I refer to the views put up by Lah in 9th Malaysia Plan: Change master-servant mindset .

I fully concur with the writer on his or her observations on the subject of income inequality in Malaysia. I wish to point out however, that in a capitalistic market driven economy like ours, it is inevitable that there will always be a pool of the rich and the super rich who act as the prime movers of our economy.

The issue really is really about excessive inequality and how many are really below the poverty line and how destitute they are.

The seeds of excessive inequality were actually sowed in the early 1990s with the adoption of the so-called Mahathir-Daim 'winning' formula for accelerated economic development. Under this programme corruption- cum-

cronyism was re-engineered to turbocharge infrastructure development in the country.

Indeed, a careful analysis of the Malaysian economy from 1985 to 1997 would clearly indicate that the main impetus of economic growth came mainly from pump- priming the economy through infrastructure development expenditure.

I am not making any issue here against the development of our infrastructure, but the high cost that we have paid for it due to corrupt practices and cronyism. Most of the tycoons that we have today made their pile during this period and initially through infrastructure projects . Some of them were even given further privatised projects to bail themselves out from losses incurred during a recession then.

For this reason the 9th Malaysia Plan needs to be drawn on a clean slate. It has to be done on a 'zero-based' basis to reflect a complete change of our economic development philosophy and priorities and to reflect a new standard of financial hygiene.

We need to reflect the true aspirations of our present Malaysian society in embracing the new economic order and addressing the multi-faceted challenges of globalisation.