Let a Chinese manage UDA

ARCHIVES 2013

By admin-s On Sep 3, 2013

Such a person will have no duty or obligation to help fellow Umno-members and comrades and will not be afraid to upset other “pressure groups” who will always use the Malay cause to get things for themselves.

Zaid Ibrahim, TMI

The Deputy Prime Minister has called on UDA Holdings Berhad to return to its original aim of helping urban Bumiputera households and traders acquire properties.

Good, but unfortunately we have heard such exhortations and reminders countless times before.

UDA was established in 1971. According to its charter, it had the noble aim of promoting and carrying out urban development projects including improvements to the environment, services, amenities, traffic, parking, recreational and community facilities as well as “other public improvements for the promotion of national unity, health, safety, convenience and welfare”.

The immediate policy goal of urban development was to achieve “the distribution of opportunities among the various races in the field of commerce and industries, housing and other activities”.

We must remember that all this took place in the aftermath of 13 May 1969 and UDA’s mandate was a very important part of the New Economic Policy to address the socioeconomic imbalances that had put the nation in jeopardy.

UDA had several excellent successes. Many of us know Bukit Bintang Plaza and Dayabumi, of course, but how many are aware that UDA was also instrumental in the development of Taman Tun Dr Ismail (including its iconic market), Bandar Subang Jaya, Bangsar Utama and Dataran Maybank, Puduraya (now Pudu Sentral) and Sinar Kota, Plaza Angsana in Johor and the Kuala Terengganu Golf Resort, to name a few.

And lest we get too chauvinistic, let us remember that UDA was a multiracial firm that worked with other multiracial firms.

So what went wrong? How was it that, in December 2011, then-Chairman of UDA Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed told Bernama that UDA was “facing problems implementing the Bumiputera Agenda”?

Why did UDA cave in so quickly to the demands of the MRT Corporation on its home ground in Bukit Bintang? Why were there problems with the balance sheet (so said the UDA managing director in June last year)?