LETTER: Malaysia’s affirmative action failures should be a cautionary tale
IT’S NO secret that the African National Congress (ANC) took on the Malaysian state-sponsored ethnic affirmative action policy, and amazing how the outcomes are almost identical.In 1970 the Chinese Malaysians held 27.2% of the economy and, in spite of the billions spent on boosting the native Malaysians, now control 40% (mainly at the expense of foreign plantation and mine owners) while the bulk of the native Malaysians have hardly benefited at all.This has been explained by the policy, which began benignly but became a crony system that benefited a few well-connected individuals, who in turn "looked after" the political class.For example, a Mr Tajudin, a son of a farmer who has no expertise in airlines but is the "protégé" of the finance minister, has run Malaysian Airlines into the ground in spite of numerous bail outs. In the field of education, a former education minister explained that although 60% of the places at universities were reserved for native Malaysians only 5% would ...
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