6th November 2021
NLM FIRST JOURNAL : NLM 2ND JOURNAL : NLM 3RD JOURNAL : NLM 4TH JOURNAL : NLM 5TH JOURNAL : NLM 6TH JOURNAL : NLM 7TH JOURNAL : NLM 8TH JOURNAL : NLM 9TH JOURNAL : NLM 10TH JOURNAL : NLM 11TH JOURNAL
MALAY LEFT : IBRAHIM YAAKOB : MERDEKA : OP LALANG : BOESTAMAM : AL-HELMY : SHAMSIAH: KARTHIGASU : ABDULLAH : CHIN PENG : TAN CHEE KHOON : WOMEN FREEDOM FIGHTERS : OBITUARY
12th Malaysia Plan EDITION 🇲🇾: Bumi dichotomy : Positive discrimination : 30% Bumi Equity : Affirmative Action : Burden of Privilege : Melayu tipu Melayu : Challenging status quo : 1957 Social Contract : Vision 2020 and beyond
♧♧ ECOSOCIALISM ♧♧ ECOLOGICAL HIGHWAY ROBBERY ♧ ECOLOGICAL MARXISM OBSERVATION ♧ ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS IN EXPLOITATION ♧ RAGE AGAINST CYANIDATION ♧ CAPITALISM AND LANDLESSNESS ♧ CAPITAL AND CULTIVATORS ♧ DIALECTICAL URBANISATION: FELDA TO FTZ ♧ VICTIMS OF AGENT ORANGE Kua Kia Soong ♧ REIMAGING DEVELOPMENT Syed Ali Tawfik Al-Attas ○■○ 14:15
Socialism with Malaysian Characteristics Project: MASS MOVEMENTS : CAPITALIST CLASS : POLITICAL ECONOMY : RENEWAL of the SOCIALIST IDEAL : TOWARDS A SOCIALIST COMMUNITY
Post May 13, 1969, the country’s growth policies have shifted from strategies with an emphasis purely on economic growth toward a strategem focusing at combining growth with income inequality reduction between ethnic groups. This policy shift was formalized in the New Economic Policies (NEP) for the period 1971–1990 (see Economic Planning Unit, various years). The relationship between economic growth and ethnic diversity (Agostini et al., 2010, Gören, 2014, Iniguez-Montiel, 2014) is supported by a body of economic literature that finds that ethnic heterogeneity induces social conflicts and violence, which in turn, affects economic growth (see Easterly and Levine, 1997, Mauro, 1995, Montalvo and Reynal-Querol, 2005). The negative consequences of ethnic diversity imply that adequate policies are required to ensure that the benefits of any economic growth are equally shared among all ethnic groups.
Unfortunately, five decades plus downstream, the politico-economic mission objectives have yet to attain that vision reality. The 2022 budgetary version is just as bad as previous years’ The Budget and the Buffons: misallocating rare resources as well as accentuating the dominance of ethnocapital over rakyat-rakyat labour. The continuance of an neoliberalism economic approach post-independence only restrains the forward thrust in engendering a truly national developmental effort.
Truism that there shall be retarded economic development in years ahead because the development expenditures in the past decades have been inadequate to propel the national economic wellbeing along an equity and progressive trajectory – more so when less than 23% of the national budget is often allocated only for developmental tasks whereas 75% of expenditure is bearing the “implementation” operational aspects (nation has one citizen supporting 20 civil servants and their pension remunerations).
The Pandora Papers exposè only widen the mired state of nation politico-economic praxis wherein RM$1.8 Trillion is siphoned abroad by corrupted compradore capitalists and their clientel ethnocapital; this amount is even more than the national debt of RM$1.2 Trillion in 2020!
We repost Dennis Ignatius’s article in the Asia Sentinel on this page below as a primer to this month’s New Left Malaysia journal. Other articles are from Martin Ravallion, Sudhave Singh, K.S. Jomo, Murray Hunter, Lim Teck Ghee, Ramesh Chander, chi – sigma, firesstorms and the STORM collectives.
This issue highlights Income Inequality and discussions on the Poverty Poors, collated from a collection of articles pertaining to these topical problems confronting the political and economic states of a nation :
Ethnic Inequality : Poverty Poors : Dialectical Urbanism: Urban Debts : Next 20 Years : Achieving Low : Vision 2020 Betrayed : A Stagnated Economy : NEP hasn’t Worked : A Socialist Ideal
There are additional videos’ and webinars’ links (scroll down to the bottom of page) covering economic principles’ deficits in the 12th Malaysia Plan besides confounding issues in the Budget 2022 that Muhammed Abdul Khalid – a former Eminent Advisor to the Harapan Perkataan 2018 government, and author of the London School of Economics paper: Income inequality among different ethnic groups: the case of Malaysia – questions on Where is its fairness?
Towards common prosperity with solidarity.
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Malaysia’s Crony Enrichment Plan
Dennis Ignatius
ASIA SENTINEL : November 3rd 2021
Since Malaysia’s New Economic Policy was launched in 1971, there have been a dozen five-year Malaysia Plans, some 50 national budgets and nine prime ministers. Furthermore, 94 different Bumiputera empowerment agencies have been created and an estimated RM1 trillion (US$241 billion at current exchange rates) poured into the Bumiputera agenda, an affirmative action plan to help the majority race.
And yet, here we are still talking about how far the Bumiputeras – indigenous peoples, most of them ethnic Malays – have fallen behind the non-Bumiputeras, how targets have not been reached, how income inequalities between Malays and non-Malays are increasing, how Malays are still struggling. The reason is that all of these plans are really nothing but a racket designed to enrich political elites and their cronies at the expense of the rest of the people of Malaysia.
Stripped of all the bombast, the current Malaysia Plan is essentially a rehash of the same old NEP structures that favor the elites. It deploys a racial narrative – premised upon questionable statistics and opaque methodologies – to mask the ongoing exploitation of the masses by ruling elites. The result is a continuation of the same discriminatory, divisive and predatory policies that have wrecked so much harm upon the nation.
One of the key justifications for keeping all the NEP structures intact was the claim that Bumiputeras have still not been able to achieve the 30 percent corporate equity target that was set more than half a century ago when the NEP was introduced ij the wake of disastrous race riots that took hundreds of lives.
According to Prime Minister Ismail Sabri, Bumiputera corporate equity in 2019 was just 17.2 percent, well short of the 30 percent figure. The corresponding figure for non-Bumiputeras was 25 percent. Foreign investors held 45.5 percent with the remaining 12.3 percent held by nominees.
A point to note is that these figures rise and fall as shares are traded or sold. In 1991, Bumiputera equity was said to be just over 20 percent. In 2009, Bumiputera corporate equity was 19.4 percent. In 2011 it reached a high point of 23.4 percent. In 2019 it had fallen to 17.2 percent.
In explaining why Bumiputera corporate equity stood at only 19.4 percent in 2009, Najib Razak, who was then prime minister, revealed that of the RM54 billion worth of equity that had been allocated to Bumiputeras since 1971, only RM2 billion was still held by them as of 2009. What this means is that if Bumiputeras had held on to all the shares that had been allocated to them, the 30 percent equity target would have been surpassed by over 500 percent decades ago.
Well-connected Bumiputera elites get allocated shares (initial public offering) which they buy with loans that banks are generally obliged to provide and then sell once the shares go up, making a tidy profit. It’s easy money, a regular lottery for political elites and their cronies.
After selling their shares, they return to the feeding trough for more shares and the game goes on. In this way, RM54 billion (as of 2009) has already gone into the pockets of the elites in the name of helping the Bumiputeras.
Given the way it is structured, the 30 percent target can never be reached. The proposed changes to the system that Ismail Sabari is initiating are unlikely to make a significant difference. Our elites are too addicted to easy money and quick profits to accept any meaningful reforms.
To use such a formula then to justify the continuance of NEP structures is just a shameful abuse of power. It does nothing to uplift the so-called B40 group – the bottom 40 percent of society — or help other disadvantaged Malaysians.
Surely, at some point, we have to stop and ask why, despite all the time, effort and money expended, the Malays are still lagging behind? On what basis are these claims being made? If true, what went wrong? Where did all that money go to? Why hasn’t it reached poorer Malays who continue to languish in the B40 group?
Simple logic ought to tell us that it makes absolutely no sense to keep on pouring money into failed policies, but these are all inconvenient questions that political elites and their cronies avoid by hiding behind racial narratives. And so, they continue to pour good money into bad solutions or, to be more precise, pour good money directly into their own pockets.
For some time now, the nation’s leading economists have been calling for a shift to a needs-based approach that would focus on those who need assistance irrespective of their ethnicity. Even some of those who have most benefited from the Bumiputera agenda are saying enough is enough.
There is widespread acknowledgment that policies such as Bumiputera share allocations, APs and demands that non-Bumiputera freight forwarding companies hand over 51 percent of their equity to Bumiputeras do little to actually benefit Bumiputeras as a whole. All it does is enrich a few well-connected cronies and their political masters. Besides being entirely counter-productive, it stirs up the kind of resentment that is slowly tearing this country apart. Non-Bumiputeras feel more and more marginalized and left out; it is as if they don’t matter anymore.
The 12th plan indicates that all these calls have fallen on deaf ears. The ruling elite continues to resist change. It is, after all, a system they created to enrich themselves at the expense of the rakyat and they clearly intend to hold on to it for as long as possible. It is also the very framework that facilitates the patronage system upon which political power rests in the country.
The fact is that there is not much money – and thus no real incentive – to be made in programs to help the poor and disadvantaged. It is the big mega projects and the billion-ringgit procurement contracts that provide the best opportunities for corruption. It is one of the reasons why we continue to lurch from one scandal to another. Costs are inflated, payments are made for work not done or for equipment not delivered and money is needlessly spent on consultants, etc.
Money doesn’t just disappear; it is stolen. The public has been swindled but thus far no one has been held accountable. The Public Accounts Committee and the Auditor-General keep highlighting administrative weaknesses and making recommendations year after year but nobody really listens.
If public funds are lost, stolen or diverted year after year and no one is held responsible, it can only mean that there is a massive and well-organized conspiracy to loot public funds, that it is all part of a system of organized and sanctioned pillage. It is not that we don’t know how to stop corruption but the whole system is now designed to facilitate the wholesale looting of public funds.
Under the plan, RM400 billion will be spent over the next five years. The former president of Transparency International has warned that without proper checks and improvements, up to 30 percent of that amount could be lost through corruption. That amounts to a stunning RM120 billion. So far, there has been little clamor from either the public or the political classes for stricter checks and balances. Perhaps, the theft of public funds has become normalized.
Our opposition parties made the usual noises when the 12th plan was debated but they made no effort to seriously challenge it or demand greater accountability. Apparently, honoring their MOU with the government is more important than challenging a seriously flawed policy that perpetuates an unjust and discriminatory system. No wonder many voters have concluded that the opposition has lost its way.
In the meantime, as Malaysia wallows in corruption, racism and religious extremism, our tiny neighbor to the south of the peninsula is punching above its weight in world affairs. At the recently concluded G20 summit, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was seen hobnobbing with key world leaders.
Dennis Ignatius is a retired Malaysia ambassador and a regular contributor to Asia Sentinel
VIDEOS on MALAYSIA 🇲🇾
REFLECTIONS on the NEP after 50 YEARS 2hr 25min; THE POLITICAL DYNAMICS IN SABAH SARAWAK AND THE SEMENANJUNG; BORNEO DILEMMA: SABAH and SARAWAK under the MUHYUDDIN ADMINISTRATION 1hr 26min: Sabah and the Future of the Malaysian Constitution, 2021 by Professor James Chin; Formation of Malaysia, Peter Tong, 2020; The Complexities of the Borneo States to form Malaysia. RAFIDAH SLAMMED THE 12MP ¤ FMT 1:29-minute ¤¤ Malaysia Widening Inequality Gap R.AGE 7:28 ¤¤ What happened to Malaysia’s Vision 2020 cna 46:16-minute ¤-¤ MA63 CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT Politik Malaysia 2:11:37 (25/10/2021) ¤¤¤ Malaysia Colonialism in Papua New Guinea 🇵🇬 sarawakreport 1: 10:19 7th January 2020 ¤~¤ MALAYSIA: WORLD’s BIGGEST HEIST al jazeera 25:51 ¤-¤ CIA DOCUMENT REVEALS TRUE INTENTION OF MALAYSIA 🇲🇾 FORMATION 33:57 ¤▪︎¤ SARAWAK REPORT: INSIDE STORY OF THE 1MDB EXPOSE Clare Rewcastle Brown ¤~¤ THE BIG STEAL the Bank Bumiputra Bust : Vice Asia 7:33 ¤▪︎¤ PETRONAS Rm$9.4 billion pipeline SCANDAL The Edge TV 2:42 ¤○¤ Malaysia’s Education System needs a Systemic Shift Syed Ali Tawfik al-Attas 22: 15 ¤•¤ On what is needed for the future of Malaysia Syed Ali Tawfik al-Attas 14:21 ¤▪︎¤ Apa Lagi Melayu mahu? Apa Lagi Cina Mahu? Mariam Mokhtar 14:09 ¤-¤ Malaysia: Ekonomi Harimau atau Ekonomi Kucing Mariam Mokhtar 10:46 ¤▪︎¤
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