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Media Statement 
by Tony Pua
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(Petaling Jaya, Tuesday) : As part of the Government's plans to inculcate “Corporate Social Responsibility” (CSR), Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has innocuously added the policy in the recently announced budget for the 2008 that all public listed companies (PLCs) “will be required to disclose their employment composition by race and gender, as well as programmes undertaken to develop domestic and Bumiputera vendors.”

When questioned with regards to the need of such a policy based on race, the Prime Minister has sought to comfort concerned businesses that the racial composition disclosure is purely for information purposes only, and that there is no intention to impose racial composition quotas on businesses operating in Malaysia. While the response left much to be desired, particularly since the Government did not elaborate on how such disclosures will help a company fulfil its CSR, except for the open-ended statement that “the private sector should leverage upon the strength of Malaysia’s diversity by employing Malaysians from all ethnic groups.”

However, when it was disclosed that several multinational corporations in the electronics industry in Penang has received very specific instructions from Government departments that they are to employ senior level staff and engineers based on a racial composition quota of 45% Malays, 35% Chinese, 17% Indians and 3% others.

This is a shocking development. The policy is not only unjust to all Malaysian employees, but flies in the face of the purported government objective of “providing a conducive environment for private investment” and “enhancing the nation's competitiveness” as stated in the Budget 2008.

The MCA leader such as MCA Youth Secretary-General, Wee Ka Seong has attributed the incidences to “little Napoleons” of government departments. However, it should be noted that the audacity of these “little Napoleons” stems from the encouragement provided by the Barisan Nasional leaders forcing the private sector to disclose employment composition by race to serve unclear and unspecified objectives.

These policy developments if left unchecked, will force Malaysia to lower its overall competitiveness and serve to act as a severe deterrent to other knowledge-intensive industries and companies from investing in Malaysia. A private company succeed in the face of competition based on its merits and the abilities of its management and workforce, and not instead through racial quotas.

The DAP calls upon the government to severely punish the government department and officers for issuing the highly detrimental racial composition policy. It should recall the CSR directive to disclose racial composition and instead seek to protect workers' rights against discrimination by promoting an “Equal Opportunities and Anti-Discrimination Employment Act”. This Bill will not only enhance the nation's progressiveness in the eyes of foreign and local investors, but also strongly discourage discrimination against disadvantaged groups, against any race as well as by gender.

(2/10/2007)