PM Najib: To Walk the Talk

The time for rhetoric and sloganeering are but over.

It's time to aggressively walk the talk. It is time to genuinely seek talent across the board to help develop the economy. The much annoying  and irritating rent-seeking mentality must go!

Let us read what PM has in store for the bumiputeras and other deserving non-Malay citizens who can contribte meaningfully to national growth.

The Najib administration has abandoned the policy of helping just one or two Bumiputera businessmen as it does not bring economic or political benefit to the grouping.

Instead, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said his government would focus on prospective entrepreneurs who genuinely qualify for assistance and have the potential to venture abroad.

“People come to see me, asking me to approve contracts. I can do so but this is not the way to help the Malays as we don’t want to help only one or two of them. We want to help them overall,” he told reporters after opening the Penang Malay Economic Convention here today.

Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s ambitious industrialisation policy in the 1980s saw a group of Bumiputera businessmen taking over privatised government projects and services in aviation, telecommunications, land and sea transport, and other services.

Some of them were linked to Umno and a few had to be bailed out by the government when the Asian financial crisis hit in 1997/1998. Most were linked to former finance minister Tun Daim Zainuddin and also sacked deputy prime minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Recently, a group of businessmen linked to the Malaysian Malay Chamber of Commerce had proposed a RM50 billion buyout of all tolled roads and highways in the country through a special purpose vehicle called Asas Serba.
They had promised to cut toll rates by 20 per cent and said they would finance the deal through bonds. Some analysts have called their plan unworkable while the Pakatan Rakyat insists the government nationalise the toll roads as most were controlled by government-linked company, UEM.

Najib stuck to his line of helping more people, saying there was no short cut to helping them but that the government also does not want to help undeserving Bumiputera entrepreneurs.

The government had previously assisted Bumiputera entrepreneurs via contracts and equity holdings, but this did not have the desired results, and instead, leakages occurred along the way.

“Today, we give shares to the Malays, tomorrow it will be owned by others and this is what we mean by leakages and we don’t want this to occur again.

“If we look at Bumiputera shareholdings, how much is still left in the hands of the Malays? The numbers will be shocking if we mention it,” he said.

The prime minister said if there were no leakages, the 30 per cent Bumiputera equity holding meant for the grouping would have already placed them on a stronger footing economically.

“Maybe something was not right then, that’s why we need the New Economic Model,” Najib said, adding that the government, in their pursuit to help Bumiputeras, would not neglect the other races who qualify for help.
He also called on Bumiputera entrepreneurs to establish business networks in order for them to progress.
Najib, who is also Finance Minister, said with networking, it would be easy for the government to extend assistance to help them prosper at the state, national, regional and international level.

“Business networking will help small-and-medium enterprises to secure business from big corporations and not solely depend on government contracts,” he added.

He said that via business networking, government assistance would be more business-friendly, transparent and sustainable.

Can we see action as the people wants performance now.........?.