Two more reasons why the NEP revival as New National Agenda must not be allowed to become national policy before fullest national consultation and debate

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Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang  
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(Parliament, Saturday): At the DAP forum in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday night, I had cited five reasons why the UMNO Youth General Assembly proposal last month for the revival of the New Economic Policy  (NEP)  as the New National Agenda (NNA)  must be taken seriously and not treated dismissively as mere rhetorics  by two UMNO Youth leaders to garner  transient political mileage, viz: the adoption  of the UMNO Youth proposal by the UMNO General Assembly; the rubber-stamping of the UMNO Youth proposal by  all the 14 Barisan Nasional Youth wings; the endorsement by the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council; the acceptance of the UMNO Youth proposal as a “fait accompli” by top MCA and Gerakan leaders as representing Barisan Nasional policy and the role and involvement in the past few years in the  strategizing and formulation of the revival of the NEP as the  “New National  Agenda” by one of the original formulators of the New Economic Policy 35 years ago – Tan Sri Dr. Just Faaland.

There are two more reasons  to the five why the NEP revival as the NNA must not be allowed to become national policy before the fullest national consultation and debate, viz:

• The UMNO Supreme Council decision on Thursday to implement the UMNO General Assembly resolutions, including the UMNO Youth resolution on the NEP revival as the NNA.
   

• The public undertaking by the new MCA Youth Chief Datuk Liow Tiong Lai that MCA Youth leaders will “go to the ground and explain to the grassroots” on the explanation by the UMNO Youth leader, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein on his brandishing of the Malay keris at the UMNO Youth Assembly last month. Hishammuddin said if the Chinese community is still afraid of the keris, “then they are not able to compete in today's globalised world, which is talking about atomic bomb, nuclear and scud missile".

Hishammuddin’s explanation of the brandishing of the Malay keris at the UMNO Youth  Assembly which called for the NEP revival as the New National Agenda is unsatisfactory and unacceptable – but even more unsatisfactory and unacceptable is the new MCA Youth leader’s response, highlighting the increasingly inequitable roles of the UMNO Youth and MCA Youth in the Barisan Nasional power equation.

Malaysians must insist that before any policy decision is taken on the NEP revival as the New National Agenda, there must be a full, rational and comprehensive discussion and examination of the successes and failures of NEP, in particular its impact on its overriding objective of achieving national unity, the two prongs of poverty eradication and restructuring of society, as well as its effects on government accountability, transparency, integrity and good governance and preparing Malaysia to become a First-World developed nation  to face the challenges of globalization.

(26/08/2005)