In the 2002 New Year titah, His Majesty The Sultan and Yang DiPertuan of Brunei Darussalam had envisaged the vision of ‘Rakyat Melayu’ as the leaders in business and economy in Negara Brunei Darussalam.
Therefore an effort for the creation of urgent measures to redress the extreme imbalance of Rakyat Melayu in the economic sector should be put into priority.
The urgent remedial effort is necessary to stamp out cronyism due to the less bargaining power possessed by Rakyat Melayu entrepreneurs in businesses and industries.
The majority business group ‘Rakyat Melayu’, will ultimately surrender to the doomed fate unless urgent support and assistance are accorded to them in the most urgent time.
An obvious example is in the banking and financial sectors in which borrowing conditions are set based on the capability of the local economic masters, limiting the less fortunate ‘Rakyat Melayu’ entrepreneurs the chance to obtain the support. One classic example is the standard requirement for collateral or personal guarantors which has to be made available if one is to obtain a loan from banks in Brunei.
The reason for this is due to banks and financial sectors not prepared to take any calculated risk by virtue of them being profit oriented organisations.
Not to over-simplify the issue, it is apparent that ‘Rakyat Melayu’ entrepreneurs are considered high risk to these financial organisations, because the majority of them have failed in the ventures and additionally theses organisations knew that majority of ‘Rakyat Melayu’ has only one house, one piece of land and no extra property that they can use for collateral.
In supporting His Majesty The Sultan and Yang DiPertuan of Brunei Darussalam titah and vsion of ‘Rakyat Melayu’ as the leaders in business and economy to become into realistic and rational the urgent intervene from the government to rescue ‘Rakyat Melayu’ from being deterioration of their dignity.
Recommendation for the special privileges and concessions be accorded to ‘Rakyat Melayu’ when bidding for contacts with the government, Brunei Shell Petroleum Company Sdn Bhd, Brunei LNG Sdn Bhd, BEDB and other multinational companies, a special rescue package be made available to ailing businesses and personalities.
To gain the confidence and the trust the ‘Rakyat Melayu’ entrepreneurs should change their business attitudes to demonstrate their keenness in businesses. It is very unfortunate that the ‘Rakyat Melayu’ businesses had been attributed to bad business administration and management.
The ‘Rakyat Melayu’ businesses themselves must be prepared to change their way of conducting businesses, so they will command a grater respects from the government and multinational companies as well as financial organisations.
Unless an effort to make a drastic change of business attitudes, the’Rakyat Melayu’ entrepreneurs will continue to bear with them the bad business images which were painted by their business forefathers.
By: Dr Haji Mohd Hatta Bin Haji Zainal Abidin