How we destroy local businesses.

i can never understand how the minds of those in authority work.

One would think that authorities will seek out talents and skills and create an environment to enable them to prosper in the economy.  Laws will be enacted to enable the entrepreneurs to be more effective and the consumers protected while safeguarding other national interests. Good business is good for the country.

But we seem to do the exact opposite with the available technology and the desk knowledge that our "brains" in the authorities have studied in the universities.

Singapore is a financial hub and we are not. That is not a surprise.

Bank Negara and the latest Money Services Business Act seems  more to curb and diminish the efficiency of money changers rather than use them to develop a vibrant financial market. Everyone knows that money changers are experts and efficient in efficiently performing exchange transactions. Some of them are able to remit currencies faster than any bank. They have been around longer than even bank negara whose officers had to go to university to understand what curency exchange and remittance is !!!

Prior to the MSB Act, quite a number of money changers have been chatged for remittance without licence. Instead of studying how they are able to do it, we clamp down on them on the pretext of money laundering. No one is denying that there may have been instances of money laundering but the solution is not to "burn the kelambu because of the nyamuk!"

Thanks to the MSB Act and bank negara's failure to understand the  practicalities of doing business, many money changers have gone out of business because they do not know how to put on tht neck tie and use the complex online forms that BNM insists must be filled up.

The MSB Act itself is a joke to the point of being oppressive when one considers the overbearing punishments contained in it. Even efficient Sinagpore does not have punishments like RM5 million for a simple offence!

The cost of doing businessfor money changers have gone up and it can be foreseen that in the long run, the small money changers may be a distant past taken over by bigger boys - this is called progress! The fact that even thier association is controlled by BNM is another joke in a democracy.

On another note, the forceful implementation of the GST against small traders who are not IT savvy is yet another cruel joke. We are very busy with enforcement until we forget completely about assisting the traders to understand the new technology. It is a "I don't care attitude".

If this is the way forward, we are going to kill our small businesses which are the fundamentals of our economy.

Peace !