengajaran dan Pembelajaran Sains dan Matematik Dalam Bahasa Inggeris (PPSMI) [32] . [33] PPSMI is a government approach that was intended to improve the proper usage of the English language among the youngsters who are still schooling at the primary and secondary schools in Malaysia. The Malaysian Ministry of Education has mentioned that the policy would be executed in sequence of dissimilar stages, making the 2003 school session as the first batch.

PPSMI was implemented in the year 2003 for the fastidious school students who are enrolling in Year 1 and Form 1 in primary and secondary schools respectively. Students who are in different standard and form are not affected by it, and carried on to learn Mathematics and Science in the mother tongue. The policies education materials were obtainable in packages sort consisting of textbooks [34] , activity books [35] , teacher’s guide [36] , MyCD [37] , teacher’s CD-ROM [38] , science practical book [39] and glossary book [40] .

As for the execution of this policy in Chinese schools, the nations union of Chinese schools Dong Jiao Zong made an objection, and a negotiation was made as a subsequent to the protest. The verdict of the protest was that the lessons of Science and Mathematics were made done in both English and Mandarin.

The lucidity for the decision to alter the standard of instruction from the Malay Language to the English language was intended for the education. It is very broad known fact that the field of science and mathematics forms the crucial outline of the foundation and plays a vital role in the growth and development of a nation. A very big number of innovations and discovery happened fast in these two fields and information shared is mainly in the English speech most of the time. It is also not rare to us that the information of the main sources is accessible in the English language. Indirectly, we also hope that the execution of the PPSMI policy would be a major contribution to the maturity of students’ command in the language.

In all the important facts about how the PPSMI policy is one of the major steps taken for the country to be a strong contender of the nation in this era of globalization, but unfortunately there is also a group of the countries citizen who went against the PPSMI policy. One of the very strong campaigns that were done to go against the policy was the Gerakan Mansuhkan PPSMI (GMP). [41] This movement also consisted of 40 NGOs and political party in Malaysia. The very large valid point that the Gerakan Mansuhkan PPSMI overlooked was that education policies throughout the pre-independence such as Barns Report and Penyata Razak (Post Independence) was extremely connected to that periods education system and was suitable too. That time period would require improvement for the certainty for it to remain appropriate and relevant to the education system of the current time line. Policies were formulated for valid and inarguable purposes.

In the PPSMI policy as well, the Standard One students in the year of 2003 will sit for the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examination which falls in the year 2013, and this of course is having them been educated Science and Mathematics in English for their entire years of schooling. But at this current period, halfway through the programme, the policy is already being re- examined as I mentioned earlier. We cannot ignore the fact that we have not shaped even a single batch of students who have studied the Science and Mathematics subject entirely in the English language. It is a logic view that the performance data for such students is only obtainable after the SPM examination which falls in the year of 2013.

PPSMI has been an elongated issue in the talks but wanting in any crucial action. The circumstance is actually a strategy to provide the students with the finest tool, i.e. English, and this can be done by the learning of Science and Mathematics in English.

The opportunity to maintain PPSMI is secluded under Article 152 [42] of the Federal Constitution, which ensures the freedom of learning and teaching in other languages, including English. Additionally, the Ed