Bumiputera owns only one out of 97 listed firms in last 3 years - Bursa chief

Only one out of 97 listed companies in Bursa Malaysia in the last three years is owned by bumiputera, its chief revealed today.

Abdul Wahid Omar has expressed his concerns, saying that this is reflective of the real participation of the bumiputera in the business sector.

“It’s a wake-up call that this is the real situation,” he stressed when speaking at the Bumiputera Economic Congress at Putrajaya International Convention Centre (PICC).

“So, we must ask. If it’s been six decades, we have implemented various policies to empower the bumiputera and what is the result today? Why haven’t we reached our target all this time?” Wahid questioned.

The former cabinet minister pointed the “main cause of the failure” to the fact that the bumiputera group has always focused its policies on the public sector but not the private sector.

“The public sector may contribute part of our country’s economy but it is still changing. There’s greater private sector participation.

“In the context of our economy, in our GDP, the public sector only contributed 17.8 percent to our economy whereas the private contributed 76.2 percent.

“The private sector is 4.3 times larger than the public sector,” he said.

Universal approach

Therefore, he called for a more universal approach to further empower the group.

Such enforcement, he said, should include companies that benefit from contracts of concessions from the government, government-linked investment companies (GLIC) and government-linked companies (GLCs) as well as other private companies.

Further, he also reiterated calls for the government to consider introducing the Equitable Opportunity Act on a needs-based basis to ensure that all citizens get fair employment and business opportunities.

He highlighted the importance of such an act as the wealth creation and corporate dominance among bumiputera is still low compared to the non-bumiputera community.

Political appointees

On whether the government should do away with political appointees and focus on merit-based appointments, Wahid sidestepped the question.

He, instead, pointed to the pertinence of three criteria – integrity, competence and humility - in an individual who will be appointed.

“It doesn’t matter what political alignment, as long as they have these three criteria then God willing...

“In reality, we can’t expect the government to appoint a member of the opposition to run one of the companies, that’s not realistic.

“So the interest must be aligned. As long as they have the three qualities, no problem,” he added.

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