Charles Santiago
Every Labour Day, the speeches come, along with gratitude and garlands.
A minister at a podium somewhere, voice thick with feeling, praises the backbone of the nation.
This year, the backbone got an extra ‘gift’.
On 29 April, just three days before Labour Day, the Treasury ordered about RM10bn in spending cuts. Proposed reductions to essential services operating budgets came in at 10%. Statutory bodies faced 20%. Hiring for unfulfilled vacancies was frozen.
The reason? A fuel subsidy crisis triggered by geopolitical storms far beyond our shores. “Nothing to do with us, the government. Terribly sorry. Do carry on.”
[The government has since insisted the cuts involve only non-critical items: events cancelled, overseas trips curtailed, utilities trimmed.]
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But the numbers are striking regardless. While workers were being told to tighten their belts, the 50 richest people in Malaysia grew their combined wealth by RM103bn in a single year. In one year! Their combined fortune now sits at RM458bn and is projected to grow by another 39% by 2031.
This is not a crisis of scarcity nor an act of God. This is a political choice, made deliberately, by people who will never wait hours on end for a hospital appointment.
Consider Hospital Kuala Lumpur. Some patients face critical waiting times that can stretch to half a year. Six months during which conditions worsen, sight is lost, lives end.
The government’s response? It proposed to cut RM3bn from healthcare and RM2.4bn from higher education.
This, in a country where a 2% wealth tax on the single richest individual alone could generate over RM1bn. Applying that same rate across the top 100 would cover much of the nation’s RM10bn shortfall without closing a single ward, classroom or meal programme.
The maths is not complicated. Neither is the politics mysterious.
Some estimates suggest that for every ringgit the Malaysian economy produces, workers take home around 33 sen – compared to 52 cents on the dollar in the US and 55 cents on the euro in Germany.
The middle class is not growing. It is being slowly hollowed out. Half of the people cannot scrape together RM1,000 in an emergency. And 81% of Employees Provident Fund contributors are headed towards retirement in poverty.
Many smallholders, fisherfolk and farmers already paying unsubsidised rates approaching RM5.97 a litre for diesel are now watching the agencies meant to serve them take a 20% cut.
Who built whose wealth?
Let’s be clear about how many billionaires in Malaysia built their fortunes: state-backed contracts, tax incentives, subsidised financing and public money. The public took the risk while the super-rich took the profit.
It is not socialist rage to suggest that the top 1% should now pay a fair share. It is the same cold, clear and completely justified logic with which I say: implement the wealth tax. Now.
So here we are: Labour Day 2026. The speeches will be made, the workers will be praised. And invariably, a billionaire’s wealth will grow by another few million before the day is out.
The garlands were lovely, though.
Charles Santiago is the previous MP of Klang.
The views expressed in Aliran's media statements and the NGO statements we have endorsed reflect Aliran's official stand. Views and opinions expressed in other pieces published here do not necessarily reflect Aliran's official position.
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