Saturday, December 6, 2008

SIRI SATU: NEOBUMIPUTERISME DAN DEB ALA-KOMUNIS?

Ruhanie Ahmad

Baru-baru ini saya terbaca dua artikel yang agak provokatif dalam sebuah portal berita tempatan. Satu mengenai cadangan supaya konsep bumiputera didefinisikan semula. Dan, yang satu lagi mengenai DEB yang kononnya diinspirasikan daripada sistem komunis.

Artikel pertama ditulis oleh seorang cendikiawan Melayu. Artikel kedua (lebih kepada surat daripada pembaca) ditulis oleh seorang yang menggunakan nama pena Batsman.

Dengan jodol Malaya, land of immigrants... therefore, time for neo 'bumiputera-ism', cendikiawan itu mengusulkan konsep bumiputerisme dikaji semula untuk disesuaikan dengan peredaran masa. Artikel ini sepenuhnya adalah di http://mt.m2day.org/2008/content/view/14932/84/

Sebagai penutup kepada tulisannya, cendikiawan itu berseloroh: Ah.... we still have not understood the philosophy of history. We are not ready to design a blue ocean strategy. [Kita masih belum memahami falsafah sejarah. Kita belum bersedia untuk melakar satu blue ocean strategy.)

Artikel kedua dengan jodol The NEP is a Communist-inspired Policy boleh dibaca di http://mt.m2day.org/2008/content/view/15673/84/. Antara kesimpulan tulisan berkenaan ialah: The NEP is communist-inspired. (DEB adalah sebuah dasar yang diinspirasikan oleh fahaman komunis.)

Kedua-dua tulisan ini mencerminkan tahap kebebasan bersuara di kalangan rakyat Malaysia mutakhir ini. Bagaimanapun, kedua-duanya juga membuktikan kewujudan segelintir rakyat kita yang terlalu berfikiran out-of-the box sehingga konsep dan dasar penting pun cuba diheret ke kancah pemikiran itu tanpa memikirkan latarbelakang sejarahnya serta impak dan implikasinya kepada peruntukan teras dalam Perlembagaan Persekutuan atau pun dasar teras yang dilaksanakan untuk merapatkan jurang ekonomi yang ditinggalkan oleh penjajah.

Saya pernah mengupas DEB serta konsep bumiputera secara ilimiah dan secara tidak formal. Saya akui memang DEB adalah satu dasar yang mirip ala-sosialis bentuknya - bukannya ala-komunis, bukannya ala-Robinhood, bukan ala-Sonan Kalijogo!

Tetapi, hakikat ini adalah secara kebetulan sahaja kerana dasar sosialis adalah dasar yang mesra rakyat, dasar yang digubal untuk rakyat dan dasar yang diperjuangkan oleh kerajan yang berjiwa rakyat.

Jadi, amat meleset sekali kalau ada antara kita berpendapat bahawa DEB diambil semangatnya daripada Buku Merah Mao Tse-Tung, apatah lagi daripada Das Kapital.

DEB adalah dasar yang dilahirkan oleh Tun Razak Hussein daripada peruntukan teras Fasal 153 dalam Perlembagaan Persekutuan. DEB tidak bermatlamat merompak daripada golongan kaya untuk diagihkan kepada golongan miskin di negara ini. DEB adalah dasar perluasan kek ekonomi negara untuk merapatkan jurang masyarakat yang kaya dengan yang miskin secara berhemah untuk tidak menyakiti atau merugikan sesiapa. Matlamat akhir DEB adalah untuk mewujudkan perpaduan nasional dan ketahanan negara.

Anda boleh google sendiri pelbagai lamanweb mengenai DEB. Antaranya adalah: http://ms.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasar_Ekonomi_Baru. www.faculty.unitarklj1.edu.my/courseweb/aac/pdf/ugb0033/module8.pdf.www.isis.org.my/files/pubs/papers/MAZ_Kompass_220907.pdf dan www.icu.gov.my/icu/pg/dl_direct.php?id=55

Pada 1991, saya terlibat sebagai anggota Majlis Perundingan Ekonomi Negara (MAPEN II) yang bertanggungjawab memansuhkan DEB (NEP) untuk digantikan dengan Dasar Pembangunan Negara (DPN) atau National Economic Policy (NEP). Bagaimanapun, semangat DEB tetap unggul dan terus menjadi teras kepada DPN.

Pelbagai pihak – pribumi dan bukan pribumi, organisasi awam, swasta dan NGO – diwakili dalam MAPEN II. Wakil-wakil parti siasah – komponen BN dan pembangkang pun sama-sama berpeluang menggubal DPN. Bagaimanapun, ada sesetengah parti politik yang sengaja mempolitikkan keterlibatan mereka dalam DPN II untuk merasionalkan pendirian yang negatif terhadap DEB dan DPN.

Jadi, peduli apa kalau DEB atau DPN seolah-olah mirip dasar sosialis? Adakah ini soal pokok dan strategik untuk dijadikan sebab supaya dasar ini diperlekeh dan dipolitikkan secara semberono atas pelantar politik yang sempit?

Tetapi, kalaulah apa yang dilakukan oleh kerajaan Malaysia selama ini adalah salah, berdosa jugakah puak barat di era rennaisancenya mencedok pelbagai ilmu, discoveries dan pengetahuan Islam di pelbagai bidang sains dan kemasyarakatan untuk dijadikan asas pemodenan, kemajuan serta tamadun mereka yang kini dikagumi oleh sebilangan kita yang terlalu universalis?

Oleh itu, fikir-fikirkanlah semasak-masaknya. Masyarakat pribumi jangan apologetik kepada bukan pribumi mengenai DEB. Masyarakat bukan pribumi pula jangan pertikaikan DEB menerusi perspektif yang mereka populerkan sebagai kontrak sosial.

Pribumi dan bukan pribumi mesti faham bahawa DEB dan semangatnya yang dijelmakan ke dalam DPN adalah hasil penjanaan minda, perbincangan dan pertukaran pengalaman semua pihak dengan secara rasional, berhemah dan penuh perasaan saling menghormati co-existence seluruh rakyat Malaysia tanpa sebarang batasan kaum dan prejudis.

Pandangan saya ini mungkin antik. Tetapi kekunoan ini adalah berasaskan realiti sejarah negara, evolusinya dan masa depannya. Kekunoan ini juga adalah kerana DEB merupakan sebuah dasar yang hidup dan berkembang. Kelemahan pelaksanaannya boleh diatasi. Kecacatan program-programnya boleh diperbaiki. Syaratnya, terimalah DEB dengan dada terbuka. Perbaikilah calat cela serta kelemahan DEB juga menerusi pendekatan cordial dan mesra. – [bersambung di siri akhir]

3 comments:

Mika Angel-0 said...

Sdr Ruhani Ahmad,

Saya tertarik dengan cerita IHT ini:

In tough times, Russia shows new desire to seize assets
By Clifford J. Levy

Sunday, December 7, 2008
BEREZNIKI, Russia: In late October, one of Vladimir Putin's top lieutenants abruptly summoned a billionaire mining oligarch to a private meeting. The official, Igor Sechin, had taken a sudden interest in a two-year-old accident at the oligarch's highly lucrative mining operations here in Russia's industrial heartland.

Sechin, who is a leader of a shadowy Kremlin faction tied to the state security services, said he was ordering a new inquiry into the mishap, according to minutes of the meeting. With a deputy interior minister who investigates financial crime at his side, Sechin threatened crippling fines against the company, Uralkali.

Startled, the oligarch, Dmitri Rybolovlev, pointed out that the government had already examined the incident thoroughly and had cleared the company of responsibility. He further sought to fend off the inquiry by saying he would pay for some of the damage to infrastructure from the accident, a mine collapse that injured no one but left a gaping sinkhole.

His offer was rebuffed, and it seemed clear why: the Kremlin was maneuvering to seize Uralkali outright.

Putin, the former president and current prime minister, has long maintained that Russia made a colossal error in the 1990s by allowing its enormous reserves of oil, gas and other natural resources to fall into private hands. He has acted uncompromisingly — most notably in the 2003 attack on the Yukos Oil Company — to get them back.

Now, the Kremlin seems to be capitalizing on the economic crisis, exploiting the opportunity to establish more control over financially weakened industries that it has long coveted, particularly those in natural resources.

Last month, for example, the government assumed greater influence over Norilsk Nickel, the world's biggest nickel producer, whose large shareholders, two billionaire oligarchs, have ailing finances. And Putin said Thursday that he was considering other such interventions.

Yet the Uralkali affair stands out for illustrating with rare clarity the willingness of the authorities to use whatever means necessary to obtain these assets, including subjecting companies to questionable investigations that they have little chance of resisting, financial analysts here say.

At the forefront of these efforts is Sechin, 48, a deputy prime minister who has been a Putin confidant since the two served in the St. Petersburg city government in the early 1990s. Sechin almost never gives interviews or speaks publicly, but he is believed to spearhead the use of the secret services and other government arms to capture companies.

"He is the state's main raider," said Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a prominent Kremlin expert at the Center for the Study of Elites in Moscow. "He organizes these raider seizures, sometimes to the benefit of the state, or sometimes to the benefit of companies that are friendly to him."

Sechin's role in the Uralkali inquiry immediately caused analysts and investors to presume that the company was in peril. Uralkali's stock, once highly prized by fund managers, has plunged more than 60 percent since the inquiry began, far more than the broader Russian stock market.

That has caused steep losses for Rybolovlev, 42, a former medical student who is known as Russia's fertilizer king because of his dominance of the business of mining potash, a principal fertilizer component. Last June, when Uralkali was soaring, the otherwise low-key Rybolovlev attracted attention by buying Donald Trump's mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, for $95 million.

The Kremlin has not said when there will be a decision on Uralkali, and the company is hoping to negotiate a settlement that would include a fine of a few hundred million dollars. Analysts emphasized that there was still a chance that Sechin might pull back after seeing the stock market react so hostilely to the inquiry.

Developments in the overall economy might also give the Kremlin pause. A growing recognition of its outsized influence over business appears to have helped sour the investment climate here, and suggests in part why the Russian stock market has been among the worst performers in the world this year.

Widespread corruption has deepened this mistrust. So it is perhaps not surprising that the Uralkali affair has been marked by apparent insider trading.

Around the time of the meeting called by Sechin on Oct. 29 in Moscow, there was a sharp spike in short selling in Uralkali's stock on the London Stock Exchange — that is, bets that the stock would fall, according to Data Explorers, an analytical firm that studied the securities data at the request of The New York Times. The meeting itself was not made public until Nov. 7, at which point the stock plummeted.

Sechin would not comment on the investigation, but a spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, said Sechin's reputation was not warranted. "The press sometimes has a tendency to demonize people," Peskov said.

Last month, a first deputy prime minister, Igor Shuvalov, dismissed concerns about the government's intent.

"No one is going to destroy the company — we need strong business units," Shuvalov said. "If after payments the company goes bankrupt, that won't stop the government. A new owner will be found for Uralkali."

With the financial crisis roiling economies around the world, Russia is hardly alone in taking ownership stakes in corporations these days. But many governments seem to view this as an uncomfortable role that has been thrust upon them. Russia's rulers, however, appear to perceive the crisis as a chance to further expand their control over the economy, concentrating ever more power and wealth in the Kremlin.

"We will put capital directly into major companies, in cases when it would be beneficial to the state and eventually to the taxpayer, and in those enterprises that are the basis of the economy of the Russian Federation," Putin said Thursday. "We do not exclude that these tools may be used in a large-scale way."

What seems to have drawn the Russian leadership's attention to Uralkali was its impressive balance sheet, which expanded robustly over the last year as the prices of food and commodities spiked. Its revenues swelled to $1.1 billion in the first half of 2008, double the level in the same period the year before. Its profits more than tripled to $550 million.

With that kind of cash flow, the company was better able to ward off any fines and penalties the Kremlin could reasonably levy. But as its revenues have dropped because of the downturn, Uralkali has become more vulnerable.

Russians undoubtedly have ambivalent feelings about oligarchs like Rybolovlev. They tend to resent the oligarchs' wealth, believing that it was accumulated through underhanded means in the 1990s. But they also worry that government officials want to seize these assets for their own venal purposes, and will end up mismanaging them, just as in Soviet times.

Here in Berezniki, 750 miles northeastof Moscow in the Ural Mountains, the new investigation has stirred anxiety among some miners, who said in interviews that they would feared lower salaries if the government took the company.

U.S. government officials have already stirred resentment here among residents who had to move after the 2006 mine accident into new, government-built homes that they said were shoddy.

Vladimir Smirnoff, 48, who drives a transporter in the mine, said workers did not understand the need for the inquiry, given that the earlier one had absolved the company. The first government inquiry concluded that the mine collapse, which happened with enough warning that all the miners escaped, was caused by "a previously unknown geological anomaly."

"It seems to us that the authorities simply want to take the company away from Rybolovlev," Smirnoff said. "The authorities just can't watch all that money pass them by."

Rybolovlev and other Uralkali executives declined to be interviewed for this article.

The company said last month that "there are no legal or moral grounds" for blaming it for the accident. It said that if the new inquiry found Uralkali responsible, "it will suffer an enormous financial burden. The company's future and plans would be in doubt."

Uralkali fears that officials will seek compensation equal to future taxes and fees that the company would have paid to the government if the section of the mine that collapsed had continued operating, a penalty that could amount to well over one billion dollars.

The new investigation carries echoes of the case that has come to define Putin's tenure — the government's forcible takeover of Yukos, once the country's biggest oil company. Sechin is said to have led that case, and now also serves as chairman of Rosneft, the government-controlled oil company that swallowed up many of Yukos's assets.

"The Uralkali case says that the government feels it has the power to interfere in any way in these industries," said Marina Alexeenkova, a vice president at Renaissance Capital, an investment bank in Moscow. "It looks really aggressive and really risky. In general, this has been considered the most serious attack on a company since Yukos."

The government imprisoned Yukos's owner — the billionaire oligarch Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, who had angered Putin by engaging in politics — on tax charges. It does not appear that Rybolovlev will suffer a similar punishment.

Like many oligarchs who have heeded Khodorkovsky's example, Rybolovlev has backed the Kremlin, and has spurned pleas for financial support from opposition politicians here in the Perm region.

As the inquiry continued last week, the government sent conflicting signals about its course. It said Wednesday that investigators would need at least two more weeks before forwarding their report to Sechin, dimming Uralkali's quest for a settlement. The next day, the natural resources minister, Yuri Trutnev, a close friend of Rybolovlev's, publicly supported the company. He is not directly involved in the new inquiry, though, and analysts discounted the importance of his statement.

Investigators are now said to be examining whether Uralkali should pay for rerouting 30 miles of railroad track around the sinkhole, as well as for reimbursing the government for resettling people and other costs. But their primary objective is to scrutinize the accident itself and decide whether the company was at fault, which could expose it to massive penalties.

Here in Berezniki, though, people seem confused about how the investigators are going to do that. It turns out that the part of the mine that collapsed is now completely filled with water, preventing anyone from getting anywhere close to it.

Soalan saya kepada YBhg Ruhanie ialah adakah ia halal dan adakah salah bertanya Does Viagra give athletes an advantage? Juga halal dan haramnya.

Terima Kasih.

puteramaya said...

Saudara Mika

Kini kita bertemu di Puteramalaysia. Terima kasih. Tapi, maaf, soal viagra saya kurang arif.

Salam takzim - Ruhanie Ahmad

puteramaya said...

Saudara Mika

Tk Bung. Insya Allah begitulah hakikatnya. Saya ada serumpun pohon senduduk putih dan serumpun lagi yang biru di hadapan rumah saya. Bagaimanapun cuma sebagai hiasan laman saja.

Salam takzim - Ruhanie Ahmad