KUALA LUMPUR, May 8 — Federal minister Datuk Joseph Entulu Belaun was forced to apologise this evening over a Bernama report quoting him as saying the Cabinet had decided to remove the racial identification column from government forms.
The apology, carried by the national news agency, came after Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak denied that any such decision had been made.
“The Cabinet did discuss the proposal to drop the race column in official government forms but no decision was made,” the minister was quoted as saying by Bernama this evening.
But he did not say how the original Bernama report came about.
His announcement had caused an uproar among many Malay groups including Perkasa, which threatened legal action over any such decision.
Speaking in Taiping this morning, the PM said there had been no change in the government policy pertaining to the forms.
“We (the Cabinet) discussed the matter and the decision was to retain the existing policy and practice,” he told reporters.
In a separate report yesterday, Bernama news wire quoted Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Joseph Entulu Belaun as saying that the Cabinet had made the decision after deliberating on it during its weekly meeting.
The minister reportedly said that in official government forms where it is deemed unnecessary to identify an individual’s ethnic background, the “race” column will be dropped.
“Based on the trend, we want to drop the ‘race’ column, but not now. It will slowly take place over the years.
“For the moment, we are only dropping the column with no value added,” he was quoted as saying.
The report also said that Entulu cited the Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M) and the housing loan scheme forms for the low-income group as examples.
The minister explained that there are three categories of official forms that will currently retain the “race” column.
The three are: forms relevant to Article 153 of the Federal Constitution on the protection of Bumiputera rights; forms involving land, education and certain businesses where a person’s racial background is required for legal reasons; and forms where racial identity is needed for research reasons, such as “disease control, education enhancement, population demography, and facility and development planning”.
Bernama also reported that a total of 120 government forms have dropped the race column to date.
