///“The fight to eradicate poverty is still not over and that needs to be tackled,” the former Prime Minister said.///– AAB, Star online 5 July

There remain 5% poor persons in the country, of all races. That works out to be 1 million persons or 200,000 households. Pay these households RM 10,000 a year; that would cost RM 2 billion. Najib wanted to set up Ekuinas with RM 10 billion. That alone will pay the poor for five years, and after that poverty would be eradicated. Poverty is not a problem. NEP that is used to fight poverty is the problem. Petronas is paying RM 60 billion a year to the government; that equates to 30 years advance payment to pay the poor out of poverty.

The real question of reform is whether UMNO would be willing to do away with racial politics which it depended on to getting votes. If UMNO leader Najib would just use his imagination, not to be influenced by TDM and move boldly away for UMNO racist policy which unfortunately started by his late father, he might launch a rebirth of Malaysia. Najib does not require much reform beyond doing away racist policy in the general order of the civil services sponsored by NEP, government institutions would soon find its way back to professionalism. The country economy could go on autopilot.

I sent the following letter to http://www.1Malaysia.com.my two days ago:

Mr Prime Minister,

I know that this letter will not be published in your blog. But I hope that you will get to read it yourself. Indeed you will be wasting your time if you only want to read letters that are in praise of you.

Alan Greenspan said recently that he did not expect that salaried CEO would not be concerned with the health of the corporation they were in and that was the reason of the current economic crisis. Similarly, I am concerned whether the Prime Ministers Malaysia do care about the wellbeing of the nation.

As PM of Malaysia, you would want others to respect you for what you have made Malaysia into. AAB was correct that he wanted to be PM for all Malaysians. Politicians all over the world know the effectiveness of divide and rule, but they might think it beneath themselves to go down on that route. AAB had the sincerity, but his so-in-law blew it with this ambition.

TDM would cut a larger figure had he recognized his Mamak root, and made Malaysia politics race-blind. But he instead chose to call himself Malays and wanted others to be Malays too, as a price to pay for getting equal treatment, like he did voluntarily. When you look around you Cabinet colleagues, you will admit that the Malays are all but Malays, other than the Muslim religions. The true Malays of the pre-independence classification have given way to other blood line, and the Indian Muslims are holding both economic power and political reign at the expense of true Malays. Yet they are accepted as Malays. Consequently, it can be said that Malays are not racists. They accept others who help their political base, having been brainwashed into racial politics.

What Malaysia needs is a true leader who can transcend racial politics. TDM pioneered racial politics and ended up as PM. His method inspired others to follow the same route. Khairy with his training and connection to AAB walked the same route, and others lesser endowed would follow suit. They think that racism is the only route to recognition in UMNO and an assurance to Cabinet post. You made the same mistake in 1987 declaring war against Chinese blood. You may deny it, but that incident will not be forgotten. The Chinese hate Mahathir for making Malaysia which Tunku called a happy land into an arena for racial conflicts. Had you stayed with Tengku Razaleigh in the UMNO election in 1987, TDM would not have been able to destroy the country to its present stage. He had also converted Malaysian police into a secret society.

You do not like to hear about C4. If those war weapons could be easily misused by people who are supposed to guard your life, can you feel safe?

The rescue of the wife to the prince of Kelantan in Singapore says that Singapore police has the confidence of the citizens. You will admit that it is entirely a different police force in Malaysia. You used statistics to argue that Malaysia is safer than Japan and Hong Kong, but as a UK trained economist, your degree would be suspect if you believe what you said in that regard. You should know that the IGP may be handy for you to suppress opposition in Perak, but the head of an organization who does not respect professionalism is harmful to the country. Certainly as PM you like to have your police force to be as professional as that of Singapore.

The Perak debacle was really caused your eagerness to show that you could do things differently from AAB. But the consequence is far worse. For a start, the judiciary is now proven to be partial with them trying hard to please you. The police convinced us that they are uniformed secret society members. The civil services prove that they themselves are an extension arm of UMNO. That is not the type of country you can be proud of.

You were a teenager when May 13 took place. You might not have read what Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad said in his writing appearing in LKS blog. He was with your late father on that fateful day. He said that on receiving the call from Lim Chong Eu and Tan Chee Khoon, you father called Harun Idris, the caretaker MB of Selangor to inform him that Gerakan would not join in forming government in Selangor and Perak, and that Harun could continue as MB and he was to disperse the crowd gathering at his residence. Harun called back later to say that it was too late because disturbance started in Chow Kit road in Kuala Lumpur.

The above tells you that May 13 was not a spontaneous event caused by the Malays against the Chinese out of jealousy as UMNO politicians made it out to be, and you perhaps believe in. The 1969 election campaign was all about Article 153 which came due for review in 1972. The unhappiness on that provision might have been caused by your father’s action in denying non-Malays the opportunity to join the FELDA scheme. That was in fact against the spirit of that Article 153 itself.

It might be easier to believe that the Chinese and the Indians might be against the government led by Malays for the unfair treatment, and they wanted a change through the 1969 election. NEP that was introduced in 1970 and the amendment that removed the review provision of Article 153 set the wave of emigration affecting a large number of Chinese who rightly predicted that UMNO would go extreme in its racist policy.

I doubt if you have read the policy objective of NEP, and so are your colleges in the Cabinet. The oft repeated objective was that NEP was to eradicate poverty irrespective of race, and to de-link means of earning a living with race, with an memorandum item that Malays should have 30% participation in commerce and industries. That 30% participation gives a vision of Malays earning their living as traders such as sundry shop keepers, petrol pump owners, rice miller, owners and workers in manufacturing concerns, artisan, and bankers. EPU chose to use the proxy of 30% ownership of corporate equity as measure of Malays’ participation. That has now been taken as the entirely criterion for keeping NEP beyond its 20 years, and counting.

I would like to give some facts below so that it would be possible for you to tell your party members that enough is enough.

You mentioned that RM 54 billion worth of share have been allotted to Malays and now only RM 2 billion are in their hands. In the earlier days when KLSE shares were traded on premium, IPO given to Malays were like instant cash. They took advantage of the rising market to cash out, as capital for future IPOs. Doubling up of shares in that regard until 1990s was a norm. Thus, Malays, the selected ones, have made about RM 100 billion in those transactions, if they cashed out at the right time. They are now 4% or one million poor persons, of all races. Had the RM 100 billion been distributed, each of the poor would have a share of 100,000 Ringgit. A poor family of five having five-hundred thousand ringgit worth of asset cannot be said to be poor; poverty would have actually been eradicated if UMNO did not make rich Malays richer.

ASLI’s report in 2006 have shown that Malays owned more than 30%, or was it 45% of the equity share capital. You wanted EPU to refute with statistics and methodology within a month then. You must now be convinced that ASLI was correct.

You said that Malays owned 2.4 % of share capital in 1970. It would be more correct to say that Malays had about 18% even in 1970, when the net worth of million acres of mature Palm oil land in by Malays was included in the calculation. EPU should have taken the net worth of FELDA that was run like a limited liability corporation into the calculation, rather than excluding it because it as not registered as a limited companies. It helps Malays leaders to justify NEP. But the two edged sword cuts UMNO too when Malays really believed that they were that deprived. Even to this day, when FELDA is going global as you declared recently, its worth is not included in EPU statistics, and so also are corporations owned by FELDA. EPU lies with statistics. ASK your EPU to check on this, just for your own confirmation.

EPU talked about equity at par value. KLSE does not trade based on par value, and why should par value measure the net worth of corporation? You are an economist trained in UK, and you certainly do not need elementary argument to realize it.

Ekuinas that you have set up would be doing the wrong thing all over again. It is possible to satisfy the needs of people, but it I not possible to satisfy their desire. There is no need to compile any statistics to know that Malays have more than 30% participation in ‘businesses’. In fact, Malays control everything in the country from commerce, government, education and any other fields. NEP should just be removed.

You are now on the tiger back to remove NEP, but that is the only way to nurture Malaysia back to its new life again.

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Footnote: I must say that I sent in three messages and they were published in that blog.

Loh Says: Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Yesterday at 22: 18.47
I sent the following letter to http://www.1Malaysia.com.my two days ago:

Mr Prime Minister,

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Two hours have passed, still waiting

The government should make an assessment of what the gaps are in achieving the NEP targets and the area of over achievements. In December 2006, PM AAB and DPM Najib said EPU would prove ASLI wrong within a month on ASLI’s reporting stating that 30% equity target had been achieved. This has not yet been done. It is unfair to say that the 30% policy gets a low priority, and come back for it again.

The government reports only the statistics of Malays equity figure and nothing else, and keep saying that NEP has not been achieved. So, it should imply that NEP had achieved the objective in all other areas except the issue of equity. That statistics now become the deciding factor. ASLI and EPU should engage in public debate, or work together on the actual statistics. Petronas have submitted RM 250 billion to government over the past 6 years. Petronas should be made to buy the gaps and hold it for Malays, and decide on a distribution plan in due course. We can declare NEP over, and dismantle all those race-based regulations arising from NEP in government administration.

Najib may then be able to begin talking about 1Malaysia without the NEP ghost haunting him.