PUTRAJAYA, Aug 28 — The government has always been fair in crafting national policies, minister Tan Sri Joseph Kurup maintained as more Malaysians voice their unhappiness over what they perceive to be preferential treatment to one race — the Malay Bumiputera.

Disgruntlement has been growing among Malaysia’s minority races in recent years, resulting in a rising number who have chosen to vote with their feet, and which public policy experts caution may thwart nation-building efforts and stonewall the country’s still booming economy.

“As far as we are concerned, the government policy is always fair,” said the Sabah-born minister in the Prime Minister’s Department.

“But possibly, when it comes down there for [sic] implementation, there will be some isolated cases that depart from the fair policy of the government,” Kurup told The Malay Mail Online and Sin Chew Daily in an interview last week.

The minister appointed to head the National Unity and Integration Department (NUID) following the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition’s worst showing in an election, has his work cut out for him.

The results of the May 5 polls showed a nation divided, as much along geographical boundaries as along racial lines — according to some political observers — which prompted Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to issue a call for national reconciliation.

Najib had mooted a the set up of a National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC) after the 13-party alliance he leads, lost the popular vote to the three-party Pakatan Rakyat opposition pact that is still struggling to reach a national consensus, despite winning the election in a simple majority to retain its decades-long chokehold on power.

The Malay Mail Online understands that the proposed NUCC will include a sub-committee to advise the government on the formulation of laws and policies, in a bid to ensure the promotion of racial and religious harmony.

Appearing keen to revive public confidence in the NUID that had previously come under the watch of Penang-born Gerakan leader Tan Sri Koh Tsu Koon, Kurup said the department would “monitor” and ensure the fair implementation of policies.

“We will continue to monitor it so that whatever policy, the fair policy of government... is disseminated in a fair manner to everybody, irrespective of who they are, irrespective of race and religion,” he said.

Kurup noted that while each respective ministry also monitors its own policies, he said the NUID played an important role in flagging potential fire starters to the relevant authorities for action before a conflagration erupted.

“They have got their own monitoring team but if, for example, something happens which will create disunity, our role is to just go and point it to them.

“We have to point it to the authorities concerned, these are the complaints of these people, please look into it,” said the president of Parti Bersatu Rakyat Sabah (PBRS).

Kurup, 69, had previously held various ministerial and deputy ministerial posts, before being appointed to lead the NUID.

Malaysians have long questioned the federal government’s continued practice of affirmative action policies that benefit only the Bumiputera majority — and in particular the Malay community — long after their original purpose should have been achieved.

The New Economic Policy (NEP), mooted by Najib’s father and second Prime Minister, Tun Razak Hussein, has been the most cited example of unfair policies.

Mooted in 1971, the NEP had an ambitious and noble aspiration to redress the socio-economic gap between townspeople that were largely Chinese, and the rural Malays and other indigenous Bumiputera, within the span of two decades.

It ended officially in 1990, but the key aspects of its Malay/Bumiputera-preferred action plan remains in various forms years later.

Najib had sought to dismantle the preferential treatment with his New Economic Model (NEM) shortly after taking office in April 2009, which aimed to shift the racial-based structure into a needs-based one, but was forced to launch a stripped down version after the policy was panned by pro-establishment supporters.

Former federal minister Datuk Zaid Ibrahim recently said that race-based policies in Malaysia have been “hijacked” from their original purpose of being a “safety net to help the Bumiputeras”.

He said that Malaysia is deluding itself into thinking it can become a developed nation with the existence of race-based preferential policies here.

“You cannot isolate a vibrant physical development of the nation without policies based on fair values,” Zaid told The Malay Mail Online in a recent interview.

“There’s nothing more divisive than discrimination. As long as we ignore that fundamental truth, we’ll be deluding ourselves in the long-term,” the country’s former de facto law minister said on August 9, following reports based on former Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew’s latest book.

In his latest book “One Man’s View of the World”, the former Singapore Prime Minister wrote that Malaysia’s brain drain problem was caused by Putrajaya’s insistence on promoting “one race” above all others.

As Southeast Asia third largest economy, Malaysia faces a severe talent flight issue with an estimated 5 per cent of skilled locals exiting the country on an annual basis — with the majority crossing the Causeway into neighbouring Singapore.

A World Bank report from 2011 concluded that 20 per cent of Malaysian graduates opted to leave the country, again with Singapore cited as the preferred destination.

The city-state rapidly transformed into a developed nation in less than half a century since breaking away from Malaysia in 1965.

Senior BN leaders have acknowledged that race-based policies had contributed to Malaysia’s chronic shrinking talent pool, a problem that needs to be resolved if the country is to achieve high-income status by 2020.