“It doesn’t make good economic sense to address economic problems piecemeal,” said Mohamed Ghouse Nasuruddin, an emeritus professor at Universiti Sains Malaysia.
“What is needed is an overall national economic blueprint that addresses the needs of all communities with a special emphasis on the plight of communities which have been neglected.”
The blueprint for Indians will be launched next month. This was announced recently by Prime Minister Najib Razak during his visit to India.
Najib said the blueprint would cover various areas, including education, housing and entrepreneurial development.
Ghouse also criticised the government for tending to highlight only rosy pictures of economic fundamentals, which he said were painted by “selected” rating agencies.
The situation on the ground, he said, did not reflect the confidence of the agencies.
“For example, the peoples’ purchasing power, irrespective of whether we’re taking about Indians, Malays or Chinese, has been drastically reduced by our weak currency, the inexorably spiralling prices of necessities and the haemorrhage of national assets.
“One wonders what the relevant government agencies have been doing all this while.”
Ghouse said the authorities needed to correct their “myopic economic vision” so that they could “visualize, devise and implement” strategies that would transcend racial and political constrictions.
He said this would ultimately “uplift the economic woes of the masses”.
Soon after Najib made his announcement on the blueprint, Indian rights group Hindraf dismissed it as an “April Fool’s trick”. Its chairman, P Waythamoorthy, said Najib had failed to fulfil a memorandum of understanding for the betterment of the community that Barisan Nasional had forged with Hindraf. The document was signed in April 2013 at a ceremony that received a lot of media coverage.
Waythamoorthy said Najib did not make good the agreement to implement RM4.2 billion worth of development programmes for marginalised Indians, especially the 800,000-odd individuals displaced from plantations.
Hindraf: Najib’s blueprint for Indians an ‘April fool’s trick’