KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 3 — Concentrating aid on one ethnic group alone will thwart all efforts to foster national unity and transform the Barisan Nasional (BN) administration, the youth wing of the pact’s second largest component party MCA said.
MCA Youth chairman Senator Chong Sin Woon repeated his party’s push to eliminate racial quotas in both the public and private sectors, warning that without meritocracy, Malaysians would eventually stop caring for one another.
The poor and disadvantaged, he reminded the government, are represented in all ethnic groups.
“The government should use various social protection and welfare measures to help alleviate their burden.
“Conversely, if the government chooses to concentrate its assistance on only one particular ethnicity, unity will take a backseat as the races would no longer help and care for each other — the very core for a harmonious social relationship,” Chong said in a statement here.
He added that meritocracy is a global trend and should be practiced here to help Malaysia achieve its development goals.
Without meritocracy, Chong added, brain drain will be “unavoidable”.
“The Government Transformation Programme (GTP) will go nowhere, let alone enabling Malaysians to be competitive internationally.
“Only when the government is fair and transparent will the rakyat blend together, harmoniously,” he said.
After taking office in 2009, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had announced the New Economic Model (NEM) to reform the economy and promote meritocracy, even as Malaysia plans to achieve high-income status in just six years’ time by 2020.
But his proposal was swiftly savaged by the conservative factions in Umno and Malay right-wing groups like Perkasa, who said it would harm Bumiputera interests.
Efforts to moot fresh laws like the National Harmony and Reconciliation Bill to do away with discrimination have also met with criticism from Najib’s detractors, including former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
According to the country’s former leader, the proposed law would see the rise of a meritocratic system where the poor will end up being sidelined, and dent the aims of policies like the New Economic Policy (NEP).
The BN government mooted the NEP in 1971 with the noble aim of levelling the socio-economic disparities between the largely urban Chinese and rural Malays as well as other indigenous Bumiputera within two decades.
It ended officially in 1990, but key features of the racial policy to inspire and propel the native sons of the soil over the racial wall remain under various guises.
According to Dr Mahathir, however, the Chinese still dominate the economy and own a large portion of the country’s riches despite the NEP.
