Najib’s credibility takes fatal hit with rollout of castrated NEM

ARCHIVES 2010

By admin-s On Dec 4, 2010

It is also a great disppointment that after so many promises and offering the people so much hope, the final NEM was castrated and offers nothing in the way of reforms.

Wong Choon Mei, Malaysia Chronicle

It looks like Prime Minister Najib Razak has gone full circle and is now back to square one, with his much-touted New Economic Model the latest in a series of grandiose programs to join his prized 1 Malaysia slogan on the trash heap.

“The real losers are the Malaysian people and the winners are groups with vested interests such as Perkasa, Mahathir, Muhyiddin and other Umno warlords who object to the NEM because they want to oust Najib and not because they really support the NEP or think it is better,” PKR vice president Tian Chua told Malaysia Chronicle.

“It is also a great disppointment that after so many promises and offering the people so much hope, the final NEM was castrated and offers nothing in the way of reforms. So the old things remain – the NEP, the Ketuanan Melayu and so forth. Nothing has changed despite the millions of taxpayers’ ringgit he has lavished on consultants to draft out what is basically rubbish.”

Both social and financial planks failed to take off

The NEM is the financial plank of the Najib administration’s core set of programs to reform Malaysia, just as 1 Malaysia is his social plank.

Azizah – BN must stop the lies

On Friday evening, a defensive Najib presented the second and final part of the NEM, which aims to revive Malaysia’s credibility as a choice investment destination, and more importantly, to stave off bankruptcy which may be inescapable if the endemic corruption in the country remains unchecked.

The 57-year old had previously promised to replace the race-based New Economic Policy, introduced by his father in 1971, with a needs-based NEM.

For decades, financial experts and Malaysians themselves have expressed concern at the wastage and corruption spawned by the NEP as the Umno elite rushed to take advantage of the goodies it offered at the expense of the poor Malays for whom the plan had originally been drafted to help.

“Malay supremacy is a slogan used by a small group of Malay elites who are cheating the Malays as a whole for their own interests,” PKR president Wan Azizah had pointed out last week.

“After 53 years in power, the Malays and bumiputera are still neglected. The 30 percent Malay-bumiputera equity has yet to be met. Of the RM54 billion equity and shares for bumiputera, only RM2 billion still belong to them.”

96% of the poorest are still Malays

Ketuanan Melaya or Malay supremacy has long been used by top Umno leaders to tie the NEP to the Malay community but not for its economic welfare, rather to rally support for the continuation of the NEP, which actually only states that its goals are to eradicate poverty.

Tian – final NEM was castrated

Malaysia’s federal constitution stipulates “special position” of the Malays for receiving government assistance in economic and educational sectors, but does not give the community special rights above the other races.

The 30 percent target is a government target set by past administrations and in the final part of the NEM, Najib had been expected to remove or reduce this protectionism barrier in favor of a fresh policy that specifically allocates aid based on income level so that the poor could really benefit. Despite the NEP, 96 percent of the poorest Malaysians are still Malays.

“This is another flip-flop. But it is a really serious one with very drastic consequences for Malaysia. It also has big consequences for Umno-BN because Malaysians now know that if the country is to be saved, the BN federal government must be replaced,” DAP MP for Taiping Nga Kor Ming told Malaysia Chronicle.