At best, LCH has quoted me out of context in respect of the benefits of the NEP. I took pains to explain why the NEP is necessary as stop-gap measure for the socio-economic handicapped bumiputeras.

I personally believe that the NEP should never be a permanent feature in national efforts to re-invent the socio-economic configuration of our society. I hope he is not confused more.

He expounded a discourse on the failure and ineffectiveness of the NEP besides woefully lamenting the lack of statistics with respect to its outcome. But he made his own analysis nonetheless.

One wonders where his statistics are from when he admitted that data is not available. Has he utilised that broad-based random sampling method he espoused should be used?

Be that as it may, in the employment of statistical tools, one should first standardise other parameters and compare only the variable needed to be compared on a one-to-one basis. Otherwise the basic tenet of statistics is compromised. One cannot compare an apple with an egg!

I must agree that my conclusion is purely observational over the years as I went through and experienced the atmosphere of the NEP. For the bumis in East Malaysia, our names are not Malay sounding and this could be one of the reasons why the bumis from this part of Malaysia are not quite catered to by the NEP.

As for the resentment of the non-bumis, I can understand and in fact sympathise with them. I also agree and emphasise that there are flaws in the implementation of the NEP. In its conceptual form, no one should not be happy with the NEP simply because it promises to improve the socio-economic standing of the have-nots. There is the human factor in whatever we do, of course.

After deriding the NEP, LCH admitted that the NEP had definitely prevented further marginalisation of the bumi. He remarked that the prevention of the same or worse fate is not an improvement. If prevention of the same (socio-economic marginalisation) is not an improvement, what is?

He gave a scenario: 'Is a bumiputera son of a farmer who earns RM2,000 per month as a government civil servant better off than his father who used to earn RM500 per month 20 years ago?

Well, if his non-bumi neighbour shopkeeper used to earn RM1,000 per month 20 years ago and his son earns RM2,000 per month as an engineer now, my argument is that the bumiputera son is actually worse off.'

The reason, according to LCH, is because the bumiputera father and son are engaged in protected economic roles while the non-bumiputera father and son are not only in open market roles but are discriminated against. Hence, the non-bumiputeras are still stronger economically.

First, the engineer son of the bumi farmer. Is he better off than his father? Sure he is. Besides the RM2,000 per month, he has now acquired an intellectual capital - his training as an engineer. He now can think critically. He could set up his own practice, or join an established practice with better pay.

Perhaps joins politics and become a candidate for a major political party and become a policy-maker in the country. All these are possible. One cannot condemn just any one for one reason or another. Nothing is impossible for the initiated who have the drive and determination to succeed.

In my own experience once you are a professional e.g. doctor, lawyer, engineer etc., you lose your bumi eligibility - at least in the East Malaysia context

Inferiority complex is one of the reasons that might have contributed to the weaknesses of the bumi. I mentioned, however, that due to education and an improving socio-economic status over time, this might not be an issue any more.

After rumbling through his discourse of the failure of the NEP, LCH came to realise that indeed the positiveness of the NEP is better in the short-term.

In my argument, I never advocated the perpetuation of the NEP. I always believed that this is a short- term measure to improve their handicaps. You don't pit a professional and handicapped players in golf.

LCH concluded that the negatives of the NEP have overtook the positives a long time ago. He seems to use statistics, but which ones? How would one know if the NEP won't work if no statistics are available for analysis?

To quote LCH's ending of his letter: 'The effect could be the end of the nation as we know it even on the superficial level.'

To say the least, that's a dire prediction. I don't share this pessimistic view. I am an optimist. For every problem there is a solution. In fact, a solution hides behind every problem.

It behooves reminding that the NEP was the result of the 1969 racial riots and since the inception of the NEP, there have not been any major racial conflicts.

As for Dr LF Ng, I must thank him for his forthrightness in his response to my letter, the tenor and ferocity of the tone of it albeit. I do maintain that the NEP/NDP is conceptually sound though its implementation may be flawed.

I am pretty certain that it is never the intention of the NEP to create a dependency mentality among the bumiputeras, but sycophants are created nonetheless.

I must admit that there is inequality among the bumis. It is not the NEP per se that causes it, but the implementation and invariably, the implementors are at fault. Surely a handicapped player cannot beat a professional golfer.

Despite the number sycophants, the NEP has produced dynamic and successful individuals too. Without the NEP, these individuals could still be working on their small plot of land in the kampung under the spells of poverty.

Before talking about level playing fields, I think one should be clear on the frame of reference being used.

In certain corners of Malaysia there are still a lot of poor people, who survive on a hand-to-mouth kind of existence. Their children have to walk miles to school with empty stomachs; study under kerosene lamps with hardly any time for school work because they have to help the parents in the fields.

Tuition is unheard of. How could one expect them to score 9As in the SPM exams? To me, if they obtain a Grade 3, it's already equivalent to a Grade One by a city student. One must remember that we are a developing a country where hardly 50 percent of our population live in the cities.

Well-to-do families living in the cities have access to all what life has to offer. This is not the case for the kampung dwellers, tucked away in the remote recesses of Malaysia. I think it behooves one to see poverty at first hand before one could really understand what it means to be poor.

Rich people take things for granted. It's normal for them not to even tolerate even a small pothole on the road, whereas the kampung people have to endure muddy roads everyday of their lives.