Penang Indians have nothing
“Penang Indians have nothing“, so MalaysiaKini reports. They present the following statistics:
- 80,000 or 60 percent were wage earners in the lower income brackets.
- Average monthly income was between RM500 and RM1, 000 per household.
- Seven percent were living in hardcore poverty.
- About 80 percent in the manufacturing industry, Penang’s biggest revenue earning sector, were low-level workers.
- Involvement in the tourism sector, the state’s second highest revenue earner, was virtually non-existent.
- About 50 percent of private companies did not have a single Indian employee.
- The share in paid-up capital investments in the state were a mere 0.2 percent.
- The majority were indulged in traditional businesses due to lack of funds, bureaucratic red tape, racial discrimination and difficulty in securing loan.
- Nearly 30 percent were squatters or living on temporary occupation licence (TOL) land.
- About 75 percent of pupils in 28 Tamil primary schools had failed to achieve the minimum pass-mark of `C’ in all six subjects in the Ujian Penilaian Sekolah Rendah public examination.
- At secondary level, 80 percent of pupils had stopped schooling after Form Five.
- Many Indians were involved in alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence and child abuse.
- Nearly 40 percent of the state’s suicide cases involved Indians.
Shocking? It was to me. What use is the New Economic Policy if it dooms an entire section of society to a slew of socio-economic problems?