KUCHING, Sept 28: Sarawak People’s Aspiration Party (Aspirasi) president Lina Soo opines that the establishment of a Bumiputera Prosperity Division will only encourage cronyism.
She was referring to the policy laid out by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob which aims to further empower bumiputeras, where bumiputera-owned companies and its shares can only be sold to bumiputera firms and individuals.
“This comes on the back of the recent government announcement to allow only licences of freight forwarding businesses with 51 per cent bumiputera equity to be renewed, which was temporarily deferred.
“When will the line be drawn, and if today it is the freight forwarders, what will it be tomorrow?
“I am unable to see how the redistribution of wealth can be accomplished by looting 51 per cent from those who worked hard to build good businesses,” she said in a statement today.
“Even the bumiputera farmer, fisherman and labourer earning an honest living does not benefit,” she added.
She pointed out that the function of the government is to be pro-business so that it can collect taxes from profitable firms and employees to run the country.
Its job, she said, is to make the economic pie bigger, and not to redistribute an increasingly smaller pie amongst those who work hard to give to the other half who don’t need to work. — DayakDaily
