The recently concluded (if economic matters can be concluded at all) 2024 Bumiputera Economic Congress was the seventh reiteration of the same stretching back to 1965.
Then as now, it was organised by politicians, not respected academicians and scholars.
You can well imagine the mood and the passion in 1965, a mere eight years after Merdeka and four years before May 13.
To put it mildly, things were really hot then. Of the 70 resolutions adopted, two stand out: the creation of Bank Bumiputera and MARA. Take note, the bank is no more.
The world and the country is a very different place now. We are not a rubber and tin economy anymore. We are in the league of 25 top trading nations of the world.
And the NEP has altered the economic landscape of the country. The middle class is multi-racial, privileged or otherwise. Ditto the poor.
Access to schooling, healthcare, and employment is almost universal. Millions of migrant workers, legal and illegal, crowd our workplace. It can be safely said, Malaysians don’t build their homes, their highways, and bridges or harvest the golden crop that has alleviated rural poverty - oil palm.
Main takeaways
Looking at this big picture, Syed Jamal Zahid, writing in the Malay Mail, was right in saying there were three things to be learned from this congress.
The first was the futility of peddling the rhetoric of race, especially of the venomous and bile-filled kind peddled by former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and his ilk.
The second is the emerging realisation that the NEP, wrongly taken advantage of by the “siapa cepat, dia dapat” class of people within the Bumiputera community, has in effect resulted in a missed opportunity for the community as a whole. The numbers don’t lie, no matter how well-concealed!
And there was no clearer proof of this point than Zaid Ibrahim’s comment on this congress, and I quote: “Relax….no group in this world is as fortunate as the bumiputera”.
Elsewhere, he went on to add that Malaysian policies do not cater to the underclass, prone to believing promises, not facts.
The third lesson is that the very same people who talked of inclusivity, diversity, and progress at this congress were the very people who had handsomely profited from the NEP and yet
younger bumiputera entrepreneurs were not given the stage, leading us to believe that self-interest, pecuniary and political, was driving this congress.
Less hot air, more substance please
To Syed Jamal’s observation I would like to add another three. The first is that any economic discussion on socio-economic development and progress should be data-driven, not hot-air manipulated.
The first two days of this congress should have been devoted to a discussion of data that was gathered using scientifically rigorous and technologically advanced methodologies ie they must be digital and impartial.
Just as form must follow function, policy must follow data and not the whims and fancies of our politicians who have mastered the art of playing to the gallery of race and religion.
Over the three days, if what was reported was anything to go by, there was a paucity of inputs from respected economists, excluding the kangkung variety.
Is there sufficient data on population demographics, housing conditions, educational facilities, health services, family size, broken homes ie divorce rates, worker productivity, rural-urban divide… and the list is endless as it is relevant in devising strategies to create better opportunities for all? Isn’t it shocking that 40 percent of the working population is not covered by a formal retirement scheme?
With data, governments can digitise their response to age-old problems instead of merely politicising them.
Three good examples of using data for societal improvement are Estonia’s e-government initiative where some 99 percent of public services are digitalised; Singapore’s Smart Nation Initiative and India’s Aadhar Project that uses biometrics to collect data from a billion plus people.
Why are we laggards in this area? The reasons are obvious but seldom spoken about. Our politicians love big projects. The bigger the project the better the takings! And the last thing they want is a self-empowered rakyat jelata.
That is to say, they do not want them to stand on their own two feet, which incidentally was among the first Malay acronyms coined in the 70s - berdikari: berdiri atas kaki sendiri.
Behavioural economics
To provoke more thought on this matter, allow me to briefly recount three stories from the past. I once struck up a conversation in the 80s with a Chinese taxi driver. Among the things he told me that have remained with me to this day was that he set aside RM20 from his daily takings to build up a fund for repairs, change of tyres, etc.
“If not, I will lose a few days of income looking for money from others.”
The second is that I was a young planter in the 70s on an estate that bordered a Felda scheme. The fertiliser issued by the authorities for their rubber trees was quite immediately sold off and not applied to trees on their own holdings.
I asked one of these settlers why. His response: “I know the fertiliser is given to increase our earnings by tapping healthier trees but I get money faster by selling it”.
The third is a story from Zambia, Africa. A Chinese worker assigned to a Chinese government aid project decided to come back to Lusaka with his wife in tow and become a chicken farmer.
His success, working hard throughout the seasons, at first made him a much-lauded “hero”. Then came envy and hatred to the point he was accused in African fashion of using black magic to fatten his chickens. Beat that!
Which brings me to the point that using economics without also including behavioural economics as a part of the mix can lead us to very erroneous conclusions as to why people fall behind or make decisions that are seemingly bizarre, as told by Nobel laureates Abhijit V Banerjee and Esther Duflo in their book, Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty.
One of their stories was of a poor Moroccan who told them that if he was given money he will buy good food and if given even more money, will buy even more good food. But they were shocked to see a large TV and a DVD player in his humble home. He told them TV is more important than food.
The same authors also mentioned a rural school in Bihar, India where teachers continued teaching their students the “syllabus” even as their students failed to read and write.
Politics should serve as the instrument of socio-economic reform and not the other way around, especially in a developing country like Malaysia.
Right now, it looks like the cart has been put in front of the horse. Truly, we need Reformasi! - Mkini
MURALE PILLAI is a former planter and now runs a logistics firm.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.
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