QUESTION TIME | Recently, Works Minister Baru Bian (above) was in the limelight over two reports - the first announcing the 30 percent award of government works contracts to bumiputeras for 2020, which is not really new and has been in place for some time, through one mechanism or another.

Almost in the same breath, he said that the Works Ministry will be monitoring more closely the building of the Pan-Borneo Highway after two workers were injured. He also complained about poor workmanship in building the road.

But what Baru and the not-so-new Harapan government don’t realise - or if they do, they are certainly not doing a damn thing about it - is that such quotas and the backdoor way in which the non-bumiputeras are forced to participate in government contracts is abhorrent, and enriches only the rich bumiputeras and does absolutely nothing for the poorer ones.

And because an additional profit is added for the participation of a bumiputera - but mostly in name only - the project becomes more expensive...