10-02-2021, 10:18 AM
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ALIRAN calls on the government to drop – instead of merely defer – its requirement for local logistics and freight forwarding firms to have 51% Bumiputera equity interest.
If the government enforces this requirement from 2023, it would be a gross injustice to the owners of these companies. They would have toiled over the years to build their firms, only to have their controlling interest in their firms snatched away from them and handed over to others on a silver platter.
Federation of Malaysian Freight Forwarders president Alvin Chua was reported to have said that 80% of the freight forwarding companies with Customs Department brokerage licences are already Bumiputera companies. If that is so, why the need to impose the 51% Bumiputera equity requirement on the remaining 20% of firms?
Such a forced transfer of ownership would send the wrong signal to Bumiputeras that they have an alternative to hard work, i.e. take a shortcut and piggyback on already successful companies.
Of course, it would be ideal if everyone could share in the nation’s prosperity. But compelling business owners from minority ethnic groups to cede their controlling interests to the majority ethnic community is not the way to go about it. Affirmative action should not regress into reverse discrimination: that would be an unjust and misguided strategy, which would fuel resentment and perhaps ethnic tension.
Who stands to gain from such blatant equity grabs? It is highly unlikely that the vast majority of cash-strapped or indebted lower-income Malays would benefit. Instead, it would be mainly the already wealthy, well-connected Bumiputera elite who have the financial resources to take up a 51% stake in these firms.
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