GEORGE TOWN - Malaysia’s main issue now is the wide disparity of income between Malays where the wealthy are very rich and the poor are poverty stricken, Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said.
To back his assertion, the Permatang Pauh MP cited from the recently released United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report, which he said states one of the challenges faced by Malaysia is the income inequalities and rising disparities that had shifted from inter-ethnic to intra-ethnic disparities.
“We are not talking about disparity of income between Malays and Chinese but between the rich and poor Malays, so whose fault is this? Lim Guan Eng? The Chinese?” he said rhetorically in his speech at a hawker complex in Bukit Gedung here last night.
UNDP’s inaugural Malaysia Human Development Report titled “Redesigning an Inclusive Future”, launched a few days ago, hightlighted that wealth in the country was skewed towards propping up those who are already rich. The report noted the income gap between the rich and poor has not changed in 20 years.
While the nation's eyes focus on the Umno general assembly taking place this week in Kuala Lumpur, Anwar hit his home state on a whirlwind tour to reach out to the grassroots.
He reminded the crowd the economic problems facing the nation stemmed from leadership issues, and affected all races and not just the Malays and accused the Barisan Nasional (BN) ruling coalition of playing up racial flash points to detract attention instead of finding ways to ease the people's financial burden.
“If we look at the Umno general assembly, all they ever talk about is Anwar did this, Anwar did that. Did they even talk about the economy or the rising costs and how to reduce poverty?” he said.
He took a dig at his political foes, telling the attendees that delegates at the Umno assembly were mercilessly attacking Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng and Pakatan Rakyat (PR) state government in a bid to score points.
PAS deputy president Mohamad Sabu was also present at the evening talk and hit out at Umno for pushing what he critised as a racial “propaganda” with its attacks against Lim and the DAP leader's state adminstration which purportedly sought to drive out Malays.
“This propaganda has been around since I was in Standard Six and until today, I kept hearing the same accusations that they had been making so many years ago against the Opposition,” he said. -Malay Mail
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ReplyDeleteOn 20 September 2014...
"...that the land deals appear to have been done in a haste and were a plan devised by a group of businessmen close to Barisan Nasional (BN) to use the promise of building 9,999 units of low-cost and affordable housing on the land as a strategy to oust..."
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/1mdbs-rm1.38-billion-penang-land-quandary
"...The problem we faced was as what the then Minister of Trade and Industry Rafidah Aziz said:
Melayu mampu daya maju tapi tak mampu daya tahan. This came from the Minister herself and means the Malays can be viable but can't be sustainable. Malays can achieve success but can't sustain the success.
The Minister then revealed details and lamented about all the wealth the government gave the Malays in the form of land, concessions, permits, 'pink slips' on new stock exchange listings, and whatnot, which, if the Malays had kept, would mean the Malays would have far exceeded the 30% target of the New Economic Policy.
But the Malays did not keep this wealth. The Malays sold it. The land, concessions, permits, 'pink slips' on new stock exchange listings, and whatnot, were all sold.
So the Malay holding reduced and ended up in the hand of the non-Malays. This was what troubled the government, the Malay leaders, those who walk in the corridors of power, and us in the Malay Chamber of Commerce.
So they now lament about how left behind the Malays in Penang are.
They should chart the progression of the Malays in Penang from 224 years ago until today and analyse at what point it went up and went down again.
Were the Malays driven out? Were the Malays pushed out? Or did the Malays sell out? And why and how did the Malays sell out?...
...And since there was a demand for land in Penang then for sure the landowners would sell. It is all about making a profit.
So Penang developed. It became known as the Pearl of the Orient. So the capitalists moved in, as capitalists always do anywhere in the world where there is money to be made. And the Malays saw the route too easy an d quick cash available to them. So they sold their land for a lot of money and moved on to another place where the land was cheaper.
...They sold their small piece of land in Penang for a lot of money and bought an even bigger piece of land, say in Kedah, for a small amount of money and still had a lot of money left to go to Mekah, send their kids to university, and whatnot.
Today, many of those old folks and landowners of the 1960s and 1970s are dead. They are no longer alive. Their land in Penang had been sold off long before they died. And their children and grandchildren no longer own land in Penang...
Today, the Malays are angry because the land in Penang is owned mainly by the non-Malays.
But this is so not because the non-Malays stole the land but because the Malays sold it for a lot of money...Only a fool would turn down RM500,000 in profit.
The more the Malays scream about being left behind in Penang the more the Malays would look stupid and would be revealing their weaknesses.
Back in the 1970s the government already sighed and lamented...
We can help the Malays, the government said. We can do, what you want us to do. But if the Malays just sell off whatever we give them..."
http://www.bonology.com/2011/07/government-pay-ibrahim-ali-rm-300.html
You be the judge.
Cheers.