Addendum to Speech by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, on the Second OPP and NDP in the Dewan Rakyat on Tuesday, June 18, 1991 (to be inserted before the portion on “Can Malaysia develop a culture of merit and competitiveness to enable Malaysia to stand tall in the world” in page 17)
Samy Vellu should resign as MIC President and Cabinet Minister because in the past 20 years, while MIC leaders have become rich and enjoyed the good thing in life, the ordinary Indians have become the most neglected and backward community in Malaysia
In 1985, the MIC President and then Works Minister, Datuk Samy Vellu reminded Malaysian Indians that the New Economic Policy was launched by the government for all communities.
Datuk Samy Vellu said those who say that the NEP was for Malays only are stupid people.
In 1986, the MIC General Assembly unanimously approved a resolution expressing support for the NEP saying it would lead to equitable sharing of national wealth among Malaysians, irrespective of racial origin.
Twenty years after the OPP1 and the NEP, we can now see what type of ‘equitable sharing of national wealth among Malaysians, irrespective of racial origin’ had been achieved.
The MIC leaders have equitable shared in the wealth with the UMNO and MCA leaders, while the ordinary Malaysian Indians have shared in the poverty with Malaysians of other races.
Twenty years after the OPP1 and the NEP, the Malaysian Indians have become the most neglected and backward community in Malaysia.
The Malaysian Indians complain that while MIC leaders have become rich and enjoyed the good things in life including in Zenga suits which cost thousands of ringgit and other luxuries, and spending all their money overseas like Italy, the ordinary Indians have been left out of the mainstream of national development.
In the early 1970, the Indians belonged to the poorest sector of the country. About 90 per cent of the Indians, who account for about 10 per cent of the population in Peninsular Malaysia, had household incomes (pendapatan isirumah) of less than $400 a month, or less than $80 per person, given an average size per household of five persons.
Another indicator of their poverty in the 1970s was the level of unemployment of the Indians, who had the highest unemployment rate at 11 per cent – although Indians constituted 10 per cent of the population.
The third indicator of poverty among Indians was reflected in the lack or poor health, housing, educational and other socio-economic facilities. A large proportion of the Indians still lived and worked in the estates with low pay, in sub-standard housing and with minimal socio-economic facilities.
A fourth indicator of poverty among Indians is the structure of occupation of most Indians, which are mostly unskilled labour in estates, in road construction and water, electricity, sewerage and sanitation services.
A fifth indication of poverty is the generally low educational attainments of the Indians, particularly children in the estates.
This forlorn picture of poverty and socio-economic backwardness of the Indians in Malaysia in1970 had not changed or improved appreciably in the past two decades.
This is best reflection by the problems faced by Indian children in education in 1990 with their low enrolnment rates and high drop-out rates; low levels of achievement and under-representation at various levels of the educational structures.
A child care survey conducted by the Ministry of Welfare Services, Malaysia and UNICEF in 1983 on 537 centres in the country, divided into three types, institution-based, honme-based and estates, found that the centres in the estate were worse off compared with the other two. These centres have the poorest physical facilities, poor environmental health, high child-staff ratio and the staff possessed low educational level and poor knowledge in health and child-care. Of all the centres surveyed, 85 per cent of the bad centres were located in the plantations. The majority of the estate centres had flies (89%) and mosquitoes (79%). Almost half of them (43%) had cockroaches and in 15% of the centres, rats were observed.
In another child development study, conducted by the Faculty of Education, University of Malaya, among children aged between 3-6 years, living in four types of environments such as the urban advantaged, urban disadvantages, rural and estates, the children in the estates scored the lowest on almost all the dimensions surveyed except on language fluency test. The study focussed on the physical, cognitive, language and socio-emotional growth and development of children. In terms of analysis of data by ethnicity, the Indian children in the estates, rural and urban disadvantaged sectors again fared the worst.
The MIC rank-and-file complained that the position of the Indian community had in fact got worse. The equity corporate share of the Indians had not only remained stationary at one per cent in 1990 as in 1970, what the Indians had owned in 1970 had been taken away.
Thus, the MIC rank-and-file complain that in the 1970s, the Indian community owned equity which gave control to several financial institutions. In the 1980s, this equity had been greatly reduced. In the past, the Indians headed several financial institutions, but they have now lost this right. In the past, the Indians had several industries on a joint enterprise basic with foreign investors in the manufacturing or services sector, but now many of them have been closed because of lack of government assistance. The MIC rank-and-file complain that such a trend could also be seen in all government departments, whether in administration or the health and education services.
What has the MIC leadership got to say for their failure to ensure that the ordinary Malaysian Indians also share in the development of the country under the NEP?
What have Datul Samy Vellu and the MIC done to help the estate workers and end their exploitation especially by the system of daily wages? The estate workers have been fighting for a month wage system to replace the daily wage, but they have got no support or sympathy by the MIC leaders.
DAP calls on the Barisan National government to end its neglect of the plight of the estate workers and to incorporate a New Deal of Justice for the estate workers in the OPP2
DAP calls on the Barisan National Government to end the neglect of the plight of the estate workers and to incorporate a New Deal of Justice for the estate workers in the OPP2.
Masalah-masalah yang dihadapi oleh perkarja-perkerja estet termasuklah:
(a) Kaedah bayaran gaji harian di ladang-ladang didapati tidak memuaskan dan minjadikan pendapatan pekerja tidak menentu.
(b) Pendapatan pekerja tidak bertambah dengan sewajarnya walaupun pendapatan syarikat-syarikat ladang telah meningkat.
(c) Dikebanyakan ladang kehidupan pekerja tidak selesa kerana keadaan rumah terlalu kecil dan kekurangan kemudahan asas seperti tandas, bekalan air dan electrik.
(d) Keadaan kesihatan pekerja mudah terjejas kerana penggunaan racun, bekalan air yang tercemar, kekurangan zat makanan dan kekurangan kemudahan kesihatan yang tidak mencukupi.
(e) Kemasukan sejumlah besar pekerja asing ke negeri ini telah mempengaruhi kadar upah dan boleh membawa kesan negatif kepada pekerja ladang tempatan.
(f) Kemudahan pendidikan diladang tidak memuaskan. Tinjauan SERU dalam tahun 1982 di 28 ladang menunjukkan bahawa hanya 20% dripada anak-anak pekerja ladang mencapai peringkat SRP dan kurang daripada separuh jumlah mereka lulus peperiksaan itu. Hanya 5.5% mencapai SPM (kurang daripada seperempat lulus) dan hanya 0.3% sampai ke universiti.
Untuk mangatasi masalah-masalah di atas, satu Rancangan Kas perlu dilancarkan untuk melaksanakan perkara-perkara berikut:
(1) Pekarja ladang telah memberi sumbangan yang besar kepada kekayaan negara, tetapi mereka dibayar gaji yang rendah mengikut sistem gaji harian. Syarikat-syarikat ladang haruslah mengubah cara bayaran gaji kepada sistem gaji bulanan dengan kadar yang lebih baik supaya dapat menarik lebih ramai tenaga buruh tempatan terutama golongan belia menganggur untuk bekerja di ldang. Masalah ini hendaklah dikaji semula supaya mereka memperolehi pendapatan yang munasabah berbanding dengan tenaga yang dicurahkan.
(2) Langkah-langkah haruslah diambil bagi memperbaiki keselamatan pekerja diladang-ladang, khususnya penguatkuasaan undang-undang yang mengawal penggunaan racun makhluk perosak yang merbahaya.
(3) Kemudahan pendidikan seperti tadika, sekolah rendah dan menengah di ladang-ladang haruslah diperbaiki dan diperbanyakkan bagi mengurangkan kadar keciciran yang tinggi dan pencapaian kelulusan SRP, SPM dan STPM yang rendah di kalangan keluarga pekerja yang miskin. Memandangkan bahawa kebanyakan sekolah di ladang adalah dalam keadaan yang dzaif, maka adalah dicadangkan supaya Kerajaan mengambil langkah untuk menukar semua sekolah bantuan modal kepada bantuanpenuh dan meningkatkan mutu sekolah-sekolah tersebut secara menyeluruh. Bangunan bertaraf moden dengan darjah yang cukup dan lengkap. Langkah untuk menyediakan atau memperbaiki kemudahan padang, perpustakaan, kantin, tandas dan mengambil langkah untuk memudahkan pengambilan balik tanah dengan pampasan dalam ladang-ladang bagi tujuan pembagunan sekolah.
(4) Mutu kemudahan asas seperti perumahan, kesihatan, bekalan air yang bersih, kuasa elektrik, keadaan sanitari dan pengangkutan perlu dipertingkatkan.
(5) Pemberian kredit dengan syarat yang mudah haruslah disediakan. Kerajaan patut mengambil-alih kemudahan kesihatan, hospital estet dan latihan kakitangan kesihatan supaya mutu kesihatan boleh diperbaiki. Kos kemudahan kesihantan harus ditanggung bersama oleh Kerajaan dan majikan ladang berkenaan.
(6) Peratuan Piawai Minima Perumahan dan Kemudahan Pekerja 1990 perlu dilaksanakan dengan lebih tegas supaya mutu perumahan dapat dipertingkatkan. Pembinaan rumah kos rendah oleh majikan harus digalakkan supaya pekerja-pekerja estet dapat memiliki rumah sendiri. Kerajaan hendaklah menambah peruntukan untuk Skim Pemilikan Rumah di ladang dan lombong demi memudahkan dan menpercepatkan proses pemilikan rumah.
(7) Latihan dan peluang harus disediakan untuk pekerja estet supaya mereka berdaya menambahkan pendapatan mereka. Program untuk mempelbagaikan sumber pendapatan harus diwujudkan dengan menggalakan tananman sumber makanan, penternkan dan kegiatan-kegiatan perniagaan kecil. Anak-anak pekerja estet perlu diberi latihan kerja supaya mereka dapat mengembangkan kemahiran yang dapat menghasilkan pendapatan dan memudahkan pencarian kerja kelak.
(8) Peraturan dan undang-undang harus digubal jika perlu dan diawasi dengan ketat supaya taraf hidup minima dapat dicapai. Kerajaan haruslah mewujudkan satu jawatankuasa khas , khususnya untuk meneliti dan mengkaji kesemua aspek pekerja estet serta mengemukakan cadangan yang dapat meningkatkan mutu hidup mereka.
It is very clear that the MIC leadership had failed to Indians in the past 20 years, as seen in particular in allowing the estate workers to continue to be exploited without any special government scheme to give them justice and social equity, Datuk Samy Vellu should resign as MIC President and Cabinet Minister because while the MIC leaders have become affluent and enjoyed the good things in life, the Indian community had been left behind in the development process in the past 20 years.
In fact, Datuk Samy Vellu said in an interview in1994: “I use each shirt and pair of pants for only two or three times, over a period of only about six or seven months. After that, they will all go to my friends. Then I’ll change the designs of my clothes.” The picture of the MIC President wearing exclusive suits costing thousands of ringgit for two or three times and then throwing them away on the one hand and the hundreds of thousands of estate workers without decent shirts on the other hand is the best summation of the result of 20-year NEP about social justice and equity!