In the next three or four columns, I am going to discuss whether there is anything ‘new’ in the NEM or whether the NEM is merely a change of one letter in the NEP brand, as some have suggested. But, before I can do that I have to give some context to the word ‘development’ or ‘progress’ which underlies the whole discussion.
After all, when we are talking about something new, it means reviewing the older and then defining the really new value proposition of the newer. Nothing in life is absolutely that new; except for the miracle of life and even death. Therefore please bear with my rambles as I give a context to what I write. I will then get to the text towards the end.
I started my public service career in the Prime Minister’s Department after Abdul Razak had become the prime minister. The unit I was placed in was a specially improved and crafted outfit in the Prime Minister’s Department to reflect the paradigm shift that was going to be ushered in by the end of World War II. The specific recommendations were made by American professors John Montgomery and Milton Esman who came as consultants to Razak under an Asia Foundation programme.
To the Americans, this was a purposive extension of the American post-war Marshall Programme for ‘rehabilitation of the East after the bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki’ and to rebuild goodwill under the post-war Eisenhower government of America.
Their short three-month consultancy stint in Malaya resulted in a report called ‘Development in West Malaysia’. This same unit later spawned into what is today called Mampu in the Prime Minister’s Department; the agency responsible for systems development and improvements in the delivery of the Malaysian public goods and services.
Her counterpart, Intan, is also under the PM’s Department also re-crafted to be focused on ‘Training for Development’. The Esman and Montgomery Report, as it was subsequently called, became the foundation for the concept of ‘development’ as expounded and exported by these American professors to Malaysia. Before that the Malayan public service was only focused on administration and management; based on the British experience and experiments with a unitary form of governance primary empowering local governments at the third tier of our system of governance.
The newly-idealised system for the federation for both Malaya and then Malaysia were new ideas which needed newer parameters for development and growth. Unlike Malaya which had very developed modern towns and cities, Sabah and Sarawak had large hinterlands that needed development too.
Kelantan sojourn
My immediate boss in my first public service was an excellent and capable public servant who finally retired as the secretary-general of the ministry of finance. His boss was nicknamed ‘bull dog.’ That big boss was a handpicked by the then prime minister from among those serving in the state of Pahang. The then prime minister had also the experience of having served that state as a state public services officer both at the district and state level of public service. Our big boss was a person who tolerated no nonsense in his work and thus his nickname.
Razak, too, was focused especially on ‘brining development to the rural parts of Malaysia’. On one of the first days when I walked in for work with the Big Boss, his first question shocked me: ‘Are you from the Military College?’ he barked at me. I said, ‘Yes sir’. He continued, ‘Because you marched into the office’. His plaque on the table read, ‘Do not give me problems, only solutions.’ I got his message loud and clear!
Therefore, his first assignment to me was to review and report on the ‘delivery of rural postal services in the states of Kelantan and Terengganu’. My boss warned me, ‘Do not report anything you do not see as ‘evidence’ is the most important principle in our line of work’. I flew into Kelantan and literally had to go to every district in Kelantan to meet district officers to enquire about their rural postal services.
I finished my study tour in about a week and subsequently reported my findings. I am proud to say that today, even as Pos Malaysia shares owned by EPF and Khazanah are being disposed, we may have one of the most well-distributed postal systems in the world. The real question and concern to the every ordinary citizen in the long houses and Orang Asli villages is: how are they being served by the same rural postal services? For example, can they send and receive snail mail if not e-mail?
Therefore, my rhetorical question about what is new in the NEM. The New Economic Policy or NEP commissioned and delivered by the then public services and a team of ministers who acted and behaved as part and parcel of one single team led by the then PM was premised on a model that the EPU had always called the ‘growth with equity model’ or GEM. That was truly the ‘Malaysian gem’.
Rural villagers left out
Within the context of growth (both social and economic development and improvement of the quality of life of citizens), there was to ‘theoretically be’ an equitable distribution of that ‘expanded component of the economy and the social goods and services delivered’. Now, the more pertinent question is who, then, distributes this growth? Or, who benefits from this growth phenomena?
There were historically two types of agencies to distribute and disperse such a social-economic growth. The first type were the rural development -type agencies, including the so-called Felda, Mara and Felcra or Risda-type agencies.
These were uniquely developed as ‘new statutory agencies’ and as ‘state development enterprises’ but focused on the delivery of social goods and services especially to the poor and marginalized regardless of whether they are Malays, Chinese, Indians, Ibans, Kadazans or Orang Asli.
The second type of agencies was those originally created under the ICDAU of the Prime Minister’s Department to have an economic agenda of ‘the so-called 30% bumiputra ownership target’. The major masterplans for this thinking was called the BCIC Report or the Bumiputera Commercial and Industrial Community. These included agencies of the government whether state or federal such as State Economic Development Corporations or SEDCs, like the PKNS or PDC or even the Sarawak SEDC. The PNB was a national trust agency explicitly created for the above agenda.
In reflecting on my study of rural postal services in Kelantan and Terengganu today, I realise that my study and problem definition did not somehow concern itself with the question why the rural villagers in the Orang Asli kampung in Kelantan or Trengganu were never included in my definitions of ‘rural postal services development.’
The same may hold true for Sarawak and Sabah. I did not have the privilege of such a study. But I must be honest and say today that most Peninsular Malayans of my vintage or those more senior were not serious or sensitive about the needs and demands of the Orang Asli, or the Iban, or the Kadazan in the early years of Government administration and development. Therefore, it is worth reviewing and considering what is really ‘new’ about the NEM.
