Ibrahim Ali makes mince meat of Nazir, calls him Chinese hero

IBRAHIM ALI - I THINK YOU GOT YOUR FACTS WRONG. NAZIR RAZAK WAS FROM CHASE MANHATTAN BANK AT WISMA STEPHENS, KUALA LUMPUR ALMOST 30 YEARS AGO. THEY BAILED BANK BUMIPUTRA FOR THE UMNO-LED BN GOVERNMENT AND CHANGED TO CIMB.

Malaysia Chronicle

Perkasa chief Ibrahim Ali made mince meat of CIMB CEO Nazir Razak, accusing him of trying to be a “Chinese hero” for describing the New Economic Policy as having been bastardized by corruption and diverted from its original goal of eradicating poverty.

“Nazir is talking nonsense. Even if he is a banker, he is new. And we have to ask how he got to where he is today. CIMB did not become successful because of him,” Ibrahim told a press conference on Sunday.

The founder of the ultra-Malay rights group also pointed out that CIMB was previously the troubled Bank Bumiputera which had to be bailed out several times by the government. However, he did not mention that Bank Bumi failed largely because of bad loans granted mostly to the bumi-sector.

Chinese hero

Ibrahim was upset by Nazir’s comments made at the Chinese Economic Congress on Saturday where Prime Minister Najib Razak had urged the Chinese to spearhead the New Economic Model.

"I have strong opinions about how the NEP has been bastardised over the years. At that time, no one knew what the outcome would be. It was a social engineering experiment that no one had ever done before in any country,” Malaysiakini had reported Nazir as saying.

“So they gave it 20 years. And they felt that after 1969, they had to give it a try. But now it is so embedded in everything that we do - in every part of the government, in every part of businesses that it has become a problem.”

The NEP was launched in 1971 by Nazir’s father, second premier Abdul Razak Hussein. Its original aim was to eradicate poverty regardless of ethnicity and distribute wealth fairly. But due to decades of Umno political dominance, the plan became abused to promote special rights for the Malays so that the party could maintain its political dominance.

The endemic corruption spawned by that abuse has led many investors to call for its repeal. When Najib came to power in April last year, he proposed the more inclusive NEM, in which affirmative action is based on needs rather than race. The NEM was also supposed to dismantle many of the protective barriers in the NEP that investors have long complained about.

“Let him (Nazir) be the Chinese hero, but I am fighting for my own race,” said Ibrahim.