MCA Youth head Wee Ka Siong has labelled the Malay Consultative Council (MPM) “primitive” and “narrow-minded” for rejecting the New Economic Mode (NEM).

In a strongly-worded statement today, Wee said the group, which has rejected the NEM in place of race-based affirmative action “has not caught up with the pace of globalisation”.

The council had, at its Bumiputera Economic Congress last Saturday, passed a 31-point memorandum urging the continued distribution of wealth by race.

NONE Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak ( in pink ) had allayed its fears by vowing that he would never betray the New Economic Policy, which brought in race-based affirmative action in 1971.

“If we still remain stagnated in conservative thinking of distribution according to race, we will lag behind modernity. We will not be able to survive in our ever-changing society,” said Wee.

“I fail to understand why, despite living in the 21st century, there are people…still living within their parochial closeted frames.”

Wee also slammed the council for pointing its fingers at other ethnic groups and for not realising that wealth accumulation is a collective effort.

'Don't blame others'

“Heaping the blame on others (for) ‘looting’ wealth is self-defeatist and seditious,” he noted.

wee ka siong pc at moe putrajaya 241209 He also derided the council as “laughable” because “not a single country in the world has formulated a federal policy where wealth is distributed as per ethnic population”.

Wee ( right ) said that the nation’s development should be about expanding the cake for the enjoyment of all Malaysians, and not merely about dividing it among the different races.

Instead of making statements that “reverse national development”, Wee suggested that MPM uses its “creative and innovative thinking to assist Malaysians enhance their competitiveness”.

He reiterated that any affirmative action should be “performance and merit-centric”.

“MCA Youth does not oppose the government funding the poor, but the related funding should not be race-based (but) delivered to (those) who really need it,” he added.