Gerakan and MCA: It's academic, not political
Regina William and Pauline Puah

PETALING JAYA (Oct 11, 2006): Gerakan and MCA leaders today issued separate statements urging the government not to treat Asli's findings on bumiputra equity as a political issue.

While another Gerakan Penang state executive councillor Teng Chang Yeow has come out in support of his colleague on the issue, the MCA Youth urges the government to accept Asli's study as "a scientific exercise that should be treated with openness".

Yesterday, Gerakan state executive councillor Datuk Dr Toh Kin Woon said the government's rejection of the Asli report, which challenges the official data, has sent the wrong signal that dissent is not tolerated and honest pursuit of knowledge discouraged.

MCA Youth Economic Bureau head Datuk Henry Wong said Malaysia has shifted into a different paradigm, including the move towards global liberalisation and knowledge economy.

"This has posed new thinking as well as opportunities for all, and R & D is just part and parcel of discovering new frontiers to solve impeding problems and issues posed by the changing environment," he said.

He said all communities should encourage the building of a robust entrepreneurial class but must not lose sight of the need to enhance our overall global competitiveness, to uplift general income levels as well as to reduce poverty and lower the disparities regardless of race.

"This was, and still is the real intention of the New Economic Policy (NEP). While we pursue the overall national agenda of greater economic wealth, MCA is clear that we will not accept any form of micro-restructuring.

"Malaysia's global strength is predicted on our multiculturalism and multilingual society. And most of all, our national unity is dependent on keeping our diversity and respect for each other. This, we should defend at all cost," he added.

In PENANG, Teng said Toh's statement was an academic view and should not be seen in a political light.

"There must be room and space for debate especially in issues like this. If we find that the report is subject of debate among the people, then we should provide an alternative for debate on the report.

"The whole issue centred on methodology of calculation of the equity done by the government as opposed to that arrived at by Asli.

"Toh's statement was more towards how the issue should be resolved in an academic point of view and was never meant to be a political statement at all.

"The government should provide its methodology to alleviate concern among the people that something is not right," Teng said in a telephone interview.

Toh had said the government could and should have instructed the relevant agencies to be more transparent on the data and methodology used to compute the bumiputra equity ownership share.

He also said discussions with Asli's Centre for Public Policy Studies (CPPS) (headed by its director Dr Lim Teck Ghee) and others on these issues could have been held and a consensus arrived at.

The Asli report - Corporate Equity Distribution: Past Trends and Future Policy - stated that bumiputra corporate equity ownership could be as high as 45% and not 18.9% as stated in government statistics, drawing sharp criticisms from the prime minister and government economic advisers.

Toh also said this was a sad development and seemed at odds with the government's professed aim of wanting to make the country a more open, transparent and liberal society.

He also praised Lim and described Lim's stand as "a very refreshing departure from the culture of compliance and subservience that the ruling elites in our country attempt to cultivate".