TWO weeks have passed since Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz tabled Budget 2022. Many scrutinised and analysed it.

The backers of government ‘lauded’ some announcements and portrayed it as a ‘feel good’ budget.

The ministries came out with statements praising the budget, but critics pointed out that it is clearly racially lopsided and it could be the most racially configured budget in the country’s history.

Liew Chin Tong pointed out that the devil is in the details of the budget, not in the minister’s speech.

In my opinion, the devil is not just in details, but in the minds of those who prepare it.

Sixty years after the independence of Malaysia, our policy makers, be it the executive or bureaucrats, can’t run away from making policies with their race glasses on.

It is not entirely wrong to draft policies to correct social outcome to be fair to all; but certainly it’s not right to draft policies that are clearly unfair to one group of people.

The federal government has allocated RM11.4 billion to the Bumiputera community and mere RM300 million for the non-Bumiputera communities.

This has been pointed out by many analysts, but the Finance Ministry or the government parties are not talking about it at all.

They are blatantly making the drafting of such an unjust budget a ‘normalcy’. It’s either the non-Bumi ministers in the cabinet are closing their eyes to the facts, or they just care about their own portfolios.

It is not a ‘Keluarga Malaysia’ budget as it was touted, because the head of a family will not treat the children unfairly.

It is either the head (Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob) is sleeping, letting the certain member of the family to draft such an unfair budget, or he is allowing it to happen consciously.

Some are calling it an election budget. Even it’s an election budget, where are the ‘feel good’ elements for the non-Bumi voters?

Or there’s a conclusion by the ruling government that the non-Bumis don’t deserve such elements. After all, every taxpaying citizen will expect something in return from their government when the budget is announced. 

Those bureaucrats shaping the policies are either oblivious to the nature of our country as a multiracial society or purely reckless in drafting such an unfair budget.

The prime minister, finance minister and the cabinet are the real problem of this country. They are OK with the justice not seen and don’t care if justice is done. 

We don’t have to dive into the details to conclude that the budget is lopsided. The minister’s speech is evidence of this. If we do dive into the details, we may only get more disappointed.

The government and its leaders, who are not bothered to appear fair and just even on the surface, won’t care about being fair and just in the details as well. 

We are not talking about the cause of this problem, that is the institutionalised racism in this country.

We have to get rid it if we want to correct this. Only then policy making will be balanced and fair to all the people.

It is sad that many analysts failed to address this core issue, and repeatedly point out the budget alone.

We should discuss and expose the systemic racism, if we want to speak about the fairness and justice in all areas, let alone the annual budgeting affair.

Until and unless such an honest discourse takes place, we will only see such unfairness being normalised.– November 9, 2021.

* Satees Muniandy is the assemblyman for Bagan Dalam.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.