Wednesday, March 31

Will Dayaks benefit from NEM?

Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak on Tuesday (30 March 2010) announced the government’s new economic plan, the New Economic Model (NEM), to ensure fairer and more equitable distribution of wealth based on needs and merits.

“Our priority must be to eradicate poverty irrespective of race. We cannot have the high-income, sustainable and inclusive economy we seek when disparities in income and not addressed.

“So there will be renewed affirmative action policy in NEM with focus on raising income levels of all disadvantage groups,”
he said.

NEM’s three principles are:
# high income – making a quantum leap from a current US$7,000 per capital annual
income to US$15,000 in ten years;
# sustainability – a commitment to sustainability in economic activities with its impact on environment and precious natural resources in consideration; and
# inclusiveness – harness the potential of all Malaysians that all share in the proceeds of increased national prosperity.

NEM’s 8 strategies reform initiatives:
# Re-energising the private sector to lead growth,
# Developing a quality workforce and reducing dependency on foreign labour
# Creating a competitive domestic economy
# Strengthening the public sector
# Putting in place transparent and market friendly affirmative action
# Building knowledge base infrastructure
# Enhancing the sources of growth
# Ensuring sustainability

NEM’s 4 principles in eradication of poor:
# market friendly
# merit based
# transparent
# needs based

New economic growth areas:
# electrical and electronic sector
# resource based industries in the palm oil
# oil and gas
# agriculture, biotechnology and life sciences
# tourism, medical tourism, eco-tourism, luxury market tourism
# high value agriculture sector
# green industries and technology
# financial services industry, Islamic financial services, capital market
# information technology industry.

NEM policies are similar to policies espoused by previous economic policies such as New Economic Policy 1970-1990, National Development Policy 1990-2000, National Vision Policy and VISION 2020.

Although the past policies have achieved certain degree of successes like creating several millionaires among the Malays, they have, however, failed to eradicate poverty among the rural people especially the Dayaks.

Today, between 80 percent and 90 percent of longhouses do not have 24-hour supply of electricity and clean water. Not to mention tar-sealed roads, even rough roads have not been built to connect longhouses with bazaars and towns.

Even the “nine buses” (nine Malaysia plans) have missed the Dayaks. So today Sarawak is still the third poorest state in Malaysia despite the fact that it has oil and gas, timber resources and coal. More than half of one million Dayaks may be categorized as hard poor if the RM720 poverty line is taken as a barometer.

NEM may have high sounding policies, but such policies will not be able to help the Dayaks. In fact NEM policies will further complement “Politics of Development” espoused by Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud, that is, taking away native customary rights land of the people and leasing them to rich and powerful cronies for the planting of oil palm and trees.

In Balai Ringin alone, some 741,000 acres of land, the bulk of which are NCR lands, are to be leased to companies linked to Taib.

In other parts of Sarawak, scores of natives have been jailed for defending their rights over land and many have sued the government for taking away their lands without their consent.

Being chased away from their land, the Dayaks will surely become poorer and poorer as they have no more land on which they can plant padi, cash crops and fruit trees through which they earn a living. Perhaps they (authorities) like the Dayaks to continue selling paku, miding (ferns), bamboo shoots, tapioca leaves and other “daun babas” (wild vegetables).

Whose fault is this that we Dayaks continue to be poor? And who should be blamed for all the miseries the Dayaks are facing now? Are Dayaks themselves and Dayak leaders to be blamed? – The Broken Shield

Source: www.thebrokenshield.blogspot.com

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Blame the Dayaks themselves.

High time they wake up and kick the incumbants out, especially the frogs.

But than people like S Entrie may join PKR!

Anonymous said...

Wow!Such nicely coined goals and aspirations for this so called NEM.How do we attain these lofty ideals from our present economic morass.Or are the figures just plucked from the air brandished around to impress the naive, submissive apathetic souls we are.
Look around us, our poor underdeveloped biggest and resource rich state and compare ourselves to the other side and do you still believe the last 50 years benefited us?Poor fools.

wander up down

Apai Semalau said...

The NEM is just racist hog wash! Not worth the papers written on. The NEM only provides affirmative action for Malayan UMNO malays AND NOT for natives of Sarawak or Sabah. Looking back, the NEPs before this had made these malays super rich at the expense of taxpayers and NCR landowners which includes the orang asli, original malayan! The NEM and 1Malaysia are on opposite ends. Proponents of this NEM are but hypocrites!

On judgement day, these corrupted will be in the wok with oil over the fire. said...

Sure, the dayaks are to be blame becos...
1, they blindly voted for those corrupted and with this they have been left to rot.
2,disunity is also the cause which resulted in them been marginalized.
3,their YBs and MPs are all dreamers who only look after their own bank account.
4,less educated so these dayak are been led around with leash.

Anonymous said...

It's only natural that when you are not happy, you protest and this comes in many forms. Dayaks and Ibans are no diffrent, when they are not happy e.g. with NCR land issues, they protest. Today we have the internet and we protest via this channel, I see it as "fair-game", nothing to be angry about.
BN has bee harping on development for donkey years and yet many Longhouses in Sarawak today are without the amenities like basic clean water supply. Projects in Bario costing millions are left unattended and rural schools poorly managed. These are only some of the unhappiness so to speak that drive people to be "Hantu-net", a term cocked up by DCM Jabu. They are merely protesting, no big deal.
This NEM is just a tactic to win hearts and minds, Dayaks today are smarter than many people think. Gone are the days when they will just nod their heads in agreement. DCM Jabu must realize this fact.

Mata Kuching said...

Our nation has been been mismanaged by six prime ministers from UMNO since the British entrusted self governance to Malaysians. For over five decades the BN government only managed to uplift our per capita income to a meagre USD7,000. Can Najib seriously think he can increse it to USD15,000 within 10 years?

For as long as Najib has no political will to dismantle the racial and racist policies espoused by UMNO and initiate real and broad-based reforms, the NEM will be just another window dressing and public relation exercise with Perkasa and Ibrahim Ali doing more damage more than ever before.

All Pekatan states should just ignore the NEM and initiate their own MEM (Malaysian Economic Model)for all hard working Malaysians to strive for excellence in all fields.The NEM which ban Christians from using the word Allah and which still weighs heavily on Malay will never see any success and progress let alone 1malaysia.

Anonymous said...

Confusing like it had always been anything coming from the BN leadership. The BN concept is well liked, its leaders are the "hijackers". After the NEM, CM is now saying SCORE will is already in place to cater for the economic needs of Sarawak. Which means what?.....that we sidelined the NEM here. Confused! Well I am not, this is expected from Self-Serving leaders we get plenty of in the State's BN.

Anonymous said...

Do you guys check your children school report card and public examination results under ministry of education? Bumiputras in Sarawak are classified as Bumiputra-Melayu. Natives in Sarawak are all classified as MELAYU. Dont belive me check your kids SPM result and look at the race classification. Some school choose to omit the race. So guys dont ask what benefit! even as a race Dayaks is not recognized.

Banting said...

Previously it was New Economic Policy (NEP). Now it is NEM. What`s next?

For five decades, NEP failed to eradicate rural poverty and the number of hardcore poor amongst Dayaks community is till very high.

Hundreds of Ibans longhouses and even many rural schools are still without facilities such as roads, power and water supply. Teachers and pupils bath with salty water and full of leeches. Teachers` quarters are on the verge of collapse.

Access of these infrastructure is the right of all Malaysians regardless where they are located, but Sarawak is still lagging in terms of development in the nation`s economic policy. In other words, NEP had failed to assist the rural folks in various aspects.

What the rural Dayaks expect to get from NEM is no less or more what they have shared in NEP.

Anonymous said...

I'm agree with most of you. NEM is Najib last resolve to gain the trust from Malay voters with at the same time try to maintain the balance between non-malay voters. Will NEM cause the MAY 13 tragedy to happen again?or will NEM to cause another one OPERASI LALANG OCT 1987?

Everyday the poverty gap between Urban and rural areas become huge. Discrimination in employment, business opportunities, education and religion getting worse. According to Chinese Archive, there is around 630 Malaysians migrated to other countries because they want to get jobs,education,business opportunities and even the religious freedom. 80 % of the migrated Malaysians is professionals which clearly disadvantages for our country.

Such a big loss in professional team force indeed slow the Malaysian growth. Those professional have the finance and education. But how about us who from the rural areas? How can we fight discrimination? We can't migrate. But we still act such a LOSER to vote for BN. We have to change! Vote for our right and shout for your right!