NEP Is Only A Small Clog In The System

Hantu Laut

Najib announced the NEM (New Economic Model) on 30 March 2010.He hasn't even started, so how could he stalled? Asia Sentinel commemorated his one year in office with this story.

Certainly, one should not expect everyone to support or agree with his new policy. The oppositions, no matter, how good his new policy is, would surely find fault with it and not gave him the support.It is what the American called "hyperpartisanship", a sharply polarized situation in which political parties are in fierce disagreement with each other.

You don't need reason to disagree, just disagree for the sake of disagreeing. Lim Kit Siang has mastered the art of hyperpartisanship. He is the biggest and most fierce rabble rouser and becoming the most dangerous man in the country, raising racial and religious issues without blinking an eye.

Those who have benefited from the NEP in a big way and filled their pockets to bursting point are some of those who think thay have achieved success on their on own merits and now think they don't need the NEP.These are the few Malays who changed their tune hoping to jump on the next bandwagon that they reckoned will ride to victory in the next general elections in 2013 and with it bringing a new kind of gravy train that they hope to benefit from. They came in all shapes, sizes and intellectuality.

A well-known columnist who during the Mahathir's era think that the NEP was a great idea and tried to sell it to South Africa as affirmative action for the blacks seems to have changed his mind about the goodness of the NEP.When Anwar Ibrahim was in UMNO and was deputy prime minister he did not see anything wrong with the NEP, had no objection or made any attempt to fight for change.A well-known lawyer who was once a big recipient of the NEP, directly or indirectly, have now changed his wavelength.The NEP had become a distinct and distant memory.

Are they for real?

I am not a great proponent of the NEP, at least, not the way it is being plonked around now.It would have been good if it had remained in its original shape, that is to bring the whole Malay community at par with the other races in term of economic benefits and standard of living.It has, in some ways, achieved some of its objectives.

Forty years ago, most Malays dreamed only to be civil servants, uncomplicated, risk free and secured job.The civil service was geared to accept mostly Malays.It shunned the mindshares from commerce.Almost all economic activities were in the hands of the Chinese.Malays, were mostly rural agrarian and urban working class.Little or no emphasis were given to commercialise the Malays then. Now, there are large number of Malay middle class and increasing number of professionals and businessmen.Without the NEP, the progress would have been painfully slow.

It is not the NEP at fault, it is the way it is being abused that had turned it into a four-letter word, euphonious for those who benefited from it and perfunctory disquiet for those who don't. It has become a gravy train to enrich a handful of rent-seekers.

Most of the huge contracts given to these parasitic rent-seekers would eventually land in some Chinese towkay's lap and worse they would come back for more and more of these handouts through their political connections.The intended purpose of making them entrepreneurs become self-defeating.This is the hickey side of the NEP that we should be fighting to get rid of completely, not the NEP as a whole.There is no point scrapping the NEP, wholesale, if such practices still continue under other pretexts.

In a nutshell, kill political largesse and corruptions, the NEP is not the scourge that destroying this country and should not be made the sacrificial lamb.

Power and money are something difficult to give up.Man's greed for power and wealth have no bounds.For some, power and wealth precede ethics and morality.In politics, the ingrates and unprincipled will always change allegiance to serve their greed for more power and money.They say one thing today and say something else tomorrow to feed their insatiable appetite.Many of this type are now courting Anwar Ibrahim and if they were writers and columnists the writings have changed to obsequiously serving the oppositions.

Ethically questionable behaviours of politicians and official malfeasance are what we should be concerned with.The NEP is only a small clog in the system.Corruptions and abuse of power are the ones that's killing this country.This was where Pak Lah had failed miserably causing political upheaval and throwing the nation into political dissension and instability.If he had pushed through his promised reforms he would have been the strongest and most powerful prime minister today.

Would Najib be in the same shoes? Not likely.The man is a worker, he only gets forty winks. He has the nation at heart and is prepared to work hard to heal the wounded tiger.He can only succeed if his ilk gave him the support he needed.

The result of the Hulu Selangor by-election would be the first measure of his and UMNO existential political future.