Who wouldn’t want a freebie in Malaysia?

Almost 50 years into independence, Malaysians are still far from being treated equally. The government still wants to keep its policies of favouring one race over the others on the grounds that Malays are still lagging.

The government launched its affirmative action policy in 1971, following the bloody racial riots in 1969. It reasoned then that the Malays felt threatened by the growth of the other races, especially the Chinese.

The government envisaged a 30 percent Malay share of the economy in 20 years. Today the government says that Malay equity ownership in the corporate sector is still not up to the mark.

According to the 9th Malaysian Plan (2006-2010) report, as in 2004, the ethnic Chinese held a 39 percent stake in the corporate sector, the Malays 18.9 percent and the Indians 1.2 percent.

The poverty rate among Malays still ranks the highest at 8.3 percent in 2004, followed by the Indians at 2.9 percent and the Chinese at 0.6 percent

The report adds that for every ringgit that the average Malay earns, the average Chinese gets 64 sen more and the Indian 27 sen more.

Malays constitute 65 percent of the country's population of 26 million. Chinese make up 25 percent, Indians 7.5 percent, and the rest are indigenous groups.

So seeing that the Malays are still some way behind, PM Abdullah’s government wants to raise the Malay share of corporate equity to between 20 and 25 percent by 2010 and 30 percent by 2020, and the Indian share to 3 percent, while narrowing the income gap so that by 2010, the average Chinese earns only 50 sen more for every ringgit the Malay earns by 2010 and just 35 sen by 2020.

And how does it want to implement this? The answer is obvious - by privatization projects. And it maintains the requirement for companies that bids for government tenders to have 30 percent Malay interest and that at least 60 percent of contract works will go to the Malays.

Steps will also be taken to raise bumiputera asset ownership in residential and commercial property and in intellectual property and commercial enterprises. The government will also continue with its policy of mandating non-Malay and foreign-controlled companies to seek Malay partners and employ Malay executives.

But are these all very new for us Malaysians? Aren’t these policies already being implemented as on-going government policies? Who gets all the contracts in Malaysia now anyway?
Simply put, as I see it, the government just wants to continue its policies of protecting the Malay interest.

There could be a political reason for this too. After all the PM and Umno president Abdullah Ahmad Badawi will be an utterly unpopular person if he were to withdraw all these rights.

I just wonder what all the fuss was about in the Umno AGM’s a few years ago when all the leaders were calling for the removals of the ‘walking sticks’ which the government was granting the Malays.

Then they said that they were ashamed to be still aided by the government to improve their economy standings. They also said that in the era of globalization, they were more than capable to compete with everyone.

Voices were also heard saying that the affirmative action policy was obsolete and in actual fact only benefited a handful of well-connected Malays.

I just suppose that things have changed since then. After all, who wouldn’t want a freebie? It’s just sad that the freebies are not available to everyone.