I spoke at a forum held at the Bar Council debate. Amoung the speakers included YB Datuk Kamaruddin Jaafar MP for Tumpat and also the sec-Gen of PAS, YB Dato’ Sharir Abdul Samad MP of Johore Baru and Tian Chua of KeADILan

The New Economic Policy (NEP) came into being after the racial riots in 1969. When introduced in 1971 it was a formidable policy shift of the government basically meant to address the unequal income disparity of the races then. Thus with a single blow the NEP was formulated to reduce income disparity among different races/ ethnic group in Malaysia .
The initial life span of the NEP was for 20 years but this affirmative action policy continued after 1990 under a new and different name, namely the New Development Policy.
These affirmative actions were aimed to increase the economic social and education standards so that the Bumiputeras are on par with the non-bumiputeras.
Poverty was wide spread in the 60’s. We can understand the need for an affirmative action then. But the question is has the NEP achieved the set target it was set up for?
Conflicting Bumiputera equity ownership
In March2006 while delivering his speech in Parliament the Prime Minister stated that the bumiputera equity ownership of the Malaysian the economy was only 18.9%. Thus the focus and thrust and  underlying principles on which the 9thMalaysian Plan was based was on this illusive statistic of 18.9%. ASLI came out with figures suggesting the Bumiputers have surpassed the 30% equity target and are now 45% equity ownership. It was later revealed by an academic Dr. M Fazilah Abdul Samad that the 30% bumi equity ownership as targeted by the government’s new Economic policy had been achieved about 10 years ago.  In November06 the Deputy Finance Minister Dr.Awang Adek informed parliament that bumputera equity ownership was 36.64% as at December 06. It was quickly corrected by Minister Effendi Norwawi who stressed that the earlier figure of Awang Adik was wrong and the actual figure was 21.8%. Now, who are to believe?
In view of the contradictions in the government’s bumiputera equity ownership figures, will the government review the 9^th Malaysian Plan on which basis the plan was formulated.
Direct consequences and the ensuing drawbacks of the NEP
i) What has happened to the roaring Malaysian economy, which was considered an Asian tiger economy in 1970’s.
ii) We have thousands of graduates produced by local universities who are unemployable. Why?
iii) Lack of openness and competition results in red tape and kickbacks, and under the table monies is the order of the day. Because of favoritism bureaucratic inefficiency and the inherent weakness in the implementation in the polices of the government we have a situation where the high cost factor results in inefficiency.
iv)                 Corruption is a way of life in all sectors of the economy and it affects all of us one way or the other. Malaysia has slipped from 39^th to 44^th place in the recent release of the corruption perception Index, we also have a situation of cultural acceptance of corruption
v)                    Little Napoleons are running the system of government. The recent case of the Zakaria of Klang is in point just one exmpale.
vi)                 Milking of the NEP. Many individuals in the name of NEP have become super rich. Case in point is when Approval Permits (AP’s) were dished out to selected individual in the name of NEP
vii)                Lack of openness in the system. – No open tender system practiced Why? Toll concession agreements cannot be made known to the public? Why the secrecy as this leads one to believe there is something to hide!  
Will the government dismantle the NEP? No doubt the NEP has served its purposes. But the NEP’s noble intentions have been defeated as the economic disparity of the various races is widening.
The government has empathically announced in Parliament that the NEP will not be dismantled or abolished as “until the agenda to achieve national unity is realized” The Government only relies and affirms the need for national unity when it is caught in a quandary and it is in a defenseless situation. Thus the NEP is known as a Never Ending Policy. It is good and proper that we still talk about national unity, if talking reflects concern for the need for unity, for the fact that unity still seems to be rather illusive after a half century, and for the realization implies that uniformity is not unity but that, as the late great poet and writer of Asia, Rabindranath Tagore of Bengal, India, pointed out, unity could only come about through differences.
The Indian Dilemma
 
The Indian community constitutes about 7 per cent of the total population of Malaysia . With having been through almost 50 years of independence as a nation and people, the Indian community has been left so far behind other Malaysia communities, with the possible exception of the Orang Asli and two of three native communities in Sabah and Sarawak ?
Malaysian Indians today have the notorious record of being the best out performers in that they have the highest unemployment rate, the highest alcoholic rate,the highest single-mother rate, the highest suicidal rate, the highest percentage in the involvement of crime nearly 33%, nearly 50% of all detainees at Simpang Renggang are Indians, highest numbers of beggars and highest child abuse cases are also Indians.
With all this it’s no wonder the Indians have been refereed to the new under class.  Many have warned then that a “new time-bomb” was ticking in Malaysia if Malaysian Indians “continue to be an underclass in our society without an urgent national remedial blueprint”.
 
In August 2000 TIME magazine describe Malaysian Indians as a “disgruntled underclass”, with many of them feeling like “third-class citizens” in Malaysia and “real losers” since the introduction of the New Economic Policy 30 years ago.
 
How has the NEP really benefited the Indians? Who will uplift the economic well being of the Indians? The NEP has marginalized the Indians to the extent that unless the government does take proactive measures things are going to be worse.
The government has said they intend to increase the economic equity of the Indians from 1.2% to 3% to the year 2020. This is too little too. Why did the government fail to ensure that the promised 3% be achieved by 2010, as originally promised? What were the implementers and the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) in the Prime Minister’s Department doing or not doing? What guarantee that this newly proposed target will not be merely another dream by 2020?
The Malaysian Indian community is generally an aggrieved community, whatever success materially which might have been achieved by some individual Malaysian Indian businessmen, politicians and professionals.
In socio-economic terms, Malaysian Indians as a community collectively suffer a kind of double indemnity; they are not Bumiputeras, and there are no systematic and substantial programmes and schemes and projects to uplift them, because some well- to-do individuals in the community are deliberately pulling wool over everybody’s eyes that the entire Malaysian Indian community is okay. Some even proceed with the canard that, yes, some of them are poor, but none is desperately so. Hence, the powers-that-be is lured into believing that no urgency is needed for the Malaysian Indian community, because they are in no dire straits.
However, sadly and dangerously, the facts and figures tell a different tale of deprivation and frustration in and among the community.
As University Malaya’s technology and innovation Professor Rajah Rasiah has agreed, the New Economic Policy (NEP)’s flaw was the focus on one ethnic group rather than empowering the poor across the board. Poverty among all races must be eradicated. Or will it be another 50 years of neglect and discrimination. Until perhaps the pot boils  over? Or, until the Malaysian Indian time bomb explodes?
The newly launched National Education Blueprint promises a commitment to reduce racial polarization and to improve national integration. Very good! Congratulations! But how?
Racial polarization does not simply happen. It is caused. Improving national integration dose not simply happen by itself; it has to be caused. There must be concrete and sincere steps and methods and efforts to realize these laudable goals. But these goals also do not become reality in a vacuum. They too depend on the principles of justice, equity and fairplay. And, if I may add, with freedom rather than regimentation and autocracy, and the undemocratic and unreasonable insistence that uniformity be imposed at the expense of differences. When terms like “plural society’ and “interfaith’ have become dirty words among some sections of our society, then we are in serious trouble. We must immediately sit up and see how to resolve such problems amicably, within the framework of the rule of law and the sanctity of the federal Constitution.
 The Malaysian Indians need help socially and economically NOW, not tomorrow, for tomorrow can mean another 50 years. Let not our lovely and bountiful country degenerate into a fractured society like Sri Lanka , where the Tamils have to fight for their dignity and self-respect after decades of neglect, insult and discrimination by the majority Singhalese, and killed and bullied by State violence. In conclusion, I’d like to say: National Unity needs substances not rhetoric. And the substance must include justice and equity for Malaysian Indians, as it does for all open Malaysians.
Final Analysis
The poor have been left behind in the pursuit of the economic success of the country. Poverty need  to be addressed. It’s a fallacy to presume that the Malays are the only ones who need help to get out of the crutches of poverty. Other ethnic groups in Malaysia too have many poor, poverty is colour blind. Thus policies of affirmative action are needed to help all to up lift them economically. 
Malaysia has entered into the final stages of the FTA agreement discussion with the US . We live in a borderless world. The world is getting smaller and with globalization and free trade NEP cannot be justified any more. If the NEP is kept in tack it just meant to strengthen the  rich and the affluent politicians in this country.