Persatuan Hindraf Malaysia (PHM) has questioned the relevance of the government’s development programmes to those at the bottom rungs of the socio-economic ladder.

In a letter to the Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Abdul Wahid Omar, its national adviser N Ganesan raised questions about the sincerity of the BN government in implementing its development plans.

Ganesan ( photo ) also asked the minister responsible for the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) about the competence of government planners in learning from the experiences of past development plans.

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak is unveiling the Eleventh Malaysia Plan (11MP) in Parliament today.

“Hindraf has raised the question to the minister on whether the agreed upon socio-economic interventions in the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed two years ago between BN and Hindraf have been addressed in the 11MP,” Ganesan told Malaysiakini .

“Going by the experience of the past - both recent as well as over several plans, it is very likely that it will be totally ignored,” he added.

Waythamoorthy resigned

BN and Hindraf signed the 18-point MOU on April 18, 2013, before the 13th general elections.

After BN won in the national polls, although garnering only 47 percent of the popular votes against Pakatan Rakyat’s 52 percent, Hindraf’s chairperson P Waythamoorthy was appointed a deputy minister in the PM’s Department to look after Indian affairs.

However, Waythamoorthy resigned after eight months in the job, and his portfolio is now under Gerakan president Mah Siew Keong, who was appointed a minister in the PM’s Department after winning the Teluk Intan seat last year.

Ganesan questioned the government’s approach to development planning when the four Malaysia Plans (7th to the 10th Malaysia Plans) clearly indicated that they were  “irrelevant to the Indian poor”.

He said they were also “detrimental in creating a false sense” as the so-called developement - if ever there was any for the community - has gravitated away from the Indian poor.

“Development programs of the country as a whole created anomalous results for the Indians – it did not change the quality of lives for all, it increased the income disparity gap to reduce the quality of life for those at the bottom,” said Ganesan.

“So all talk that Najib is doing his part for the Indian poor is just not borne out by his statistics,” he added.

Distortion of past plans

Ganesan lamented that the MOU signed between the BN and the Hindraf clearly took this distortion of past plans into account and categorically included four proposals:

  • An income doubling program for the Indian households earning less than RM3,000 per month in 2013.

 

  • A subsidised housing program for this target group requiring the allocation of 100,000 houses.

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  • Targeted and particularly designed reskilling programs to wean the Indian youth off crime.

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  • Equitable quota (commensurate with the participation in the general population) for placements in all educational institutions from pre-school to tertiary levels, for employment opportunities in the civil service as well as in government linked companies, for government offered business projects and for credit and loan assistance to small business opportunities.
    • Ganesan said that commitments made by the leaders of the nation to the poor and vulnerable must not be “opportunistic statements but must be substantive”.

    “It involves integrity and it is at moments like this where the integrity is expressed or is lost,” he quipped.