Scholarships: Public not interested in Umno-MCA spat

The spat between UMNO and MCA leaders over the government's refusal to award Public Service Department scholarships to many non-Malay students who were top scorers drew reaction from DAP's Lim Guan Eng who said the public was not interested in their verbal tit-for-tat.

Lim said what both parties had proved was their failure to solve the problem of PSD scholarship, which prime minister Najib Razak said would be automatically awarded to all top scorers regardless of race.

"The public is not interested who is trying to play the hero but the real hero is the one who can ensure that all top students can receive PSD scholarship,” said Lim, adding that UMNO and MCA's rhetoric only prolonged gross injustice to the 363 affected students.

Lim described the explanations by both MCA and UMNO as 'confusion', but reminded that the students were the only ones who stood to lose.

“If MCA is correct, why is it that no action has been taken against those errant government officials who fail to award scholarships to top students and immediately correct the error by awarding them the scholarships?

"However if UMNO is correct, then MCA should apologise to the top students and press UMNO to change the policy to grant PSD scholarships to all top students regardless of race or religion,” he added.

MCA Youth chief Wee Ka Siong recently decried the denial of PSD scholarship to 363 top students despite earlier assurances, alleging abuse of power in the PSD leading to the manner how the scholarship awards were distributed.

His remarks irked right wing group Perkasa and UMNO mouthpiece Utusan Malaysia, condemning the claims as baseless.

“In the selection criteria, PSD only acts as the coordinator and interviewer by those from different high academic background and various races. In fact, the award of scholarships will be first presented to Prime Minister Najib Razak and Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin for evaluation and approval before it is implemented,” came the explanation from minister in the Prime Minister's Department, Nazri Aziz.

Nazri had lashed out at Wee for what he termed was its attempt to be ‘heroic’ by going public with its claim.

“I have opposition member of parliaments (MP) who were also trying to help the students, come and see me… they did not go to the media. But Wee, as a BN MP and a deputy minister, went to the public, shouted to the public for cheap publicity without seeing me to find out about the real issue,” added Nazri.

Nazri also denied that Najib had promised to give scholarship to every student who excelled in their result, saying the government only committed to ensure that every student who excelled would be guaranteed a place in local university and foreign university with scholarship.

That invited a strong reaction from MCA president Chua Soi Lek, who chided Nazri saying he "doesn’t know the role of MCA".

“If Nazri as a senior minister doesn’t know the role of MCA, then it’s rather unfortunate,” said Chua. His deputy Liow Tiong Lai had earlier explained that MCA’s role was “to defend Chinese Malaysians”, stopping short of explaining what he meant.

- Harakahdaily