A Malaysian recently posted online and gave a deep analysis on the privileges that the Malays get in Malaysia after falling victim to the system. He stated on how he scored 11As in his O levels but still failed to receive a degree offer from Malaysia’s public university.
Here is the analysis that he made.
1. Cheaper house ownership. Malays purchasing home enjoys as much as 10% discount. Back in the days, some property developers will openly advertise a 5% discount but the last 2014 trip I was back, I’ve seen property developer Sime Darby which is government linked offering up to 10%. What happens really is that Malaysian of other race will need to pay more simply to upset the discounts enjoyed by the Malays.
2. Malay ownership in Public Listed Companies. Listed companies in Malaysia will have to allocate, iirc, 30% of their shares to Malays. If you are a Malay entrepreneur, all is fine and dandy and you yourself fulfill this quota. But if you are non-Malay, say Chinese, Indian, or others, then you will have to reserve certain percentage of your share sales to Malays, or introduce VCs or private equity that have malay ownership before entering IPOs.
3. Education opportunity. Malaysians are not born equal, when it comes to education well performing Malays are pluck from primary and secondary school to enter special boarding schools, these boarding schools will be given extra resources compared with the normal schools and many Malays who studied there are groom to enter the best universities abroad since young, with Malaysian government’s scholarship of course.
4. Education again. The government will force Malay participation in every level, and I mean every level. When table tennis was primarily a Chinese sports, the government introduced a Malay category so as to encourage Malay participation. Also, every year Malaysia sends around 5 participant for the Olympia Math competition, instead picking on merit, 2 or 3 participants have to be Malays.
5. Government positions. It is written in the constitution that only Malays can be the prime minister or the State Minister with the exception of Penang and Malacca state (Malaysia has 13 states). This means that if you are not a Malay, then you will never be able to be the people’s leader. Singapore was seceded from Malaysia because Lee Kuan Yew championed a Malaysia for Malaysians. If Singapore was still part of Malaysia, Lee would have not been able to become the prime minister even if he wins a majority vote
6. Government bonds. Only Malays can buy certain government bonds, which as you’d imagine by now, has the highest return of all bonds, These bonds are called Amanah Saham Bumiputera. Of course non Malays can buy Government bonds too, but theirs are called Amanah Saham Nasional, which fetches a lower return rate.
7. Universities entrance. It is known that Malaysians of other races are continually discriminated when it comes to university entrance. The Quota system introduced is hardly anything like the preferential treatment introduced by certain countries to encourage minorities in tertiary education. For a start, 65% of Malaysia’s population are Malay, secondly, the preferential is given so much to Malays that I know that other races have abandon the national tertiary system altogether. I myself is a victim of this system, having scored 11As in SPM, which is Malaysia’s version of O Levels, I still failed to receive a degree offer from Malaysia’s public university. I went on to received the prestigious Erasmus Mundus scholarship offered by the EU and went on to work for the biggest tech companies in the world.
8. Religious issues. All in the name of preserving harmony, the government has banned the use of “Allah” and other phrases to be used in other religion. Christians in Malaysia have been using the word Allah for decades if not longer to refer to their god, but now they are barred from using it because by doing so will “destroy the harmony of the country” as it is forbidden to challenge the “special rights of Malays”. Afterall, the special rights is written in the constitution.
Summary: Preferential treatment or locally known as Quota has been a hotly debated issue since independence. Even though there is a need to preserve certain rights for the Malay, many have argued that such blanket preferential treatment has hampered the countries development, and also crutched the Malay themselves.
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addendum:
1. Venture funding. Malays enjoy sweeter VC deals. Government VC launched two funds in the past quarter. Superb fund solely for Malays have 100 million ringgit (30mil USD) for investments over 3 years, while Cradle fund which is open to all Malaysians have 60 million ringgit (18mil USD) for 4 – 5 years.
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Further priviledges
9. Donation receipts are tax deductible. However if you donate Zakat, which is the form donated by Malays since Malays are overwhelmingly Muslims, deduction is performed on your total tax paid. For others, oir donation, be it to a religious or humanitarian organization, is based on taxable income.
10. House price subsidies has gone further, now there are housing areas that give 15% discounts.