PAS Youth chief Salahuddin Ayub had failed to reflect Pakatan Rakyat’s consensus that the socio-economic welfare of all communities need to be promoted, said one of his opposition colleagues.

liow tiong lai At the same time, MCA vice-president Liow Tiong Lai has been accused of diverting public attention away from the intra-communal disparities by focusing on the 30-percent equity target for the bumiputera community.

“Both have got it wrong,” said PKR vice-president and Subang MP R Sivarasa when met in Parliament yesterday.

“The Malaysian Economic Agenda has already been understood to be the common ground for Pakatan parties. Salahuddin’s statement to the contrary is not in line with the overall Pakatan approach which has been settled. PAS needs to take a re-look at its Youth wing’s position.

“The NEP has to be revised, and the race-based approach has to be dropped and in its place one that is needs-based. If we do that eventually, then every sector and community will feel it has a stake in this country’s economic pie,” he added

Setting his sights on Liow, Sivarasa said it was meaningless to talk of equity percentages ostensibly enjoyed by any particular community when these did not reflect the situation of most members of that community.

“It’s not meaningful to talk of the 3 percent equity target envisioned for the Indian community, for example, when 35 percent of all Indians in total are the ones doing the manual and unskilled jobs,” he said.

Remain competitive, abolish equity

Liow, who is also health minister, set the ball rolling last week when he said that the condition for 30-percent bumiputera equity in public-listed companies should be abolished in order for them to remain competitive.

He was also quoted as saying that the 30-percent target was a hindrance to the creation of true partnership between Malay, Chinese and Indian businessmen in the country.

salahuddin ayub 01 Responding to this, Salahuddin issued a statement warning Liow not to gain political mileage by calling for the abolition of the 30-percent bumiputera equity.

Salahuddin Ayub said that the 30-percent equity must be retained and defended "even if the target has been reached".

“Before 1969, the equity of the Malays was almost nil and after 40 years, it is only at 19 percent. If this continues, we need about 20 more years to achieve the 30-percent target,” he added.

Salahuddin said further that Liow's call was a form of political pressure exerted by MCA on Umno and can affect the political stability of the government and lead to racial tensions.

Shah Alam PAS parliamentarian Khalid Samad also stressed that a consensus has to be chiseled out among the three parties in the opposition Pakatan as to the specific mechanisms that could bring about socio-economic justice instead of focusing on the 30-percent bumiputera percentage.

He noted, however, that while sectoral and even community-based measurements cannot be ruled out in efforts to implement the Pakatan's Malaysian Economic Agenda and gauge its effectiveness, the 30-percent target should not in itself be the source of political contention.

“We’re still going to have to look at the numbers pertaining to estate workers, to farmers, to industrial and factory workers, and even the situation faced by members of particular races,” Khalid said.

“But in the end, it’s to ensure that no one group is losing out. I personally believe that whether we have the 30-percent equity or not as we see it currently as part of the NEP, it’s not going to improve the lot of the bumiputeras as a whole,” he added.

Compete on equal footing

In his blog entry on the issue, DAP’s Petaling Jaya Utara MP and national publicity secretary Tony Pua described Salahuddin’s outburst as “misguided despite being well-intentioned”.

tony pua “Firstly, as stated, bumiputeras have failed to achieve the target of 30-percent equity despite nearly 40 years of NEP only proves that achieving equity through regulation will not achieve the objective increasing the wealth of bumiputeras in the shortest possible time.

“In fact, the 19 percent wealth ownership target, if accurate, has remained stagnant since the 1990s,” he wrote on his ‘Philosophy-Politics-Economics’ blogsite.

“Secondly, for bumiputeras to achieve not only 30 percent of the nation's wealth, but also a meaningful 30 percent, it is critical for the capital markets to be liberalised to attract global capital and its corresponding talent and economic effects.

Unless the Malaysian stock exchange is seen as sufficiently attractive to foreign companies wishing to invest without being tied down by equity requirements that they do not benefit from, Malaysians themselves would be the ultimate losers, said Pua.

“Hence, taking progressive and deliberate steps towards liberalising the financial markets will allow for a more dynamic economy accompanied by greater wealth creation. It will ultimately benefit the bumiputeras as they form the majority of the population.

“A more liberal market will also catalyse a more productive workforce who will in turn be able to compete on an equal footing in a globalised economy,” said Pua.