The NEP (New Economic Putsch) - Sakmongkol AK47

Just yesterday amidst the pomp and splendour, Prime Minister and Umno president Datuk Seri Najib Razak, announced his “Permerkasaan Ekonomi Bumiputera”. I translate that loosely into English as The Empowerment of Bumiputera economics. I haven’t seen the English version.

Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin says he is all for the economic push. It’s a lucky day, he says. Except he has got it wrong. It will not be a push but it will be a putsch.

Where was it declared? It was done at the UiTM main hall in Shah Alam. UiTM in the words of the PM, is the ultimate symbol of Malay achievements and potential. That symbolism, I don’t find objectionable.

What are disturbing are the increasingly flawed leadership qualities of the PM as the proclaimed leader of all Malays. I hear him. I hear him loud and clear as he thanked all the Malays for their fabled support that allowed UMNO to increase its parliamentary seats from 79 to 88. He can only point that part of his generalship from the recent general election. He won’t fool everyone.

Of course he didn’t and won’t qualify this claim by revealing that Umno increased the number of seats due to gerrymandering and because of unfair voter density in the constituencies. He did not qualify it by saying he only got 133 seats compared to 140 in the previous administration. And he of course didn’t say that he only managed 47%
of the popular votes and that he failed to regain Selangor where UiTM is itself located.

Here is a leader who revelled in ceremonies and decorum. It is anyone’s guess to imagine how much money was spent to set up the prop and stage from which the emperor shall issue the edicts and dictates for an economic blueprint for the Malays. If anything, Najib was emperor-like when he announced the economic blueprint for the Malays.

If Tun Razak were to declare such a plan, he would have done it in a natural and unaffected setting. It’s a blueprint for the poor and yet the declaration is done in all its pomp and glory more fitting and suitable for a declaration of a business model for corporate mandarins. No doubt many of the Malay economic mandarins were around on hand in the PM’s entourage and salivating at the prospects of stealing more.

The first thing that comes to mind- now which of the consultants came up with this idea for the PM to announce? Maybe not many people have realised this, but Najib began the era where many of the ideas and initiatives – as Najib cautiously describes them, are produced by consultants.

I am not surprised when friends in the government tell me that the upcoming Budget for 2014 is prepared mostly by consultants with little involvement from officers and researchers in the Finance Ministry. How do we expect government officers to wholeheartedly support the Budget if the final version of the budget wasn’t the result of much involvement from them?

How do you expect them to defend what you can’t claim ownership on? You are asked to implement a version which is put up by consultants using the diverse inputs supplied by them in the first place.

We begin by asking who are the Bumiputeras that Najib has in mind. 60% of our population of around 28 million is Malay. That’s about 16.8 million Malays. 8% are non-Malay Bumiputeras. That’s another 2.2 million non-Malay Bumiputeras.

Altogether there about 19 million Malays and Bumiputeras. The average monthly income of these Bumiputeras, says the PM, is RM4,457 I can only exclaim, “hip, hip hooray”.

Najib’s declaration of a new economic agenda or blueprint for Malay and Bumiputras has the immediate effect of infusing renewed confidence and comforting feelings among the Malays. It gave many Malays the placebo effect at once. But that is all they will get.

What does the declaration mean actually? I am fearful more for the Malays because I think they are going to be misled further. The basic cause for the failure of Malay economics thus far has not been addressed.

What is that? In my mind it’s the idea of unqualified entitlement which needs to be secured only by means of edicts and dictates.

Rights and privileges are thought as being birth right entitlements and so create the false thinking that they do not have to be qualified by hard work or corresponding educational levels. Malays are thought to believe that every one of them ought as a right, to become
millionaires by way of declaring an edict.

That being so, the new economic blueprint for the Malays is set to become the NEP with a vengeance. Prepare and brace ourselves for economic marauding by the elite and powerful Malays as they use the new empowerment tools and instruments to muscle their way into the economy at the expense of the majority Malays who will continue to be left out.

Do we remember what happened to the RM54 billion worth of shares and equities distributed to Malays during the NEP period? RM52 billion worth has been sold off by the Malay sell-outs. The Malays are left with RM2 billion.

For as long as the Malays are not programmed to believe at the onset that rights and entitlements are objects that you qualify for, there won’t be the drive and vibrancy to sustain the Malay economy.

How does the Malay qualify? Qualify by working hard to secure the fruits of your labour and qualify by developing technical skills and education. Because in the end of it all, there is no such thing as a free lunch. One is rewarded according to the qualifications one puts in.

Najib is doing a great disservice to the Malays by entrenching the free lunch mindset. Many Malays will now believe that their economic entitlement is an unqualified right. Malay economics will now become an enforcement of edicts regime. – sakmongkol.blogspot.com, September 15, 2013.