Commentary by Dr Lim Teck Ghee
Continuing The Great Scholarship Debate
Before 1990, almost all scholarships for degree courses overseas were given to bumiputera, former Member of Parliament-cum ISA detainee Dr Kua Kia Soong disclosed. See his article in end note below.
Repeated calls for transparency in JPA scholarship disbursement, and the inevitable national outcry yearly against its unfairness indicate that the ethnic disparity issue was not remedied until 2008 – or nearly twenty years after the NEP was supposed to have ended. According to the government data released in Parliament, non-Bumiputras accounted for 45 % of JPA scholarship receipients in 2008, up from 24% in 2006 and 35% in 2007. This is a healthy trend but is it confined only to JPA awards?
What is the situation with regard to the GLC and GLIC scholarships such as Petronas, Tenaga Nasional, Telekom, Bank Negara and other federal and state bodies?
Since GLCs and GLICs are supposed to belong to all Malaysians and are not supposed to cater to any particular ethnic group’s interests, it will be necessary for Government to provide a consolidated list and not just one pertaining to PSD awards which was provided by Minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz in Parliament on June 16.
| From www.khazanah.com.my |
| What are Government-Linked Companies (GLCs)? GLCs are defined as companies that have a primary commercial objective and in which the Malaysian Government has a direct controlling stake. Controlling stake refers to the Government’s ability (not just percentage ownership) to appoint BOD members, senior management, make major decisions (e.g contract awards, strategy, restructuring and financing, acquisitions and divestments etc. ) for GLCs either directly or through GLICs. What are Government-Linked Investment Companies (GLICs)? GLICs are defined as Federal Government linked investment companies that allocate some or all of their funds to GLC investments. Defined by the influence of the Federal Government in: appointing/approving Board members and senior management, and having these individuals report directly to the Government, as well as, in providing funds for operations and/or guaranteeing capital (and some income) placed by unit holders. The definition currently includes seven GLICs: EPF, Khazanah, KWAP, LTAT, LTH, MKD and PNB. Which companies are categorized as GLCs? The category of GLCs comprises companies that are controlled by the respective State Governments and State-level agencies. This includes companies that the Government of Malaysia controls directly as its agencies such as Khazanah Nasional, MOF Inc., KWSP and Bank Negara Malaysia. Includes companies where GLCs themselves have a controlling stake, i.e. subsidiaries and affiliates of GLCs. |
In the fuller interest of social justice, transparency and accountability too, it will be necessary for the Government to provide a breakdown of the “Bumiputra category???. This category should provide details for the various sub-groups of Malay, Orang Asli, East Malaysian native communities, etc. since there have been repeated complaints by the non-Malay Bumiputra that their statistical inclusion in the larger category of Bumiputra hides the true situation of their lack of participation and accomplishment in the NEP’s successes and target attainment.
This call for the detailed breakdown of the Bumiputra category – not only for scholarships but for the whole range of NEP targets – should not be resisted by further bureaucratic and political foot-dragging. This data breakdown and analysis – and hopefully the subsequent policy refinement - is absolutely necessary if all Malaysians are to have their rightful place under the sun.
In his Parliamentary statement, Minister Nazri also stated: “So, there is no discrimination, just because they are brown, yellow or black???. The proof of this will be in the disclosure of the full data – JPA, GLCs and GLICs, and the detailed breakdown for regions, states, Bumiputra sub-groups, income groups, etc. In other words, nothing less than full disclosure will determine whether the public’s concerns on ethnic (or any other) bias are unfounded or well founded and whether the major policy shift towards an ethnic-blind scholarship policy has finally arrived or has just gone into another cul-de sac.
The Media and Spinning
On June 12, The Star carried this headline: 'Sultan Azlan: We protect bumi interests on scholarships'.
The MCA paper downplayed a royal speech that was reported by national news agency Bernama as 'Don’t question sovereignty of rulers, says Perak Sultan'. Star sourced the Bernama copy but changed its headline whereas other publications like The Edge had reproduced the Bernama headline verbatim. (Incidentally The Malaysian Insider and Utusan Malaysia approximated the Bernama headline too.)
Now why was Star spinning? Most likely because statistics such as those provided above – and this is where the Old Media has failed to do its job of informing the public – tell a different story which casts a bad light on the paper's political master MCA.
The truth is Umno, its cronies and Malay interests – in this order – have always been well protected; it is communal parties like MCA and MIC that have not protected the 'legitimate interests' of Malaysia's minority communities though they have done very well for their own leaders and cronies.
Take for instance the some 100,000 student enrolment of UiTM. Can we imagine any other country in the world practising the same exclusive ethnic policy (with a token non-Malay intake)? Say a country called Ruritania declares Acme, a public-funded university, open only to majority whites; and the Education Minister promising that he would not allow a single minority black to be admitted into Acme. How would we react?
Malays Have Accomplished Much Under NEP
Sultan Azlan Shah also reminded us about Article 153 of the Federal Constitution. The Constitution was formulated in 1957. NEP came 13 years after Independence. The time gap between the two should clearly indicate that both are entirely different propositions; it is hardly seditious to question the implementation of the NEP.
As its name reveals, NEP is a national economic policy but its policies are not carved in stone. They certainly cannot remain static and unchanged, or divorced from socio-political and socio-economic developments. And the irrefutable evidence is that the Malays have done very well since 1970.
Let's extrapolate from the Perak state legislature members an overview of the changes and progress that have taken place over the last 40 years since 1970 when NEP was introduced.
Pakatan Menteri Besar Mohd Nizar Jamaluddin is 52 years old and would have sat his Form Five in the mid-70s while Umno Menteri Besar Zambry Abdul Kadir is 47 and did his secondary school in the late 1970s. Nizar is a chartered engineer and Zambry holds a doctorate in political science; Nizar got his degree from the United Kingdom and Zambry his PhD from the United States.
Both these first generation bumiputeras of the NEP era have educational attainments that Malay and Muslim Malaysians (and other Malaysians) can rightly be proud of.
Next, let's take Deputy Speaker Hee Yit Foong in comparison. Hee is almost the same age as Zambry; she is not highly educated and lacks professionalism in discharging her duties as a lawmaker.
Hee belongs to the victimized NEP generation of non-Malays who had been sidelined from educational opportunities (it should be emphasized here too that there is an increasing number of Bumiputra who have been marginalized from higher education though not for the same reasons of ethnicity). While the cream de la crème of non-Malay students get national press coverage on their annual scholarship woes, the qualified but not straight-As students are left in the lurch unless their parents mortgage the family home or borrow from Ah Longs to put them through private college.
Thanks to the operation of the NEP during the past 40 years, Malaysia has engaged in the creation of Zambrys in one direction, and the creation of Hees in another. The result: some of those totally cut off or marginalized from education as a tool for social mobility – such as HINDRAF supporters - consequently have taken to the streets. These Malaysians are labelled as 'samseng' and anti-national by Umno. Others – hundreds of thousands if not millions of young and older Malaysians - have suffered in silence. Alas, there is still the newly born and unborn to come.
Markers of Success
The 'Datuk' title denotes a certain elevated status and success in life. Out of the 27 Umno Perak state assemblypersons (Adun), 22 are Datuk.
They are:
Datuk Zambry, Datuk Seri Mohd Tajol Rosli Ghazali, Datuk Hamidah Osman, Datuk Ramly Zahari, Datuk Saarani Mohamad (constituency: Kota Tampan), Datuk Sha'arani Mohamed (constituency: Rungkup), Datuk Mohd Najmuddin Elias, Datuk Hamdi Abu Bakar, Datuk Mohd Zaim Abu Hasan, Datuk Siti Salmah Mat Jusa, Datuk Nadzri Ismail, Datuk Hasbullah Osman, Datuk Mohd Tarmizi Idris, Datuk Mohamad Daud Mohd Yusof, Datuk Rosli Husin, Datuk Ahamad Pakeh Adam, Datuk Samsudin Abu Hasan, Datuk Mohd Khusairi Abdul Mutalib, Datuk Ahmad Zainuddin Raja Omar, Datuk Rusnah Kassim, Datuk Wan Mohammad Khairil Anuar and Datuk Nasarudin Hashim.
Isn't this plethora of Datukships a remarkable Malay achievement?
And of the two Puteri Umno Adun who are not (at least for the time being) Datuk, Yang Berhormat Dr Wan Norashikin is a dentist by training while YB Nolee Ashilin is the daughter of a Datuk Mohammed Radzi. Considering the Puteri representatives vis-a-vis Ms Hee, the public should be forgiven for thinking that the Malays have done very well indeed.
There are other Malays who are corporate high fliers and should be given due recognition too. One who recently came to public notice is 34-year-old Wan Haslinda Wan Yusoff.
Fruits of Preferential Treatment
Wan Haslinda is the major shareholder and group managing director of Mega-Wan Corporate Services, which – according to a report by theSun special investigation team of R. Nadeswaran and Terence Fernandez – had filed to collect RM97.27 million in professional fees from the Port Klang Authority.
Mega-Wan had provided “corporate advisory and associated services??? to the port on its PKFZ project. Such a success story, a bumiputera company charging mega fees close to RM100 million, and not to mention another RM48.6 million for “professional fees to advise and conduct financial re-engineering??? surely is not unusual. There are countless other examples in all sectors clearly showing that the second Malay generation under NEP is surpassing the capability and achievements of the first.
Third generation NEP-ers nurtured and supported by continued protective quotas should be able to scale even more impressive heights at younger ages. Only Umno seems strangely too reticent to take credit for these achievements and keeps harping for more and more perks (for its members!).
But while NEP has redistributed national wealth so that Malays now have a larger slice of the economic cake, this cake has unfortunately not grown much bigger. That is the major failure which affects all of us, Malays, other Bumiputra and non-Malays.
The most important indicator of this is our GDP per capita. In 1970 when the NEP was first promulgated, our GDP per capita was about the same as Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea. Now Singapore has more than three times our GDP per capita, while industrialized Taiwan and South Korea are also way ahead.
All Malaysians have a right to question this poor performance of our nation and the policies such as the NEP that have been responsible for it. All our political leaders should be willing to openly discuss and analyze why and how 'the little red dot' down south and the bigger brown and yellow dots up north can outperform us despite their lack of oil, gas, land and other natural resources.
Race Formula that Has Failed and Continues to Fail the Nation
We all know that the ruling party controls enormous resources as seen in the political play happening in Perak. The ruling party possesses a tremendous capacity to co-opt or coerce dissenting elements that question the NEP or other BN priorities into staying passive or compliant within the fold of the system. Takeovers and buy-overs – whether friendly or hostile - are not solely market phenomenon in Malaysia. They are a part of the political landscape
Unfortunately, this system has been abused so much that it is bursting at the seams.
Various international and national socio-economic indicators show that Malaysia's economic future is getting more difficult and stormy. These indicators include recent global competitiveness, inward FDI performance, stock market capitalisation, government inefficiency, business inefficiency, government intervention in the economy and corruption level. Other subjective indicators such as the sense of material well-being, crime and security, socio-political stability, civic freedoms, religious tolerance, etc, also reveal a worrying situation.
But wait till our oil wells run dry!
A few months ago, former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad gave his prognosis that Malaysia will not be able to become a developed nation by 2020. He conveniently forgot to mention that it was under his watch and that of his chosen successor that the rot set in. The BN government must take the credit if we fail to make the grade amongst countries of the world – ANOTHER PROJECT BN.
Perak is a barometer to gauge all of the above. The recent developments in the state would not lead an observer to conclude that Perak is located in a developed country.
The situation in Perak is also an indictment of the BN methodology of Umno helping Malays, MCA , Gerakan and MIC the Chinese and Indians respectively, whereas the Iban, Dayak, Kadazan, Dusun and other minorities turn to their own ethnic BN component parties. Not to forget the me-too Kimma [Kongres India Muslim Malaysia] desperately seeking a ticket to ride the gravy train.
BN's coalition of the willingly co-opted swears to live or die by its racialist power-sharing arrangement. But what we have now in Perak is a tremendously skewed 27:1 ethnic ratio in the BN Adun composition. The sole MCA representative is Dr Mah Hang Soon, and there is no one from MIC.
One foresees that the impasse in Perak will be prolonged indefinitely as Nizar and Zambry play musical chairs in the courts.
Perak should return to the people for a fresh mandate to break the deadlock. Yang Berhormat Dr Mah must vacate his Chenderiang seat ... it is the principled thing to do because the 27:1 Perak reality contradicts the credo of inter-ethnic (and now more recently, religiously-oriented) power sharing trumpeted by UMNO.
If MCA has any shred of political common sense - if not honour - left, the communal party should direct Dr Mah not to let himself remain a minority window dressing and fig leaf covering Umno's naked power grab. But opportunism and cronyism may be too deeply embedded in the party’s culture for this to take place.
________________________________________
Endnote:
* Dr Kua Kia Soong writes: “The statistics I got in Parliament in 1990 were as follows – an average of 90 percent of loans for polytechnic certificate courses, 90 percent of scholarships for diploma of education courses, 90 percent of scholarships/loans for degree courses taken in the country, almost all scholarships/loans for degree courses taken overseas were given to bumiputeras.
Regarding the enrolment of students in residential schools throughout the 1980s, 95 percent were bumiputeras; the enrolment in Mara Lower [Junior] Science College, Maktab Sains Mara was almost 100 percent bumiputera throughout the 80s ... do you call this affirmative action?
Is there any wonder the government has not ratified the United Nations Convention Against Racial Discrimination up to the present day????