Najib ticks off Maybank

Updated! The current hottest news in town is that of Maybank having a ruling recently (the other bank which has a similar thing is Ambank) that they will only deal with law firms which have at least 3 partners, of which 1 of them must be a bumiputera with a minimum of 50% stake. In a nutshell, they will only deal with bumi-owned law firms. After plenty of criticism from various parties from both sides of the political fence, Najib dropped in with this statement:

"There should not be any hard and fast rules but there should be efforts to help both," Najib was quoted as saying by the state Bernama news agency from the United States, where he is visiting.

"The government's policy is that we want to encourage GLCs to give work to both bumiputera and non-bumiputera (companies)," he added.

"It is unfortunate that sometimes people interpret it in their own way."

(source: Malaysiakini)

In the end, looks like that is enough to force Maybank into revising the policy which is nothing but apartheid.

Though Najib's reprimand (apparently it was made after a the Cabinet discussed the matter in their Wednesday meeting) is timely, I couldn't help but thinking that perhaps the BN government realize that they just can't live with more of such "racial" controversies, especially those which seem to be publicised the most in media read mostly by Chinese. Not when in the aftermath of Ijok it was clear the Chinese are sending the BN a signal of discontent. Nevermind the fact that on the other hand, recent religious controversies involving Indians don't seem to get similar attention by the Cabinet. Perhaps they know they have got the Indian votes in their bag whatever happens. In any case, the MCA fellas can claim a sort of victory in this case since they were given all the space in The Star, never mind the fact that they are one to two days behind the Bar Council, DAP, and Associated Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

The other interesting thing about this is that the other bank which practise this policy seems to be out of the line of fire. One could argue that the other bank is purely private, so they could in theory do anything they saw fit. But clearly such apartheid corporate policies must be against the Constitution which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race. Also in the interest of fairness, why should Maybank be the only one forced to give up such discriminatory policies just because they're government linked?

On top of that, this is not something new. GLCs have been known to be "selective" when it comes to vendors or suppliers they work with. Whether the policies are on the basis of with all things equal bumi companies will be given preference, or outright rejection of working with non-bumi companies, I don't know. But I have heard countless of times that in the case of Petronas, if you're not a bumi owned company, you could forget about doing business with them.

Perhaps Najib's reminder that there should not be any fast and hard rules, and people should not interpret government policies their own way should apply equally to the civil service, and various branches of the government. If the government themselves are deaf to such advice and practice discrimination openly, one could hardly expect the others to be more enlightened and practise otherwise.

Update: I just read in Malaysiakini that Ambank has issued a statement that it does not practise racial quotas in selecting legal firms. This is commendable, and should serve as a lesson to all corporations thinking of emulating discriminatory practices. I quote:

Another private bank embroiled in the controversy, Ambank Bhd, said in a separate statement that it does not practice racial quotas as a requisite for engaging legal firms. “The group does appoint legal firms that do not have bumiputera partners. This policy has been in place for more than two decades,” it added.

(source: Malaysiakini)