Malays cant pay their loans?

 

I received the following via Whatsapp. It says that Tan Sri Sheriff Kassim wrote this. Taking it at face value. Its an interesting viewpoint.

*From Tan Sri Mohd Sherrif Kassim*:

I beg to disagree with Tun that Malays have the characteristics of natural losers because they are lazy and cannot be trusted to pay back their loans. 

*Any race, when spoon fed by the government, will do like what the Malays did under the NEP.*

Banks know this. *They are reluctant to lend to Malays not because of their race.* *Because many of them are politically linked and take for granted that the banks owe Malays a living.*

Banks are scared of the moral hazard in lending to such Malays - they worry about the political risks to their business if they take the Malay debtors to court. 

Its now standard guideline in St-----d Ch----red and foreign banks not to lend to politically connected persons -- whatever their race - jangan cari sakit.

When banks suffered in the 1997/98 financial crisis, its those banks who lent heavily to Malay corporates and GLCs. The old Bank Bumiputera suffered most . 

How do I know ? Because we in Khazanah had to sell it off - it became C--B with Khazanah becoming minority shareholder. R_B also had to b rescued by Khazanah. I sat on R_B board as Khazanah owned part of it.

*Who brought R_B down ? The Malay borrowers who were too political to be sued.*

The Chinese and foreign banks were not so badly hit as they had very little loans to political Malays.

Today , UMNO is complaining banks are not lending or not lending enough to Malays. Tun M should tell the Malays why?

For your information, I was chairing the Entrepeneur Rehabilitation Fund set up by BNM in 1988 for 12 yrs to save the Malay businesses who were being sued by banks for defaulting on their loans. 

If they were Chinese, the banks would have declared them bankrupt. But as they were Malays , we had to save them because of the political repercussions. 

As a civil servant, I did my duty. But I could see why banks got their fingers burnt lending to the politically connected.

*Sheriff Kassim*

My Comments:

My view is we really need to refocus on education. Especially for the Malays. 

And culture, tradition and the entire civilisational dialogue has to be carefully relooked - to expedite the Malays into the 21st century.

Until today Malay culture still believes in malignant spirits that dwell in trees and homes, they believe strongly in black magic and they are extremely fond of that which does NOT require scientific evidence and logic. And you can throw in religion into this part of the equation. 

The Malays already missed out on a significant portion of the 20th century. The way things are going they may get left behind in this 21st century as well. There are only 78 years left. 

We really need to get the social scientists, the anthropologists and the psychologists into the debate on how to move the Malays fast-forward. And they should be non-Malay Malaysians. Just ask the Chinese, Indians and others 'How do you do things?' Apa susah sangat?

Because there are no generic, all across the board "Malaysian problems". In this country there is only a Malay problem. The Indians, Chinese etc do not really face major problems from within themselves.  They can sort things out for themselves and just keep sailing on. The problem is with the Malays. They still are not there yet.

Many Malays in my generation (born 1960) are first generation literates. Meaning their parents did not know how to read and write. Ok so now they can read and write. But what is the quality of their literacy? That is the next level we should aspire to. Reading voluminously about highly debatable religious dogma  or reading biased, prejudiced, racial, highly doubtful "history" does not make for quality literacy. 

Almost zero reading in philosophy, zero reading in critical thinking, absolutely no questioning of religion, inability to read in other languages, especially English has created Malays who have become champions of cocoon living. Thy live inside a cocoon. A racial and religious cocoon where everyone has to look like them, dress like them, talk like them, believe like them, and on and on. They have their own reality. They do not realise that they have actually become removed from reality. 

I was a banker. Time value of money is the absolute heart of banking. Then in the 1990s the 'braders' turned up in banking. In their world view there is no time value of money.  Time was not important. They cannot be bankers. They cannot even be financiers. I dont know what they are. But the point is - again - a 24 hour day is not important. 

Some Malay writers have marvelled that because of the NEP in just one generation the children of Malay rice farmers could become corporate leaders. Grossly wrong. They were given their corporate shareholdings almost for free.  Thy did not earn it through their own hard work and they never earned it through that most elusive of required ingredients for success : open market competition.

That is why until today there is still no Bumiputra Commercial and Industrial Community (BCIC). Living in a cocoon, living off public funds does not create a successful business community. 

A political gimmick called the New Economic Policy, hastily patched together in 1970 to save the ruling coalition from  its weakest performance in the 1969 elections, became the life philosophy for ketuanan Melayu.  Or that is what the Malay politicians told them. The politicians took over their lives. And it has been that way since. Saudara Anwar Ibrahim has not answered the question - will he remove the race based quotas for university entrances and government scholarships? What about saudara rafizi Ramli? The ketuanan is still lurking somewhere there.

The Malay politicians set up banks using public funds which did nothing much except provide material for Tan Sri Sheriff Kassim's article above. It has been a disaster for 52 years.

You need to focus. The problem is social, psychological, cultural and traditional. You cannot solve social problems using a gimmicky "economic policy". It does not work that way.

Why cant Malays pay back their loans? (The subject of Tan Sri Sheriff's article above)

If you miss paying your loans on time, the real question is why cant Malays keep to an agreed time schedule? For anything - not just paying back loans.

Because they are not used to keeping time, keeping to schedules etc. These things are still new.

Chairman Mao Zedong once said it was perhaps too early to analyse the full effects of the French Revolution.   The French Revolution took place 233 years ago in 1789. Being Chinese, Mao Zedong understood dynasties and history and the number of times you have to wind up the old pendulum clock to see change in human civilisation. 

So the Malays are still 1st, 2nd generation literate, 1st generation business owners, 1st generation "dont know how we got here" corporate leaders. It is going to take time.

But we have to expedite the process. Not slow it down.

Dr Mahathir said in the Malay Dilemma that the Malays did not appreciate time. He said 'Ask someone, where are you going?' and they reply 'Oh I am just going there.' (Or words to that effect). Meaning there is no regard for time.

The concept of a 24 hour day is still new. Time is something that just passes. Dividing time into neat slots of one hour each, 24 times a day is not part of the culture. 

The eight hour work day is even more novel.  Why do young Malays like the gig economy so much? 70% of school leavers (majority Malays) said they want to join the gig economy. Because there is no fixed time schedule in the gig economy. 

If you feel like it you accept the delivery instructions, you make money. If you dont feel like it, dont answer the phone. Just continue with the video game or scroll Tik Tok.   Time is something that just passes.  You dont start organising time into 24 slots of one hour each.  Relaks lah brader. Jangan tension sangat. Penat nak memikir.

So the issues are social, cultural, traditional and religious. 

We have to wean the Malays away from all those things that keep them behind the 20th century. Now the 21st century.

Shielding them from competition is an evil. It is criminal. As Tan Sri Sheriff Kassim says   *Any race, when spoon fed by the government, will do like what the Malays did under the NEP.*

We have to be able to make the Malays appreciate time. Why is a 24 hour day important?

So who do you call? The Ghost Busters? No. For the past 52 years the Ghost Busters have been screaming from the podiums and the pulpits. Now they are in the schools, universities and the Civil Service. They are everywhere.

You have to bring in the sociologists, the anthropologists, the psychologists, the scientists - preferably from among the non-Malays (for a more removed, objective, unbiased observation) and do a  "post-mortem" not only on the New Economic Policy, but on the entire psychology of Malay society.  Why are they still slow to catch up? Why cant they pay their loans - like everybody else ?

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.