Part 2: It’s all about empowering the elites
Speakers at the Bumiputera Economic Congress made much of their concern for the B40 group, the people most disadvantaged by our current economic system. Most of them are Malays. For them the promises of Merdeka remain an illusion.
Unemployment and underemployment are major problems; businesses prefer to hire cheap foreign labour rather than pay locals a decent wage. As Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj noted recently, “A small number of bumiputera control the companies that bring in excess migrant workers and depress the wages of the B40 bumiputera layer, making it difficult for the B40 to find work with a decent salary”.[1] For the most part they earn the minimum wage and have to struggle to make ends meet. Whole generations have been condemned to poverty.
The politicians know all this. Economists and social scientists have studied the problem for decades; it’s not rocket science. If there’s political will, the problems of the B40 group can be solved quite easily.
It doesn’t happen because Bumiputera elites prefer to talk about equity ownership, more money for bumiputera entrepreneurs, bigger allocations for all sorts of projects, increasing the size of Bumiputera land ownership, etc. – all of which benefit them rather than the B40 group.
All these proposals – put forward with a straight face – are really quite revolting and utterly shameless. They are just out to grab as much as they can get in the name of Bumiputera empowerment. And it is the dwindling non-Malay minority that has to disproportionately shoulder the burden of this exploitative system.
To justify the continuance of the current discriminatory economic system, they keep changing the goal posts, adding new often vague conditionalities, new parameters and new demands to help the Bumiputeras “catch up.” Of course, ambiguous goals are hard to reach but that’s the whole idea.
A hundred years from now, they’ll still be talking about the need to catch up with the non-Malays, never mind that by then the non-Malays will be only a tiny minority given their low birth rates and present migration trends. If they keep on pursuing failed policies and neglecting the B40 group, they might someday have to talk about catching up with Indonesian, Bangladeshi and other migrants.
Amazingly, the government still harbours hopes that it can somehow magically create a new class of Bumiputera entrepreneurs out of thin air[2] by throwing more money into the pot and offering yet more privileged access to contracts, etc. But if there’s one thing that the last few decades of Bumiputera empowerment has taught us it is that there are no shortcuts; the only way is to go to the root of the issue – our abysmally atrocious education system.
Reforming the education system, making it more competitive and equipping students with the right skills, is the only way to lift the B40 segment out of poverty. Many non-Malay families – without any government support – lifted themselves out of poverty through education and hard work. That almost all the current crop of Bumiputera highflyers are foreign educated should also tell us something.
But of course talking about education reform is not politically sexy; besides, there’s not much money to be made from it. To make matters worse, the mullahs now have an iron grip on the education system; they are more interested in developing faithful followers and equipping students for the next life rather than building a generation of entrepreneurs, professionals and skilled-workers. But nobody – certainly not any of those at the congress who made much about Bumiputera empowerment – has the courage to stand up to them.
At the end of the Congress, Former Law Minister Zaid Ibrahim said, “It’s a relief that the Bumiputera Economic Congress is over. Let’s pray we will not have another one ever again.”[3] Many Malaysians hope so too. But rent-seeking and entitlement is now so wrapped up in the fortunes of Malay political and business elites that all the prayers in the world will not avail for much.
[Dennis Ignatius |Kuala Lumpur | 20th March 2024]
[1] COMMENT | Bumiputera congress should focus on the poor | Malaysiakini |29 February 2024
[2] RM1bil for new Bumiputera entrepreneurship fund, says Anwar | FMT |02 March 2024
[3] Time for Malaysian Economic Congress, says Zaid |NST | 04 March 2024
Dennis Ignatius 
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