It was reported yesterday (Nov 24, 2015) that the latest bumiputera equity ownership statistics from 2014 are still being calculated, said Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Abdul Wahid Omar, who said this in a written parliamentary reply to Ahmad Hamzah (BN-Jasin).

In our two articles: ‘Has 30pct bumi equity target been achieved’ and ‘Major flaw in computing bumi equity target’ published in December 2014, we pointed out that the government’s old methodology of using par value, instead of market price, and the exclusion of government shareholding from the computation of equity ownership was irrational and incomplete.

Our articles contained new estimates of bumiputera equity ownership derived basically from official data available in public domain. We concluded that if market price is used and government shareholding is included, the bumiputera equity ownership of 30 percent has been achieved.

At the time of writing the above-mentioned articles, the government was in the midst of preparing the Eleventh Malaysia Plan (11MP) then. We were hopeful that the minister responsible for the preparation of 11MP, Abdul Wahid Omar, who was a distinguished banker and accountant before he became a minister, would understand the points raised by us and accept constructive suggestions.

As noted by Terence Gomez in his comments about the 11MP, “for the first time, a table outlining the corporate equity distribution figures among ethnic groups was not found”. As corporate equity distribution table was traditionally regarded as a very important component in past Malaysian Plan documents, its sudden disappearance from the 11MP is certainly most unusual.

To us, the absence of such a table in the 11MP is an admission on the part of the government that its previous methodology was fundamentally flawed.

The flawed methodology used by the government earlier on and its resultant incorrect estimates created distrust among the various ethnic groups in the country over the last few decades. For such a grave mistake, in other parts of the world, a responsible government with a sense of shame will apologise openly to its people.

But, a public apology by the Malaysian government may be too much to expect. Nevertheless, in the future, we certainly do expect Abdul Wahid to tell any unscrupulous politician off if he or she makes vicious and obnoxious statement such as “despite a ten-fold increase in bumiputera corporate equity from 2.4 percent in 1970 to 24 percent in 2014, it is still below the target of 30 percent”.

More importantly, Abdul Wahid should have the courage to resist any political pressure to revert to the previous flawed methodology which produces misleading results and figures on bumiputera equity ownership. No one should be allowed to use distorted figures and twist the New Economic policy (NEP) to become a ‘Never-Ending Policy’.

The founding fathers of NEP did not intend to make it a permanent feature of the Malaysian landscape. The Third Malaysia Plan, 1976-1980, stated clearly that “The NEP has been conceived as an agenda that stretches over 20 years.” (Please refer to page 2, para 6 of the Third Malaysia Plan.) The 20- year duration referred to 1971-1990. (Note: The Third Malaysia Plan was prepared when Hussein Onn was the prime minister.)