NEP Blues

I was glad that TV3 showed a repeat of the Exchange last Saturday night. I thought I missed out the chance to watch Datuk Chua Jui Meng and the “towering” deputy UMNO youth leader, Khairy Jamaluddin to debate it out bout the NEP. It has become quite an issue after the UMNO youth proposed for a revival of the NEP ‘spirit’ during the recent UMNO assembly. Honestly, I didn’t even watch the UMNO assembly. No particular reason, except that I feel it’s like a soap opera - too much dramas, too many actors, too predictable and none of the story is real. So I guess I didn’t miss much, but when UMNO youth brought up the NEP issue, I really wished I didn’t miss that.

My dad pointed out bout the issue the next morning over breakfast. “Check-out the newspaper, they are trying to revive the NEP. Quite sad isn’t it?” - so I read the paper and feels like I just have to point out something about the issue (especially after watching the Exchange). Based on my limited knowledge of the NEP and based on my reading of “Malaysia Kita” the policy was introduced in the 70’s following the 13th May tragedy. One of the main objectives of the NEP was to eradicate poverty among the bumiputras and bumis are expected to achieve at least 30% equity of the economic cake within 30 years. This social contract has become a national agenda.

I know what I’m about to say will not make me popular, but I will say it anyway. The NEP has failed! Oh wait, let me correct that. The policy didn’t fail but the implementation of it has failed us – Malay. It’s a bitter pill to swallow but that’s the truth. It was a social contract that was agreed by all the races in this country that the bumis or rather malays will be allocated 30 years to achieve the 30% equity. But sadly, when the time due, we only achieve a fraction of the percentage. How in the world did this happen? And from what I understand, the malay’s equity in the economic cake back in the 80’s already reached 18%, but 2 decades later, the percentage didn’t move, not even by an inch. Something is definitely not right.

In the Exchange interview, khairy mentioned that there were a lot of leakages happened in the past. For instance, malay contractors did not take full advantage of the opportunities given yadda…yadda….So here I am, a 26 year old malay woman sits and wonder. Hmm…so not taking full advantage aye? Was it because malays do not know how to do business? It can’t be. Malays are smart people. We have already muster the tricks and trade of business way back in the “zaman kesultanan melayu melaka” (Not sure how to put that in English) we were already successful businessman back then. So that can’t be the reason. Then, what kind of leakage? So these 2 questions crossed my mind - Were there enough opportunities provided? Were there fair distributions of the opportunities? The later, concern me the most. Chua Jui Meng mentioned that during his 9 years of service in the cabinet, the government had poured a lot of monies to make the policy work. So why didn’t it succeed? Even if there were huge opportunities provided by the government, if there were no fair distribution, then I’m not surprise if we are still at 18%. Take the still sizzling AP issue for example. Were there opportunities provided? – YES. Were there fair distributions of the opportunities? - NO. There! I rest my case.

I think it will be a better and more meaningful thing if during the UMNO assembly, the UMNO youth brought up an agenda to investigate why does the NEP fail? What are the factors that contribute to the failure? how to move forward to better ourselves learning from mistakes we might have made in the past? and how to create awareness among malay businessmen not to “Ali Baba” their contracts and projects. Not just to ‘REVIVE’ the NEP. Let’s face it, we had our chance and we blew it. Our time is up. Now we need a plan B. It’s as simple as this - If we can’t reach the desired percentage within the ample timeframe given, what makes us think that protracting the time will help us achieve the objective? What guarantee can we give not just to other races, but to all the malays that there will be no more so-called leakages? If after an extension of say….20 years we are still far from our target, would we still propose for another ‘revival’? Come on….have some pride! We are better than that.

Since UMNO people likes to use pantun during their assembly, hehehe…..i append herewith a piece of my umm….not pantun more like sajak I guess….as follows:

“Melayu bukan bodoh, melayu bukan lemah
Tapi kalau mudah melatah,
terlalu mudah mengalah
Serakah kuasa mengalir dalam darah
Kepentingan bangsa tidak diendah
Sukar bangkit jika tidak dipapah
Melayu akan kalah”

P/S: altho’ I don’t agree with khairy, I think he looks hot in the interview. Too bad he’s married. But wait! Muslim can take up to 4 wives *wink wink* hahaha…just kidding!