Only A Good Beginning
M. Bakri Musa
Prime Minister Najib Razak’s liberalizing some segments of the service sector is a good start. However, it is merely good but not excellent, and only a beginning but not the total solution.
Najib must remember that a half-cooked meal is often not only inedible but could also poison you; likewise a half-baked solution.
For Najib to have an excellent and comprehensive solution would require him to address the more difficult underlying issue of what prompted the instituting of quotas in the first place. Unless that is resolved, his new policy will not be politically sustainable – meaning, not sustainable at all –regardless how eminently sensible it is economically. Ameliorate it and Najib would be able to liberalize not only the whole service sector but also the entire economy, if not every facet of Malaysian life. That would bring his “1Malaysia” aspiration that much closer.
On the other hand, if he fails to resolve that fundamental problem, he would have succeeded only in triggering a severe backlash among Malays, the bulk if not his only base of support. Were that to happen he would push back race relations; the half-cooked meal poisoning him!
Already we are seeing some interesting and unlikely coalition of opposing forces. The Bar Council, the self-styled champion against discrimination and a vociferous and relentless opponent of Malay “special privileges,” suddenly becomes protective of its members when the government tries to liberalize the legal profession to allow for the entry of foreign law firms.
The objective of reform is to enhance Malaysia’s competitiveness. Malaysia cannot be competitive unless Malays, who constitute the bulk of the population, are also competitive. Increase Malay competitiveness and you enhance the nation’s competitiveness.
This being Malaysia, with its “monkey see and monkey do” culture, Najib’s half-baked move will be echoed by others eager to imitate and flatter him. We already have one monkey in the person of Khir Toyo, the discredited former Mentri Besar of Selangor, now suddenly discovering “reform” religion. Rest assured that these guys are merely mouthing what is popular (or think is popular); they have no clue of the profound implications or associated difficulties.
Quotas were instituted to dismantle “the identification of race with economic activities,” to borrow the eloquent phrase of the New Economic Policy. I would have expected that after nearly 40 years, the announcement of the lifting of quotas of a small segment of the service sector would have been greeted with unbridled joy. That it was not points to potential troubles ahead. Najib ignores this at his own peril, especially considering that his hold on power is at best tenuous.
The response is not to suspend the liberalization process rather to address its opponents’ concerns. The first step involves answering the basic question of why, sans quotas, there were so few Malays in that sector. If there were but they had no sustaining power, the next line of inquiry should be to focus on why those Malays were not competitive.
Next would be to examine the failures of the current quota system. Why does it fail to nurture a class of enterprising Malays? It could be that the current policy perversely encourages the emergence of pseudo entrepreneurs and ersatz capitalists, thus oppressing the genuine variety, much like lallang to lengkuas.
Unless answers are found to these questions, we are guaranteed to muddle through yet another half-baked solution. I have yet to hear sensible discussions from our leaders on these fundamental problems.
The key to making Malays (or any group for that matter) competitive is in revamping the schools and universities, and altering the reward system so as to encourage genuine entrepreneurs and risk takers.
