What stops the gravy train is not ethnicity, but corruption and favoritism

Written by Maclean Patrick, Malaysia Chronicle

Even as Prime Minister Najib Razak faces demands from irate Malay businessmen upset that the days of easy government contracts were fading, his administration has been forced to admit the income gap between the haves and have-nots within a racial community itself including the Malays have widened to a stage that requires adjustment or risk a social blow-up in the not-too-distant future.

A top aide Nor Mohamed Yackop said the next hurdle was to solve income inequality within an ethnic group. According to the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, while the Najib administration had successfully “reduced” income disparity between different races in the country, it had yet to deal with the economic gap of different social classes within a race.

“Although we have successfully reduced inter-ethnic inequality... there is disparity within the races itself,” he said during a public talk organised by the Malaysian Student Leaders Summit (MSLS).

But through the decades, experts have forewarned that unless corruption was eradicated and the government stopped rewarding cronies with plush deals, no solution could address the issue. Many point out that the elite Malay contractors would only exert more pressure on the UMNO-led government until they got their share of the pie. In which case, how could the gravy train ever travel down to the other races, or even to the middle and lower income Malays themselves?

A good example is how the Malay Economic Consultative Council publicly chided Najib a week ago for not doing more for Teraju, a recently-launched bumiputra development unit.

"PEMANDU has announced the implementation of 60 of 131 Entry Point Projects from the Economic Transformation Programme Lab while TERAJU has yet to announce anything," MECC president Rozali Ismail had said.

But was Rozali fighting for the Malay tycoons, of which he is one, or for the everyday bumiputra which not only includes the struggling Makciks and Pakchiks in the rural Malay villages but also the poor Iban, Dayak, Orang Ulu, Bidayah, Kadazan and other groups given the bumiputra designation.

Still a need for quotas, but why are the Bumis in S'wak, Sabah still so poor

Nor Yackop, who is in charge of the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) also said there was still a need for Bumiputera policies and quotas. A point of contention, that many Malaysians do not believe is true.

If Bumiputera policies were properly in place to help everyone compete on the same level playing feel, then why is it that the Bumiputeras of Sabah and Sarawak are still very much non-players on the economic landscape. Worse still, Sarawak as the richest state is also the one with the most poor.

Putrajaya has seriously got it all wrong when it comes to reducing the disparity of the poor and rich. And it begins with the fact that wealth distribution has nothing to do with ethnicity.

When will the BN administration ever learn that common things such as wealth cannot be explained by putting in elements of ethnicity into the equation. All human beings are born equal under the sun. The same sun lights up our days and the same moon shines in our night sky. We all breathe the same air and in the equation of the universe; time is the same constant for all.

To a large extent, it is the governments of the wolrd that determine how one human being can succeed versus another by offering the opportunities that present themselves within their respective country. Some governments practise equal opportunity. Some like Malaysia, don't.

If a government has policies that allow equal opportunity for all, then its citizens will be able to work well and see the rewards of their endeavours. This will assure that wealth is distributed according to the measure of work the individual puts in.

The harder one works, the more one earns. This is a competitive model that any human being can take part in regardless of their background.

Discriminative policies unchanged

Yet, though Najib and his administration speaks of creating a high-income society in Malaysia and to reduce poverty in all states; they refuse to remove policies that favour certain ethnic groups.

Think about, if the system is clean without corruption - without vested groups hijacking deals and keeping the country's wealth to themselves - money will flow efficiently through the system. The mulitplier effect kicks in smoothly. Wealth gets distributed. Without blockages and leakages, the velocity of money can speed up and this itself drives the economy at a quicker pace.

Nor Yackop’s statement is telling since it shows the government is starting to acknowledge that even among the Malays, there is a wealth disparity that continues to widen. He may not have stated the obvious but it simply means that there are certain members within the Malay community that are only interested in enriching themselves whilst disregarding their own people.

If truly, Najib and his administration want to eliminate wealth disparity; then they will have to remove the privileges that favor a singular ethnic group. They also need to create an environment where the harder one works, the better one earns with equal opportunity for all on all levels of Malaysian society.

It is time we remove the crutches that help a particular ethnic group and allow them to stand on their own two feet. Wealth distribution has nothing to do with ethnicity, instead it’s just about whether one chooses to work hard or remain lazy.