The government must reject the proposal to review the extension of the New Economic Policy because the equity held by individual Bumiputera at the stock market at 2004 was only 15 percent.

This is the Prime Minister’s reply to my question today with regard to whether there will be a review of the government’s decision to extend the NEP period to year 2020. I had wanted to know whether the extension would be reviewed since bumiputera’s holding in Bursa Malaysia has touched almost 40 percent and the number of professionals has exceeded NEP’s targets.

He said that when the government decided to extend the timeframe to achieve the NEP objectives, it was actually continuing with the strategies of eradicating poverty and restructuring society through the eliminating of racial identification with economic functions.

The PM added that if the objectives of the NEP were achieved, especially the equitable distribution of the country’s wealth, it would directly speed up the equitable participation of all the races in the country.

Furthermore, it would promote national unity which is an important agenda in the development of the country.

Although the term “bumiputera” is often heard in Parliament’s chamber, most of the times it actually refers to the Malays. For example, in the racial composition of the civil service that I provided last week on this blog, the Malays and bumiputera (non-Malays) are categorized separately.

Many native MPs from Sabah and Sarawak often see themselves as Bumiputeras at the periphery and strangers in their own lands.

The term “minority bumiputera” has emerged over the past few years and has attracted considerable interest. Kadazan intellectuals have taken up the issue to try and find answers to the disillusionment among Kadazans with the “bumiputera policy”

Kadazans claim that they have not shared in the so-called gains of the other bumiputera under the NEP.

In Sarawak too, remember Leo Moggie the PBDS president declared in 1987:

“The Dayaks, though Bumiputera by law, were not enjoying that status in the practical implementation of the NEP…Whether by design or omission, the NEP has passed the Dayaks by.”

Malaysians will continue to be affected by the NEP for a long time to come.