PUTRAJAYA: Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) will champion a new policy on Bumiputera Agenda to be implemented as a national agenda, and can truly develop the Malays and Bumiputeras as a whole.
This stern determination was propagated by party president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin who pledged to bring it up to the Pakatan Harapan (PH) Presidential Council so that it could be made as the thrust policy for PH and accepted by the cabinet before its implementation.
“ As a party for the ‘pribumi’ or indigenous group, Bersatu should not be apologetic to champion the Bumiputera Agenda,” he said when opening the Annual Meetings of the Women’s Wing and the Youth Wing (Armada) at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre (PICC), here yesterday.
Also present at the official opening ceremony were Armada Head who is also Youth and Sports Minister, Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman, Bersatu Srikandi head who is also Rural Development Minister, Datuk Seri Rina Harun and about 1,600 delegates from both wings.
The Bersatu Annual General Assembly which began today until Sunday, is the first to be held after the Pakatan Harapan helmed the national leadership following its victory in the 14th General Election (GE14) in May.
Muhyiddin, who is also the Minister of Home Affairs, said among the major challenges for Bersatu as a party for the indigenous people was to prove to the Malays that their position would be more assured under the administration of the PH government, especially when the achievement of the Malays was still low in various fields.
“For example, 74 per cent of the B40 group whose household income is below RM4,360 per month comprise the Malays and Bumiputeras. Bersatu is the only party in the PH that champions the welfare of the Malays and Bumiputeras without neglecting the rights of the other races.
“The new Bumiputera Agenda will be based on the concept of sharing the equitable shared prosperity. Through this new framework, all Malaysians will enjoy the shared national prosperity where no particular group will be left behind,”he said.
He said economic success would no longer be measured based merely on the economic growth, but what was even more important was the increase in the people’s purchasing power as a whole and the elimination of the income gap between the races, classes and regions.
He added that the focus of the new policy was to create an equal outcome and not merely providing equal opportunities.
“Equal opportunities that do not lead to equal outcome is not a policy that is fair. If the focus is only given to providing equal opportunities and not equal outcome, eventually the gap between the wealth of one another will continue to widen,”he said.
Thus, he said, the Bumuputera agenda should not focus only on efforts to tackle the poverty of the relative group alone, but more than that, to develop the professional and the middle-class groups and to create a pure corporate and entrepreneurial group that is competitive and capable of competing at the international level.
“This will create a generation of Bumiputera business and industrial class capable of generating new wealth, creating added value and creating many high income job opportunities in the country,”he said.
In order to achieve this aspiration, Muhyiddin said reforms and strengthening institutions such as the Agenda Bumiputera Steering Unit (Teraju) and the Bumiputera Economic Council (MEB) should be implemented besides implementing good governance and eliminating corrupt practices and leakage among implementing agencies of Agenda Bumiputera.
“The government must identify the genuine Bumiputera group of entrepreneurs and businessmen to be aided. For this purpose a big data of Bumiputera business can be developed to identify, facilitate and support Bumiputera businessmen who are truly qualified,”he said.
In order to drive the economy, Muhyiddin said various supporting initiatives should be implemented including giving priority to Bumiputera companies in government acquisitions and to identify drivers of the economy among the Bumiputera corporate players with large scale economic projects to be facilitated by the government.
He also advised the Malays to change their attitudes in order to succeed and should realise that government assistance alone was not sufficient to ensure their success.
About 3,000 delegates are expected to attend the three-day general assembly involving 135 divisions nationwide, including 98 divisions of the Srikandi wing and 115 Armada wings. — Bernama
