The NEP can no longer be sustained in the globalization era of the 21st century revolving around competitiveness, merit and knowledge or else Malaysia will end up like our public universities that are not amongst the top 200 in the world
___________________
Press Statement
by Lim Guan Eng
________________________
(Petaling Jaya,
Friday):
DAP strongly disagrees with
the Prime Minister that the
New Economic Policy (NEP)
should be accepted by all as
it has benefited all
Malaysians for the past 37
years. Whilst academics have
provided evidence that the
preferential policies,
quotas, mismanagement and
corruption by the NEP has
shaved off at least 2% off
our GNP growth, the future of
economic prosperity and
development definitely does
not lie in the NEP.
The NEP is now synonymous
with inefficiency, corruption
and crony capitalism that
allow the privileged few to
benefit at the expense of
many. Worse is that the
privileged few do not feel
any responsibility to return
back such wealth to be shared
with the people. The NEP can
no longer be sustained in the
globalization era of the 21st
century revolving around
competitiveness, merit and
knowledge or else Malaysia
will end up like our public
universities that are not
even amongst the top 200 in
the world.
Last year, Universiti
Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM),
and Universiti Malaya (UM)
made it to the top 200 in the
Times Higher Education
Supplement (THES)-Quacquarelli
Symonds (QS) World University
Rankings (THES-QS). However
this year UKM dropped from
185th last year to 309th
whilst UM dropped from 192nd
last year to 246th this year.
The best university in
Malaysia, Universiti Sains
Malaysia dropped from 277
last year to 307th this year.
The decline in standards of
Malaysian public universities
can be traced to the failure
to implement the merit system
and insistence on NEP’s
preferential policies based
on quotas instead of
qualification. Continuing
with the NEP would only make
Malaysia less competitive and
less prosperous when compared
with our neighbors without
NEP-like policies.
Deputy
UMNO Youth Chief Khairy
Jamaluddin should stop using
extremist positions to
popularize himself. Khairy
had called on the government
to restructure the supply
chain to avoid it being
monopolized by one race,
regretting the newspaper
vendor ship going on holiday
causing the UMNO’s President
Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad
Badawi’s speech not being
published. UMNO has no one
but their own to blame due to
its stubborn insistence to
hold the UMNO AGM during
Deepavali, which has been a
press holiday for as long as
one can remember.
Why should the Prime Minister
schedule his opening speech
on the ever of Deepavali
which has always been a press
holiday? Khairy has shown his
contempt for the Indian
community, the same contempt
that UMNO has towards Indian
temples. Khairy should
apologize to the Indian
community for urging that
their newspaper distribution
network be broken up when the
Indians are amongst the
poorest and most marginalized
economically in Malaysia.
Khairy and UMNO Youth
practices double-standards by
suggesting that the
distribution network and
supply chains dominated by
one community be restructured
but only those dominated by
non-Malays but not by Malays.
Malaysians would like to see
whether UMNO Youth and Khairy
are equally committed to
carry out restructuring when
the distribution network is
dominated by Malays, such as
the banking,
Similarly DAP opposes any
proposed abolition of
subsidies by Khairy unless
they are accompanied by cash
grants given by the
government. Khaiy lamented
that RM 35 billion is spent
on subsidies annually, which
represents about 25% of the
country’s revenue - enough to
build two Putrajayas, nine
Penang Bridges and 600,000
low-cost homes.
Abolishing subsidies may be
economically realistic but it
is socially unrealistic if it
ignores the hardships imposed
on the middle and lower
income groups. For that
reason, DAP would support any
abolition of subsidies only
on condition that Petronas
huge profits are distributed
to every low and
middle-income Malaysian
family. Khairy complains
about RM 35 billion lost to
subsidies. What is RM 35
billion in losses from
subsidies compared with the
huge profits earned by
Petronas of RM 76.3 billion
in 2006 that no one knows
where it has gone?
Distributing Petronas profits
is better than allowing
Petronas profits to be lost
from corruption,
mismanagement and abuses of
power.
(9/11/2007)
* Lim Guan
Eng,
Secretary-General of DAP |