Najib’s NEM has not been able to come out of the long shadow cast by the Perkasa inaugural congress

by Lim Kit Siang

The general consensus is that the New Economic Model announced by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak pledging long-promised economic reforms is singularly short of details as to convince Malaysians that there is the political will to match words with deeds.

Even more serious, Najib’s unveiling of the New Economic Model has not been able to come out of the long shadow cast by the Perkasa inaugural congress spouting neo-NEP Malay communalism as it was attended by several Umno Deputy Ministers.

DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng asked yesterday why RM52 billion worth of shares of public-listed companies allocated for bumiputeras under the New Economic Policy were no longer in their hands.

Raja Petra Kamaruddin has estimated in his portal Malaysia-Today that the real cost of the New Economic Policy may be the colossal figure of RM500 billion, saying that this could be a low estimate.

Unless there is a political will to admit that the chief cause why Malaysia has become internationally uncompetitive, plagued by multiple problems such as brain drain, galloping corruption, falling FDIs and crisis of confidence in key national institutions as compared to neighbouring countries is the NEP – its abuses and in particular its perpetuation after 1990 – nobody believes that the Najib administration has the political will to craft and implement a New Economic Model fundamentally different from the NEP.

For instance, “Zero tolerance for corruption” is among the highlights of the measures in the New Economic Model announced by Najib to propel Malaysia to developed nation status by 2020.

There would be greater credibility in such a measure and in the New Economic Model if Malaysians can see greater seriousness in the fight against corruption in the first year of the Najib premiership but this is not the case.

In fact, Malaysia had never fallen as low as the present in the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index annual ranking, where Malaysia is placed in the 56th placing last November – lowest ever in 15 years since 1995 when Malaysia was ranked No. 23.

In this context of worsening corruption, any talk of “zero tolerance for corruption” only highlights the utter lack of reality or seriousness of the New Economic Model.

For this reason, the biggest problem faced by Najib’s New Economic Model is the same faced by his 1Malaysia concept – whether he is prepared to walk the talk.

For a start, is Najib prepared to demonstrate seriousness in far-reaching reforms of national institutions starting with appointing new heads for the three key institutions in the country most in need of restoring national and international confidence – Inspector-General of Police, the Attorney-General and the Chief Justice?