Kedah Bersatu information chief Khairul Anurag Ramli please give us one good reason why should anybody regardless of bumi or non bumi should give up his/her share of his/her company to someone else after putting in years of blood, sweat, and tears building it?
Why should the government “introduce” an act or a regulation to favor one particular race when clearly the workings of this is dissimilatory?
So, are you claiming that as bumiputra you have the right to take over business without putting in any effort, investment to build it from scratch and you don’t have an iota of shame in doing so?
This is the agenda from the very onset of the bumiputra policy. I don’t have to dwell into other businesses but the public transport omnibus business is a very clear example how forced participation of bumiputra has driving the public transport omnibus business to the ground.
I grew in KL and was very familiar with the many omnibus operators’ yesteryears. Seri Jaya, Len Seng, Thong Fong, Lian Hoe, Len, Selangor Bus, and etc. They were rust buckets but they ran a good measure of service within KL and all around the out-skirts of KL and Selangor even as far as Tanjung Malim at the border between Selangor and Perak.
There were other similar omnibus companies operating in other cities as well.
Then came the mini busses which challenged the hegemony of these omnibus company’s yet these companies remained a float by running and managing a tight ship and maintaining a low operational cost by having in house workshops and cannibalizing parts from older busses and investing on new ones only if/when necessary.
Then came the grand plan by the government to corporatize (more pirate-ize) the entire Klang Valley public transport system and the mini busses were phased out and a new service of Intrakota was introduced. Later the old omnibus operators were also “forced” to give up their equity with the threat that failure to do so will result in their licenses not being renewed or revoked altogether. These operators were left with little option but to oblige to the “new deals” and later “selling out” altogether as time goes by. The legacy of their family businesses came to an end.
Today the so-called grand plan has evolved to become a public burden in the name of RAPID xyz. Tax payer’s money being use to keep these public transport systems afloat and its senior office bearers being paid fat remunerations whilst the public are burdened with car installments to own a car which they cannot afford to pay. Why one owns a car? Because the public transport is that pathetic.
There is a saying, history is a good indicator of what is going to happen in the future. It does not need a rocket scientist nor a crystal ball to predict what is going to happen to this round of so called bumiputra equity chest thumping.
From a reader
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