COMMENT | Does the establishment really want to empower bumiputera?

“It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.” - Noël Coward, Blithe Spirit

COMMENT | Bursa Malaysia chairperson Abdul Wahid Omar recently said at the Bumiputera Economic Congress - “So, we must ask. If it’s been six decades, we have implemented various policies to empower the bumiputera and what is the result today? Why haven’t we reached our target all this time?”

This is the problem right here. After 60 years, the Malay establishment cannot bring themselves to admit that all their policies have failed the majority ethnic community.

Do not get me wrong. Rich people were created from these policies, Malay and non-Malay, but for the majority community (I am not including the “other bumiputera”) it has been a total failure.

Wahid said that the main cause of the failure was that the bumiputera group concentrated on the public sector and neglected the private sector.

He wants mandatory diversity disclosures to ensure private companies hire more bumiputera, especially when they do business with the government.