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Distribution Of Power And Responsibilities Of Malaysias Government 马来西亚政府的权力和职责分配 国家背景 马来西亚是由13个州和3个联邦地区组成的。每个州都是由被称为苏丹或象征性州元首的统治者领导的。由9名苏丹所代表的统治者会议将选出一位象征性州元首，它将是这个联邦国家任期5年的最高领导者。 马来西亚联邦宪法对立法、司法和行政机关之间的权力提出了明确的区分。行政机关或政府分为三个等级分别称为联邦政府、州政府和地方政府。联邦政府是从由首相领导以及内阁部长支持的众议院的大多数政党中选出来的。州政府是由从国家立法议会的多数党中选出的首席部长领导的。另一方面，地方政府是由州政府选出的，包括市议会，市政委员会，区议会和改良地方当局。在9日发布的的联邦宪法中，联邦政府和州政府在行政、立法和财政的权利和责任分配方面有着很清的界限。 Country Background Malaysia is a federation comprising of 13 states and 3 federal territories. Each state is headed by a ruler known as the Sultan or the Yang Di Pertuan Negeri. The Conference of Rulers which is represented by the 9 Sultans will elect a Yang Di Pertuan Agong who will be the supreme head of the federation for a period of 5 years. The Federal Constitution of Malaysia provides clear separation of power between the legislative, judiciary and executive authority. The executive authority or the government has 3 levels namely the federal government, the state government and the local government. The federal government is chosen from the majority party of the House of Representatives headed by the Prime Ministers and supported by the Cabinet of Ministers. The state government is headed by the Chief Minister who is chosen from the majority party of the State Legislative Assembly. The local government, on the other hand, is elected by the state government and comprises of city councils, municipal councils, district councils and modified local authorities. There is a clear line of distribution of executive, legislative and financial power and responsibilities between the federal and state government as provided under the 9th Schedule of the Federal Constitutions. According to Anuar, A.R. (2000), the federal government holds majority of the distribution of power and responsibility and therefore plays a larger role than the state government. Therefore, the federal government also plays an important role in the economic development and the transformation of the states. Distribution of Power and Responsibilities Federal List State List Concurrent List (Federal-State) External affairs Defense of the Federation Internal security Civil and criminal law and procedure and the administration of justice Federal citizenship and naturalization; aliens The machinery of government, subject to the state list Finance Trade, commerce and industry Shipping, navigation and fisheries Communications and transport Federal works and power Surveys, inquiries and research Education Medicine and health including sanitation in the federal capital Labour and social security Welfare of the aborigines Professional occupations other than those specifically enumerated Holidays other than state holidays; standard of time Unincorporated societies Control of agricultural pests; protection against such pests; prevention of plant diseases Newspapers; publications; publishers; printing and printing presses Censorship Theatres; cinemas; cinematograph films; places of public amusement Co-operative societies; Tourism Prevention and extinguishment of fire, including fire services and fire brigades All matters relating to the Federal Territories Islamic law and Malay customs Land Agriculture and forestry Local government Services of a local character State works and water Machinery of the state government State holidays Creation of offences for state purposes Inquiries for state purposes Indemnity for state purposes Turtles and rivering fishing Libraries, museums, ancient and historical monuments and records and archaeological sites and remains Supplement for East Malaysia Native law and custom Incorporation of authorities and other bodies Ports and harbors Cadastral land surveys In Sabah, the Sabah railway Water supplies and services Social welfare; social services; protection of women, children and young persons Scholarships Protection of wild animals and wild birds; National parks Animal husbandry; prevention of cruelty to animals; veterinary services; animal quarantine Town and country planning Vagrancy and itinerant hawkers Public health, sanitation and prevention of diseases Drainage and irrigation Rehabilitation of mining land and land which has suffered soil erosion Fire safety measures and fire precautions in the construction and maintenance of buildings Culture and sports Housing and provisions for housing accommodation; improvement trusts Water supplies and services Preservation of heritage Supplement for East Malaysia Personal law Adulteration of foodstuffs and other goods Shipping under 15 registered tons The production, distribution and supply of water power and electricity generated by water power Agricultural and forestry research, control of agricultural pests and protection against such pests; prevention of plant diseases Charities and charitable trusts and institutions Theatres; cinemas; cinematograph films; places of public amusement Elections of the state assembly Source: The Federation Constitution of Malaysia The federal government will administer the major public functions, has unlimited taxation and borrowing powers, and authoritarian excesses which includes the wide ranging emergency powers. Their main functions are mainly to ensure stabilization, distribution and equity and undertake national development planning. The federal government are said to have the capacity and resources to carry out their function efficiently as they economy of scale. (Anuar A.R. (2000)). The state government is mainly responsible for matters relating to lands, agriculture, forestry, works, water, local government and local public services. The local government carries out administratively the work on behalf of the state government and provides services that are local specific such as water supplies; refuse collection, maintenance of drainage, sewerage treatment, fire services, street lighting, markets, parks, sport facilities and community centers, collect assessment tax and create by-laws and granting licenses and permits for trade (Anuar A.R. (2000)). Although, it is directly under the responsibility of the state government, the federal government exercises high influence over the local government. Malaysia has a total of 151 local authorities in Malaysia which are broken down into 1 city hall, 11 city councils, 36 municipal councils, 96 district councils and 7 modified local authorities. The city hall and city councils are headed by Mayor and municipal, district and modified local authorities (corporation, development board, development authority) government are headed by a Yang Di-Pertua (President). The councilors are not elected but appointed by the state government for a period of 3 years. Therefore, it can be seen that although the state and local government are independent from the government as provided by the constitutions (de jure), in practice, it has little real autonomy (de facto) (Morrison, 1994). Federal Fiscal Position Federal Government Finance (RM million) * Revised estimate Source: Ministry of Finance, Malaysia The federal government has the unlimited power to levy and collect taxes other than the taxes allocated for the states. The main taxes from the federal taxes are company tax, petroleum tax and individual tax. They are able also to borrow from the domestic and foreign market. Federal Government Revenue (RM million) Sources: Ministry of Finance Therefore, with majority of the revenue creation ability is owned by the federal government, the federal government therefore has an upper hand in terms of political power. Most of the taxes sources by the federal sources are elastic while the inelastic and insignificant sources of revenue rest with the state government. Therefore, the economic developments of the states are highly depended on federal government funding and transfers.#p#分页标题#e# State Fiscal Position Part III of the Federal Constitution provides the sources of revenue that can be collected by the states. Their main sources are receipts from land sales, revenue from lands, mines and forest, entertainment duty and Islamic religious revenue. For East Malaysia, import and excise duties on petroleum product and export duty on timber and other forest produce is also an important source of revenue. Part III of the Federal Constitution Revenue from toddy shops. (all states) Revenue from lands, mines and forests. (quit rents, fees for tol, grazing permits and conversion) Revenue from licenses other than those connected with water supplies and services, mechanically propelled vehicles, electrical installations and registration of businesses. Entertainments duty. Fees in courts other than federal courts Fees and receipts in respect of specific services rendered by departments of the state governments Revenue of town boards, town councils, rural boards, local councils and similar local authorities other than:- Municipalities established under any Municipal Ordinance; Those town boards, town councils, rural boards, local councils and similar local authorities which have power under written law to retain their revenues and control the spending thereof. Receipts in respect of raw water. Rents on state property. Interest on state balances. Receipts from land sales and sales of state property. Fines and forfeitures in courts other than federal courts. Zakat, fitrah, and baitulmal and similar Islamic religious revenue. Treasure trove. Additional sources of revenue assigned to states of Sabah and Sarawak Import duty and excise duty on petroleum products (Terengganu, Sabah and Sarawak) Export duty on timber and other forest produce. (Sabah and Sarawak) Royalty levied by the state on any mineral chargeable with export duty other than tin does not amount to 10% ad valorem. For Sabah, 30% of all customs revenue relating to medicine and health. State sales taxes. Fees and dues from ports and harbors other than federal ports and harbors. Receipts in respect of water supplies and services, including water rates. Revenue from licenses connected with water supplies and services. The state can also collect other non-tax revenue which are licenses and permits, royalties, service fees, profits from commercial undertakings (such as in water, gas, ports and harbours), land sales, rents on state properties; and non-revenue receipts include proceeds, dividends and interests and grants and reimbursements from the federal government (Narayanan, Hui, Leng (2008). The State also receives grants and loans from the federal government as provided by the Federal Constitutions. Federal grants are provided on the basis of origin of collections, populations, state gross domestic product and other social and economic indicators and actual costs of projects. There are 3 sorts of grants that are being provided:- Tax- sharing grants that include 10% of export duties on tin, iron and other materials that are extracted from the state. These are determined and collected by the federal government in terms of structure, rate and percentage-sharing and returns to the state governments on the basis of origin of sharing of which the state are able to spend the shared revenue for its social and economic development programs. General-purpose grants that consist of capitation grants, revenue growth grants, State Reserve Fund grants and special grants. These are distributed based on state population and state gross domestic product per capita and state are also free to spend it. Specific-purpose grants are based on expenditure conditions and consist of road grants, economic development grants, service charge grants and cost reimbursement grants. (Anuar A.R. (2000)). The Federal Constitutions via article 111 does not allow a state to borrow from other sources other than the federal government or from a bank and other financial sources for a period of 5 years subject approval from the federal government. Loans are taken only for capital spending and are mainly used to finance agricultural and rural development projects, industrial estates, low cost housing, water supply and other miscellaneous expenditure. The state government is also limited in terms of its ability to guarantee loans. Given such conditions, the state government will find it difficult to raise debt domestically from the financial market and are restricted to raise fund externally as well. State Governments Consolidated Finance (RM million) Source: Ministry of Finance, Malaysia Anuar, A.R. (2000) mention that there exists a horizontal (state-to-state) and vertical (federal-to-state) imbalances. Most of the revenue and expenditure are mainly centralized at the federal government. Based on World Bank data, the state and local government’s revenue and expenditure only account to 15% and19% respectively to the total revenue and expenditure in 1997. Also, from the period 1972 to 1997, only in 3 years (1976, 1987 and 1991) has the percentage of sub-national revenues to total revenue bigger than the percentage of sub-national expenditure to total expenditure. This provides that the state government should heavily depend on grants and loans from the federal government to fill in the fiscal gap. However, based on the data for vertical imbalance as provided by the World Bank Fiscal Decentralization Indicators which computes the degree to which sub-national governments rely on central government revenues to support their expenditures as measured by inter-governmental transfers as a share of sub-national expenditures, it shows that there is a declining trend in dependency in transfers to support the state expenditure. Source: World Bank Anuar, A.R. (2000) also highlighted that there appears to be disparity between the states in terms of revenue producing resources. States main revenue mainly comes from forest, land and minerals. However, not all states have sufficient land endowments or significant forest reserves. Not all states also are rich in terms of minerals such as tin in Perak, petroleum in Sabah, Sarawak and Terengganu. Also some states which are mainly based on religious political fundamentals are unable to generate much income from entertainment as compared to the more liberal states of Selangor, Johor and Penang. Moreover, state taxes which are mainly based on forest, lands and minerals are inelastic as it does not depend on any economic growth such as income tax and trade taxes. Therefore, the state restrains itself from spending more based on its own revenue to keep the fiscal gap intact. This restrictions cause their financial autonomy to diminish. Therefore, the grants provided were unable to solve the horizontal imbalances as evidenced from the different financial capacities of the states. This is because the grants are given not based on financial needs but rather based on a certain set mechanism or formula. As the state economy continues to grow, the revenue of the states did not increase in tandem but the expenditure continues to grow to cater for the services and development programs of the state. Also the mechanism or formula used has money illusions as it does not have any price adjustment factors for costs and inflations and therefore do not meet with the original objectives. Therefore, these inter-governmental transfers must be reviewed frequently to ensure that the allocation provided is able to solve the vertical and horizontal imbalances. There is a need to improve the present system of inter-governmental transfers. In lieu of the federal government revenue capability, the federal government participates actively in the development of the state planning by directing federal sponsored regional development projects to the state and the setting up of the National Finance Council (NFC) as required by the Federal Constitutions. In a way, development planning is done at the federal government level and the states only act as an implementation agencies. The NFC manages and coordinates the financial management of the states and matters relating to the federal-state financial matters. The federal government is to consult the NFC on matters relating to:- The making of new federal grants to the states. Propose to introduce a bill varying the rates of the capitation grant or affecting the receipt by a state of the export duty on tin or other minerals produced in the state. The assignment of the states of the whole or any portion of the proceeds of any federal tax or fee. The annual loan requirements of the federal and state governments and the exervise of their borrowing powers. The making of loans to the states. The making of national development plans. Narayan, Hui, Leng (2009) mention the limited revenue capability and the lack of borrowing powers made the states heavily dependent on the federal government for development funds. Therefore, it is possible, that the federal government is able to make the states that voted the opposition party pay by reducing and delaying the federal fund disbursements. The states would at the same time be unable to renegotiate the terms because of many obstacles that is along the way.#p#分页标题#e# In the past, it has not been as issue as at any one time, not more than 2 states were in the hand of the opposition ruling. Hence, Malaysia was more like controlled by a single party whether it is decentralized at the federal-state level. However, the last election in 2008, the federal government party lost 2/3 of its majority in parliament and lost 5 states to the opposition team. Most of the lost states such as Perak, Penang and Selangor were states that are rich in terms of minerals, land and entertainment taxes. It has been seen that the federal government has by-passed the payment of funds to the state government. An example noted that the Entrepreneurial and Cooperative Development Ministry has ordered Mara, rather than the State Economic Development Corporations to disburse funds for federal projects under the ministry and this deprived the states of revenue equivalent to 5% of the value of the federal projects implemented in the states (The Star, 27 April 2008). From the state government consolidated finance accounts, it can be noted that the state estimated revenue drop by 4.8% in 2009 because the federal grants to state government dropped 41.8%. At the same time, the operating and development expenditure continues to grow at a double digit growth rate of 11.4% and 12.1% respectively in 2009. Therefore if this trend continue to persist, and expenditure continue to grow rapidly while the federal grants continue to be restricted, the states may see persistent deficits emerging in the operating budget. Also, note that the state development expenditure which are important to increase the productivity capacity of the economy Local Government Fiscal Phang, S.N. (2008) mention that the local government only contributed about 1% of GDP. She mention that there exists a problem with the state-local relationships because the state government is unable to provide funding to the local government. Therefore, they rely on federal funding and thus provide the federal government more reinforcement in its control. The Local Government Act 1976 and the National Council for Local Governance (NCLG) further strengthen the footing of the federal government. The NCLG as provided by constitutions provide that it can formulate policies for the promotion, development and control of local government throughout the federation and for the administration of any laws. The setting up of the local government which was meant to improve the efficient and effective provision of services to its people had met with issues of which it is unable to deliver what it was meant to do. Therefore, although it is closer to the people, they were unable to deliver what the community want, hence, there is a gap between the needs of the people and the performance of the government. There has also been a trend of which the federal government instead on further decentralizing, a trend towards recentralizing and privatization (Phang and Beh, 2006; Kuppusamy, 2001). Furthermore, the federal government provides duty for the local government in areas that they are not mandated to do in the first place that is burdensome to the local government. Examples of these areas are in the need to reduce poverty and crime rate. These additional responsibilities have a cost in the local government financial performance and human resources. Therefore, the performance of the local government is this area is generally bad and its relationship with the people is fragile as they are often criticized over delays, poor attitude, weak enforcement and arrogance. Their demand for finances and support from the federal government are ignored. It can be concluded that its weakness is in finance, service delivery and community participation . the only way to improve the transparency, efficienct and accountability is to have local government elections so that councillars can be elected. Therefore, with the government hierarachy system that is being adopted, the local government is unable to engage freely with the local community. The lack of political decentralization causes the relationship between the people and the local councils to be strained as any implementation of administrative decentralization with sufficient political reforms with result in formal harmony but informal discord (Phang 2006) the system lacks the necessary link between decentralization and participation through demorcratic representation (gaventa 2004). Corruption Shah, A. (1999, 2005) said Malaysia adopted a ‘client’s charter’ that provided service standards and a citizen recourse in the event of non-compliance of a government agencies, and this has helped the public sector to reorient itself toward service delivery and transforming the culture of governance. Therefore, this clients’ charter empowers citizens to demand accountability from the government if specified service standards are not met. (Anwar Shah and Mark Schacter ()) Transparency International gave a corruption perception index (CPI) of 4.5 (0 = most corrupt, 10 = most clean) in 2009 and ranked Malaysia 56th out of the 180 countries. The sharp decline in CPI from 5.1 in 2008 were largely attributable to the little progress in combating corruption and the lack of political will to implement effective anti-corruption measures. The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) seems to be focusing on opposition politicians and on not-important people. Source: Transparency International Policy Proposal Anuar, A.R. (2000) suggested that the wide vertical and horizontal imbalances can be reduced by implementing the following policies:- Federal grants and allocations. Transferring more state functions or responsibilities to the federal government. Tax devolution by increasing the fiscal autonomy of the state governments by providing a redistribution of tax powers from the federal to the states. Changing the ratio of distribution under the tax revenue sharing arrangements. To provide state governments free to pursue tax and expenditure policies in line with their responsibilities and to further strengthen states’ role in the promotion of regional economic growth and stability. To reduce the federal government’s strong participation in state development planning and to disables the establishment of the NFC. To improve the tax sharing arrangements between the federal and the states by giving the states government greater budgetary flexibility and certainty, without impeding the overall objectives of economic policy, national tax uniformity and tax effectiveness. The existing arrangement of sharing mineral resources taxes should be extended to income and trade taxes. This sharing will give all states a guaranteed source of revenue which are closely related to the movement of business and economic growth. To make equalization payments to the states with taxable capacity below the all state standard. The affected state should receive enough transfer to bring them to an acceptable percentage of the all state average. The transfer should be based on the size of the state tax based and potential tax revenue. Phang (2008) Civil service to relook at its work manual and reduce burdensome procedures. Absence of transparent method for public participation and consultation. People wants to be involved in the decision making process of its local authority and hesitates to accept decisions which appear autocratic and viewd as top-down directives, (ministry of housing and local government and economic planning unit, 2006; phang 2006 and kaur 2005). |
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