This list really rankles

EVERY time the list comes out, I cringe. Not in embarrassment but in extreme frustration and annoyance.

Why? Because it does nothing for the nation’s race relations. Instead, it continues to perpetuate the myth that the country’s economy is controlled by the Chinese and the community prospers at the expense of the majority race.

The damn list is Forbes ranking of Malaysia’s Richest 50. The latest came out on June 8 and the top 10 are all Chinese tycoons with one Indian.

Several people on the list have been on it for at least 15 years.

The unbeaten numero uno is the legendary Robert Kuok and among the top 10 “perennials” are Hong Leong Group’s Tan Sri Quek Leng Chan, Public Bank’s Tan Sri Teh Hong Piow and Usaha Tegas’ Ananda Krishnan.

The Malay tycoons on the list are Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary who was number seven in 2002, number eight in 2010 and number nine in 2016. This year, he is number 15.

Another is Ambank’s Tan Sri Azman Hashim, who was number 12 in 2012, and number 31 in 2016, as well as in 2022.

There is also Weststar Aviation’s Tan Sri Syed Azman Syed Ibrahim, who was number 27 in 2016 and again in 2022.

Among the handful of notable Malays who used to be on the list are Westports Holdings co-founder Ahmayuddin Ahmad (number 33 in 2014 and number 27 in 2020), Sapura Group’s Tan Sri Shahril and Datuk Shahriman Shamsuddin, and Datuk Mokhzani Mahathir, who were number 13 and 14 respectively in 2012. All are no longer among 2022’s top 50 richest.

According to Forbes Asia, the list has both individual and family fortunes, and is based on, among other things, financial information obtained from stock exchanges, annual reports and analysts.

But just how accurate is this way of compiling the 2022 list where out of the 50, only eight are non- Chinese businessmen? How come the same old Chinese fellas have staying power, but not the Malays?

And there are newcomers to the rankings like Mr DIY Group’s Tan brothers, Yu Yeh and Yu Wei, at number eight and Farm Fresh co-founder Loi Tuan Ee at number 43. However, there are no new Malay entrepreneurs on the list.

This is especially puzzling when we consider our nation has gone through half a century of socio- economic engineering under the New Economic Policy (NEP) that was forged after the May 13, 1969, race riots.

Despite the government’s massive affirmative action and numerous policies favouring bumiputras, why haven’t Malay businessmen overtaken or dislodged the Chinese as the country’s richest?

Instead, the Malay community continues to be brainwashed by wily politicians and racist groups to think the Chinese are very well off and should be guarded against.

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is a prime culprit. In 2018, he told Channel News Asia that Chinese Malaysian students overseas were more well off than Malay students.

Then in 2020, he told Asia Times that the Chinese had become extremely rich and “practically own all the towns in Malaysia”.

So in the minds of many ordinary Malays, the Forbes list merely reinforces their belief that their fellow citizens of Chinese descent are in no way second class or disadvantaged whatsoever.

On the surface, it would seem the reality because in towns and cities, most shops and malls have Chinese names or are run by the Chinese.

What is not immediately visible to them, as noted by a Nov 10, 2015, article in thediplomat.com, is how the “Malays have monumentally improved their situation. They control most of the major banks, including the central bank, the government-linked companies (GLCs), as well as constitute the majority of the top professional and highest-paying occupations in the private sector.”

It is also a well-known fact they dominate the civil service and the armed forces.

Although the popular belief is that pro-bumiputra policies started with the NEP, according to Dr Lee Hwok Aun, senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, in his paper, “Fifty Years of Malaysia’s New Economic Policy: Three Chapters with No Conclusion”, “the demands for more proactive promotion of bumiputera industry and commerce (began) in the latter 1960s, notably with the First and Second Bumiputera Congress in 1965 and 1968.”

At Independence, there was acceptance that the Malays needed special privileges to safeguard their position against the highly motivated, more business-minded Chinese and Indian immigrants.

The NEP’s noble aim was to foster unity through two prongs: poverty eradication and social restructuring by eliminating identification of race by economic functions and locations.

Embedded in the NEP’s aims was the target of 30% equity for bumiputras, and for them to become “full partners in the economic life of the nation” within one generation.

The 30% was supposed to be achieved by growing the economic pie and not at the expense of other groups. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case.

Instead of focusing on quality, the government went for quantity; clear examples being the lowered standards for entry into tertiary education and racial quotas for places in universities, government jobs and contracts.

What’s more, according to Dr Lee, “that rent distribution and accelerated promotion of inexperienced Malays into corporate management, whether in the form of equity, contracts or licences, tended to breed patronage and rent-seeking, most starkly the Ali-Baba liaisons in which a politically-connected Malay secures a contract and outsources the work to a non-Malay, typically Chinese, partner.”

Instead of strengthening national unity, such policies fostered resentment among non-bumiputras and a sense of entitlement among bumiputras. Yet, any attempt to change it elicits a storm of protest and is seen as a threat to Malay privilege.

But if this way of improving the lot of a community is so effective, then we should see results.

As former de facto law minister Datuk Zaid Ibrahim pointed out in his Facebook post last year, many Malays are doing very well. He said this is evident in the many billboards on highways promoting products of Malay-owned businesses and direct-selling companies, by the large number of Malay golfers at country clubs, and by the many Malays who can afford to buy branded goods at premium outlets.

He rubbished those calling for new bumiputra affirmative action policies: “What sort of special upliftment do they expect the Malays to get year in year out? A race-based budget is just not done anywhere else in the world – and yet the Malays are still poor?”

Indeed, after 51 years of numerous pro-bumiputra measures and institutions including Mara, matriculation, Perbadanan Usahawan Nasional Bhd (PUNB), Tekun Financing Scheme, PNB, Ekuinas, procurement, GLCs and SME Corp loans, there must surely be many successful bumiputra entrepreneurs.

Surely the powers that be and supporters of such policies and actions must want to proudly showcase these success stories.

They may not have reached Forbes level of wealth, but the government or the Malay chamber of commerce should publish its own list of richest bumiputras.

They can serve as role models to spur on others and give a different perspective to ordinary Malays that they actually have a very decent slice of the economic pie too. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.