Harming

The PSD of Malaysia is still harming the citizens of the country even after over 51 years of independence. The present policies and actions of the PSD which have not changed at all since years and years back have only served to add to the problem of racial polarisation in the nation. The minority communities have always been shortchanged at every corner and at every opportunity. Fifty-one years have seen a lot of changes taking place in the country but the PSD has totally failed to keep apace & has been fully unable to feel the pulse of the nation at all. The report on 14 May that four Ministers would meet the PM over longstanding dissatisfactions concerning the manner by which the PSD dished out scholarships every year to prospective applicants reflects the lack of transparency and zero fairplay that have long bugged the ways of the PSD. Year after year, many bright students with extremely good academic results have been shown the exit whenever they went to apply for medical scholarships. Virtually all of them were minority community applicants. However, the government invariably trips over its own feet every year, being forced to employ doctors from overseas, many of whom are very unfamilar with local conditions and our local people. One or two would usually get into some kind of controversy in the course of their work. Remember the one who examined the exit end of the alimentary canal of the guy who alleged that he was sodomised by a certain somebody ? His brief post-examination report generated a lot of cloudy smoke soon afterward. The dissatisfaction towards the PSD is not new or recent. There have been a stream of complaints against the actions of the PSD in denying scholarships to deserving applicants year after year for many decades already. Their actions are really tantamount to like cutting the nose to spite the face. Bright students who are citizens of the country are denied the chance to pursue their dreams but foreigners are given the opportunity to fill vacant posts locally. And this has been the norm for many many years now. In a newspaper report dated 3 July 2001, one SPM top scorer who was also placed inside the top 1 % of the world's ranking for the NSW-HSC exam could not even obtain aid from the PSD despite the fact that she was also the child of a single parent. The story can be found on pg 3 of the July 3 2001 issue of The Star. In another June 18 2002 issue of the same paper, pg 24, is a letter consoling another bright young applicant who also failed to obtain help from the PSD despite having scored 13 A1s in his SPM.

In yet another letter published in the same paper dated June 14 2005 pg 29, the writer lamented on the PSD's bad tendency to give out help to applicants who possessed lower grades but rejected those with very outstanding ones. The typical case of selective discrimination. And in another one more issue, July 17 2008, pg N49, the writer reflected on the racially-inclined policies of the PSD whereby the minority communities were subjected to a certain percentage quota with the result that many very good applicants got rejected solely because of their skin colour. All this is ample proof of the racial polarisation policy practised by the little Napoleons inside the PSD with no regard at all to the official stand of the federal power. Racial discrimination should be a thing of the past and the federal authorites should now take all necessary steps to force the PSD to toe the line. Bring transparency into the PSD and do away with all unfair criteria found within the selection process currently employed by the PSD. The government cannot eat and keep its cake at the same time. If the government wants a united and progressive and harmonious society in Malaysia, then discriminatory practices and policies must be discontinued. And that includes shaking up the dinosaurs inside the PSD. The PSD cannot be allowed to continue harming our young citizens. We live only once and we are young only once. The government must remember that. Act now.