Will the real Malay entrepreneur please stand up… and walk
(TMI) KUALA LUMPUR, June 10 — Some months after it had formed the state government two years ago, a certain Pakatan Rakyat (PR) mentri besar was visited by a group of Malay businessmen and entrepreneurs who complained about not getting “special treatment.”
That is right. The “Reformasi-ists” who accused Barisan Nasional of cronyism in the March general elections were now asking one of their mentri besar for privileged access to state government contracts.
To be fair, a source familiar with the meeting said, the businessmen had competed in open tenders and had tried securing jobs based on their own merit.
But they found it tough. Most of these Pakatan entrepreneurs were small fry compared to the Umno-connected Malay contractors. The latter got big and experienced from the contracts they secured when Barisan Nasional (BN) was in power.
So the Pakatan contractors were hoping to leverage on their alliance and the sweat and blood they put in over the years as activists. Some of them were veterans who had been gassed, beaten and jailed in the countless demonstrations since the 1998 “Reformasi” movement — the precursor of Pakatan.
Said the source: “The sentiment was we have sacrificed much for Pakatan… surely there must be some ‘reward’?”
The mentri besar, however, gently explained that the days of ”preferential treatment” for anyone, Pakatan or BN were over. Everyone would have to go through the same rigorous open tender application process.
The purpose of highlighting this episode is not to show that Pakatan and BN activists are the same. It is to show how entrenched the belief is among Malay entrepreneurs of all stripes that it is the business of the government to be involved in Malay businesses.
This is beyond “know-who” versus “know-how.” It is the Malay business subsidy mentality — the belief that the government, state and federal, must continue to prop up Malay business if the latter is to have any hope of making it in the 21st century.
The belief is so strong that it will resist any attempt by any government, whether BN or Pakatan, to dismantle the web of patronage that sustains it. Even if such a system could cause more PKFZs, Mida buildings and collapsing stadiums.
The BN and Pakatan top leadership may want to sincerely stop patronage. For example, some Pakatan states have their CAT system (competency, accountability and transparency).
Later this morning, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is scheduled to announce the 10th Malaysia Plan, which will incorporate some of the New Economic Model’s aims of ending patronage and reducing affirmative action.
But what the leadership of both these coalitions will not admit is that many civil servants, businessmen and middle-ranking politicians in their own parties, do not see patronage as a problem.
