This paper is concerned with how numbers on ethnicity in Malaysia have been used to guide policy on social integration, and how their absence is no less informative of policy priorities and impact. Of interest here is rather what these numbers (taken at face value) tell us about policy efficacy with respect to national unity in the context of the NEP. Our analyses indicate that the primary focus of government policies, including their implementation, monitoring and assessment, has been the achievement of the twin strategies of the NEP (reduction of poverty and restructuring of society) rather than the stated primary goal of national unity. This implementation of the NEP, in the long run, has had the effect of contributing to the very problems that its strategies aimed to solve. It is imperative that the strategies of the NEP be re-defined in line with the visionary objective of Tun Abdul Razak. Counting ethnicity and government policies must now be directed toward the primary goal of the NEP so that ethnic counting is no longer about benefiting a narrowly defined group but benetitting all Malaysians, especially the lower socioeconomic group, regardless of ethnicity.