I refer to the letters APs - easy money for the skeletons and APs bad but race-based house pricing worse .

Both writers are correct that we have institutionalised a basic discrimination policy against all Malaysians enabling the rich to get richer at little or no effort and creating a simple avenue for corruption and cronyism to develop into a malignant cancer.

Let's look at the Approved Permits (APs) scheme first. It was first touted as a simple means to enable the poor bumiputera to get started in business as promoted under the NEP.

Suppose each AP is worth RM5, 000 and each recipient is eligible for 20 APs, the benefit is worth RM100,000. Now that should be good enough for anyone to start improving his life choices.

It does not make one a millionaire but was the NEP created for that purpose? If 100,000 APs are granted each year in batches of 20, the number of beneficiaries would be 2,000 annually and over a 30-year period, 60,000 Malaysians would have received assistance under the AP scheme.

This would have been a once-in-a-lifetime assistance and no one should be allowed to apply a second time as the one-time benefits would have been sufficient to start a small business or at least put a child through university.

Therefore it is imperative in the name of good governance and transparency that we are provided with the names of all AP recipients since 1970 so that we can decide if the AP scheme has been abused. For example, have 60,000 Malaysians benefitted or 60? Or six?

Regarding race-based house pricing, this benefit should be abolished as it creates distortions in the housing industry. After 30 plus years of the NEP the government, which has handed out such generous largesse to its cronies and related parties, still has the audacity to proclaim that the NEP has not succeeded and still requires another 20 years to remedy the weaknesses.

The private sector should not be involved anymore in such unfair practices where non-bumi house purchasers are made to subsidise the bumi house purchaser who may already be a millionaire many times over.

This discount should only be given to the first-time buyer of a medium-cost flat and administered through the Housing and Local Government Ministry so that proper records are maintained.

The accumulated excesses of the NEP can be seen in the plethora of problems we see in society today.