Khairy to Asli: Damage done
Malaysiakini
Oct  11, 2006
Fauwaz Abdul Aziz

Think-tank Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute (Asli) should be more careful when publicising future reports that touch on issues of race and other sensitive matters, said Umno Youth deputy head Khairy Jamaluddin. 

He said this today when asked to comment on Asli president Mirzan Mahathir’s retraction of a disputed report on bumiputera corporate equity ownership. 

“Let’s not draw up a report that triggers anger (among many people) and then simply concede to having made mistakes. The damage is done already,” he said.

“I feel that before we make any reports public, we have to be careful with the methodology that we use. More so, when we try to question the methodology used by the government in official documents.

“It was not a good methodology (as cited in the report), it was not fair, perhaps it was inappropriate and ultimately, it has been proven to be baseless.”

He was speaking to reporters after submitting a memorandum on the haze to the Indonesian government through its embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

Told that the authors - Centre for Public Policy Studies (CPPS) - are standing by their work, Khairy replied: “I hope that the statement of Asli by Mirzan is a sincere one. Let it not merely be a political manoeuvre.”

Assertion ‘shocking’

The Sun today reported that “political reality” had compelled the authors to accept that Asli had “no choice but to back down in order to stop the attacks...”.

“If, as you say, inside sources indicate that this (withdrawal) is just a political stand that has been taken in order to ease the situation and to appease the Malaysian people or the Malays, I feel that it will harm the situation even further,” Khairy responded.

“I hope it is not true... If the sources say otherwise, I'd feel quite shocked by it (the assertion).”

The study - entitled 'Corporate Equity Distribution: Past Trends and Future Policy' - put bumiputera corporate equity ownership at around 45 percent, more than double the official figure of 18.9 percent.

The claim had ruffled feathers within Umno. Among those who had rubbished the findings were party president and Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, past president and former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad and vice-presidents Muhyiddin Yassin and Mohd Ali Rustam.

As the fallout widened, Mirzan yesterday announced the retraction of the study carried out by CPPS, saying it had “various shortcomings in assumption and calculation and cannot be vigorously justified”.

However, CPPS director and political economist Dr Lim Teck Ghee this morning tendered his resignation effective from the end of the month. 

In a statement, he said he takes full responsibility and stands by the findings of this study “and other studies that were submitted in our report to the government on the Ninth Malaysia Plan in February 2006".

“Since I cannot agree with Mirzan's statement and because of the need to defend the position and integrity of independent and non-partisan scholarship, I regret to inform that I will be stepping down from my position as director at the end of the month,” said Lim, who is one of the key authors of the controversial report.