This issue has riled me and therefore this personal open letter to Dr Hassan Ali, from whom I may have expected more. The premise of the detractors\’ argument is that non-Malays cannot or will not implement government policies related to bumiputera ownership. Is this a true statement or belief system? Can we accept this as the truth? Is not all truth god\’s truth, regardless of whether we call him God or Allah?
Therefore, I support Khalid Ibrahim\’s position about the Chinese acting CEO and reject the counter argument by all detractors that only Malays can implement government policy. In fact, the honest truth is that I was the only non-Malay registrar that the government agency called Intan ever had. And to get me appointed, the then director of Intan, had to write a special case letter for my appointment to JPA. Obviously JPA then too believed that only Malays can implement government policy and therefore the post of administrative manager of Intan was considered ‘a sensitive appointment.’ My then boss, a very secure and self-assured Malay with a well earned and deserved PhD from the University of Hawaii and from a noted and well known musical family from Teluk Intan wrote the requisite letter and got me the appointment.
My argument and request to be the registrar was my simple logic that how could I hold a MBA in management but not have had the experience of management? I was duly appointed as the administrative manager of Intan and secretary to the then curriculum development committee of Intan, or the registrar.
Over time I found out and learned many things about administration and management in Malaysia. First was that there were three sets of organisation charts at Intan. One was a very elaborate and on the wall of the registrar’s office, which was for show and for briefings to new staff. The second was the one in the budget submission meant mainly for the JPA and Treasury. The third was the one we used daily for “real-politic” of daily life in Intan. This experience actually perked my interest for a PhD in organization and management theory.
\’Close one eye\’ culture
The next thing I found out was that nobody at Intan per se, at that time, actually cared for the 30% target of the NEP, which was enunciated a few years earlier. I had come from the then ICDAU (Implementation, Coordination and Development Administration Unit) in the PM’s department wherein was born the NEP policy and the MCIC (the creation of a Malay Industrial and Commercial Community) document. I was therefore privileged to \”understand and appreciate the real needs and intentions of the NEP, and believed in them too.\”
Therefore, when the time came to renew \”the contract for the stitching of uniforms for the staff,\” I was honestly shocked to find out that the main contractor was a Chinese businessman from KL. Having reviewed the 30% target with my then executive officer, we went on the \”break up the contract for supply of services into bite-size portions\” for small Malay tailors in Taman Ghazali Shafie (facing Bangsar Road then) to handle the stitching jobs. We bought central contract cloth of the colour we wanted and gave each staff that needed uniforms the measure of cloth needed and asked them to go and stitch with any tailor they chose to, but based on a standard design of stitching. That was our initial programme to promote the NEP.
Now, the fact was that I was the first and only non-Malay registrar which Intan has ever had. But did that stop me from implementing the government policy then? I believe, good managers learn to implement clearly generated government policies, and it is not dependent on their private opinions about the matter. Conversely therefore, my question to Dr Hassan Ali and the Selangor exco member, who was also my former colleague at Intan, what is it that the non-Malay CEO cannot do which requires the person to under perform as CEO? Can we not also be \’caliphs\’ of the responsibility and authority for good and excellent management? Or, what is it that the non-Malay CEO will not or cannot do? Surely, leading the Friday prayer is not his or her responsibility.
Allow me instead to inform you, Dr Hassan Ali about many good non-Malay and other managers I have known. Many non-Malay CEOs will not simply say yes to corruption. I know many non-Malay CEOs who will not close one eye to wrong-doing. I further know many non-Malay DGs and deputies or directors who do not tolerate blind adherence to “the Umno-type wrong doing.” But the honest truth is that there are equally as many good and upright Malays and other bumiputeras from Sabah and Sarawak who are the same too. They too are unfortunate victims like the acting CEO of PKNS. What then?
My advice to Dr Hassan Ali is that we must deal with truth. All truth belongs to god. We cannot and should not anthropomorphise truth with “the close one eye culture.” For that matter, if you remember, I was in your Islamic values committee at Intan. I was appointed by the then director of Intan to “uphold both Christian and good universal values,” much like the only other non-Malay or Chinese Buddhist lady. Surely you and I know that “true excellence involves doing our utmost for His highest.” But, you do not seem to be doing that right now. You appear to be more Malay and NEP-driven than the truth that Khalid and the Pakatan government seeks and stands for. At least that is my perception. If PKNS has done so many things wrong to date, was this not because of the history of weak CEOs? Or, do we simply say, it was because of the blind and close one eye culture propagated by the former administration? Poor and weak managers are always simply that; weak leaders! They do not have the moral courage to stand up for truth! They often compromise truth for the sake of their own careers and upward mobility. They are not good managers but rather merely political managers or negotiators of boundaries within an equally lame climate of “political correctness.”
The public services are full of \”blind or close one eye managers\” who have \”willingly colluded with their political masters (for that is how they refer to them) for the interests of UMNO version of the NEP,\” but they seldom stop to consider that the same may not be in the public interest of nation or the true NEP. How else can we, a rich country wherein the Koreans came to study development from us in the 1960s, be so far behind today that we do honestly have to worry that Vietnam may overtake us in terms of competitiveness. Come Dr Hassan Ali, I thought we all stand for truth; and further I always assumed that PAS too always stood for truth? Are the true colours really showing now? Am I wrong? Please clarify! May God continue to Bless Malaysia with the pursuit of truth.
