What Malaysia needs is not just a policy that is pro-Malay but one that can help eradicate relative poverty and redistribute wealth to achieve the principal objectives of the New Economic Policy in bringing Malaysians together towards meaningful national unity, according to a university economics professor.

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) Faculty of Economics Associate Professor Dr Madeline Berma said it might be argued that the NEP and the National Development Plan (NDP) had to a certain extent succeeded in the case of Sarawak bumiputra communities, including the non-Muslim indigenous groups, in reducing the incidence of poverty.

"But the NEP is less successful in achieving its economic restructuring objectives," he said, emphasizing the need to re-examine the ethnic dimension in government economic policies.

"Such a re-examination is necessary given the widening gap within the bumiputra community," he added in a paper on "Towards National Vision Policy: Review of NEP and NDP among the bumiputra communities in Sarawak" at a national seminar on "The Bumiputra Policy: Dynamics and Dilemmas" organised earlier this week in Penang by the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) School of Humanities.

Relative poverty

Madeline said the challenge to the government's development policy on bumiputras is the distribution of income and wealth not only between bumiputras and non-bumiputras but also within the bumiputra community itself.

She added that it was her view that ''the foundation of a strong Bangsa Malaysia lies not with the reduction in absolute poverty but on the reduction in relative poverty.''

"Also, the foundation of a resilient Bangsa Malaysia lies not with the concentration of physical, human and corporate wealth in the hands of a few privileged individuals and groups, but in the distribution of wealth to those individuals and groups who are economically disadvantaged."

Madeline is a Sarawak-born Iban who has presented many papers in such seminars on the subject of government's policies relative to bumiputra minorities, especially in Sarawak.

In her paper, she argued that although Sarawak's non-Muslim bumiputra groups now recognized by the Federal government as bumiputra minority requiring special attention form the largest bumiputra community in the state, ''they have not benefited as much as other Malaysians from the implementation of the NEP and NDP.''

This is supported by evidence in that the government has achieved only limited success in redistributing wealth to the bumiputra minority as reflected in what she described as their limited control and ownership of physical capital (machinery, real estates), corporate assets and human capital(skill and education).

"The bumiputra minority (Iban, Bidayuh, Orang Ulu etc) are only beginning to realize that they do not have much economic interest to protect even after more than 30 years since the government first implemented the pro-bumiputra economic policies," she added.

Madeline cited several reasons which she argued accounted for the limited impact of the NEP and NDP on bumiputra minority community in Sarawak.

Firstly, the NEP was conceived and formulated based on the needs of the Malays to advance Malay economic well-being and narrow the gap between them and the Chinese.

Malays and bumiputras

Sarawak's bumiputra minority groups suffered from the thinking underlying the Federal government's economic policies such as that "all Malays and bumiputra and all bumiputra are Malays."

"These policies fail to recognize that the bumiputra minorities are not Malays, and as such they do not share the same economic, social, religious and cultural characteristics or (non) privileges as the Malays," the economics professor pointed out.

Madeline called on the government to recognize the differences and design policies targeted at the bumiputra minority groups directly rather than indirectly as part of the bumiputra community.

"A targeted and systematic approach is necessary given the fact that the bumiputra in general and bumiputra minorities in particular are still lagging behind the non-bumiputra."

She expressed concern that the bumiputra minorities could survive and compete in the new liberalised and competitive economic environment because of what she described ''the uneven level of playing fields.''

"In the New Vision Policy era, the economic environment is both open and highly competitive, with limited room for experiment and errors. It is an environment where only the ''strongest,'' the ''most capable'' and those with the education and requisite skills, will survive," Madeline added.