Yet Another (Yawn!) Expensive Bumiputera Boondoggle

 Yet Another (Yawn!) Expensive Bumiputera Economic Boondoggle

M. Bakri Musa

 

Last week (August 18, 2024), the Madani government launched yet another massive initiative, the Bumiputera Economic Transformation Plan, dubbed PuTERA35. Its Malay acronym also means princely. Rest assured that the only thing princely would be its price tag and the associated grand ceremonies. The “35” refers to the target date, year 2035.

 

            We are fond of acronyms, matched only by our fascination with endless Kongress Ekonomi. Only last March there was the seventh, since independence! Those endless blueprints and grandiose plans reflect less commitment, more incompetence. Repeating over and over the same strategy and expecting a different result would, as per Einstein, be insanity. Or, an inability to learn, otherwise known as stupidity.

 

            That first Kongress Ekonomi Bumiputara back in 1965 did away with RIDA (Rural and Industrial Development Agency, set up in 1951 by the British) and created the massive bureaucracy Majlis Amanah Rakyat (MARA–Citizens’ Trust Council). That first Kongress also triggered many subsequent and consequential disastrous follies, each with an ever-escalating price tag. Bank Bumiputra, born at that first Kongress, collapsed two decades later, but not before consuming mega billion ringgit of pre-devalued value. That should have awakened us to the massive corruption and unbelievable incompetence of our leaders and pseudo entrepreneurs. Worse, it cost the life of an honest, brilliant young banker, Jalil Ibrahim, a loss even more precious.

 

            Then came One Malaysia Berhad (1MDB), the same beast only bigger, more voracious, and of a different stripe. Malaysia is still paying for that debacle, and many more in between as well as before and after.

 

            The Malay acronym MARA means bravely marching forward, as to victory. In Buddhist lore however, Mara was the malignant celestial king who with an army of beautiful women seduced a promising young prince from achieving Enlightenment. Mara thus personifies “forces antagonistic to enlightenment.”

 

            MARA does not have a harem of beautiful maidens but something much better:  endless public funds. MARA showed early promise when it transformed RIDA’s Vocational Training Center into MARA College, and kept it as an English-language institution offering courses in business. Two years later it morphed into the Institute Teknoloji MARA (ITM). It even had a short-lived MBA program in collaboration with the University of Kentucky.

 

            MARA also tried to increase the number of Malays in the Sixth Form science stream. However, instead of selecting those who had just missed the highly competitive entrance examination, MARA picked from the bottom of the pile as if to prove its supreme ability to transform any Malay however unpromising.

 

            The results were, as expected, disastrous. None of its first few cohorts secured the full Higher School Certificate. Undeterred and refusing to learn from its failure, MARA later simply bypassed Sixth Form and sent thousands abroad to third-rate universities, again at humongous costs.

 

            The sad part is that ITM showed early streaks of success and innovation. Its farsighted first head, Arshad Ayub, kept English as the medium of instruction. He went beyond and unabashedly ‘anglicized’ the institution. There he was, cane in hand like an old strict headmaster looking for students speaking in other than English. He also had the cafeteria serve sandwiches instead of nasik lemak. He had good nutritional sense there. Nasi lemak is notorious for making you feel drowsy afterwards, not good if you were a student. Thankfully, no mid-afternoon tea and crumpets!

 

            The results showed. With the first few cohorts of ITM’s culinary school, most did not complete their studies as they were quickly grabbed up by industry. Then there was the late filmmaker Mansor Puteh who was accepted into Columbia’s prestigious MFA program even before he had completed his final undergraduate examination!

 

            Later in life, despite being conferred the nation’s highest honor and with that, a ready-made high-profile public pulpit, Tun Arshad refrained from criticizing the chauvinism of language nationalists and religious extremists. As for MARA today, visit its Shopping Arcade and Digital Mall–empty. 

 

            Malay leaders’ solution to every problem, apart from soaring rhetoric and pouring money, is to recite moldy Arabic texts. That reveals a more insidious problem:  willful and adamant refusal to learn. Willful because even the brainless flatworm is capable of learning. Adamant because it is still unchanged, decades later.

 

            Government should invest in people, not companies. Sell the Bernases and Pernases; those government-linked companies are but massive conduits for political patronages, and thus corruption. Make Universiti Teknoloji MARA (successor to ITM) all-English again, and have Malays be fluent in both Malay as well as English, and competent in STEM.

 

            Deng Xiaoping’s very first initiative as leader was to beg America to accept a few hundred Chinese students to her top universities. He also invited thousands of foreign teachers and professors to China, as well as enticed foreign schools and colleges to set up campuses locally. That was consequential. That is the Chinese miracle we see today, not its massive state corporations which, like the Malaysian variety, are riddled with corruption and inefficiencies.

 

            People are the true and priceless resource of a nation. Invest in them by providing quality education. Only thus would “Melayu takkan hilang di dunia!” (Malays will not vanish in this world!) A necessary first start would be to pick your smartest minister to lead the education ministry. That requires no additional expenditure except for the effort to find that individual.