Perkasa made this call today at a roundtable meeting on the impact of China’s investments on Malaysia’s geo-political scene.
Its national agenda and economics bureau chairman Ruhanie Ahmad said the updates were needed so the people would be well-informed about the investments and the benefits it was generating, if any.
“We’re not prejudiced against investments from China, but the government must introduce policies that will enable the people to know the KPI (Key Performance Index) of foreign direct investments,” he said at a press conference after the meeting.
Meanwhile, the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS) chief Wan Saiful Wan Jan said he was in favour of open markets and foreign investments, but had some reservations over the investments from China.
“From the start, questions were raised about the transparency in the contracts for the projects and that was more apparent when the contracts were awarded without any open tender,” he said.
He was referring in particular to the contract for the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) which was directly awarded to China Communication Construction Company Ltd (CCCC).
“With that kind of a start and weak governance, it causes some concern as to how we are going to proceed in the future,” he said.
Prime Minister Najib Razak’s visit to China last year saw the signing of 14 contracts worth around RM144 billion.
Meanwhile, Ruhanie also proposed the same six-monthly KPI update report be enforced for the newly-launched Bumiputera Economic Transformation Roadmap (BETR) 2.0 as well.
BETR 2.0 will take over from the roadmap that was first implemented on a five-year plan starting from 2012.
Ruhanie said it was crucial to ensure that the failures of the New Economic Policy, which according to him had benefited only a small segment of the Bumiputera population, was not repeated.
Wan Saiful supported the call, saying a clear end-date for BETR 2.0 was needed, while repeating a statement made by IDEAS earlier this week.
“Without an end date, the government will keep on saying it is ‘making progress’, but we will never know how far the Bumiputera community has progressed and how much more needs to be done,” he said.
He added that having an “end-date” would ensure more urgency in the implementation of the programme, that is intended to create Bumiputera entrepreneurs who are progressive and able to compete on a bigger, maybe even global, scale.
“That is why the government must disclose the details of achievements and KPI for BETR 2.0 every six months, so that we can assess the true level of achievement by the Bumiputera community,” Wan Saiful said.