Hindraf: A western company doing the Indian Blueprint?

Indian-based NGO questions whether Hong Kong-based company involved in government plans

KUALA LUMPUR: The human rights group Hindraf has questioned whether a foreign company has been engaged by the government to work on the Indian Blueprint announced in the 11th Malaysia Plan to uplift the conditions of the Malaysian Indian community.

Hindraf chairman Waythamoorthy said in a statement today that text messages had been circulating online that a Hong Kong-based company had called for participation in a “Malaysian Indian blueprint development workshop” to be held at a leading hotel here on Sunday.

“If indeed this is true that the company has been appointed, then Hindraf would say that Prime Minister Najib Razak lives in a cocoon of his own without realising the reality and the ground sentiments of the people and their daily sufferings,” Waythamoorthy said.

The Hong Kong-based company Human Capital Group Asia has an office in Kuala Lumpur, and lists among its associates former Shell executive Yusuf Omar, banker Mohd Kamal Khir of the Institute of Bankers Malaysia, and Univesiti Putra corporate planner Zainal Abidin Bin Mohamed.

The Indian Blueprint was announced as part of the 11th Malaysia Plan that was tabled in Parliament on Thursday.

Waythamoorthy accused Najib’s government of producing “a complete lie” in the 11th Plan by stating that monthly household incomes had increased from RM264 in 1970 to RM6,141.

He said thousands of estate workers still earned a meager RM400 a month despite the expenditure of more than a trillion ringgit in past development plants 70% of Malaysian Indians remained in the underclass and cut off from mainstream development.

He said Najib was yet to face the full wrath of the Indian community for reneging on an agreement signed with Hindraf for plans to raise the socio-economic status of the Indian community. “The community will surely punish him and his entire Government at the right time and at the right place,” he said.