The Myth of Paying for Fairness?

It is a fact that better service comes with an extra price tag. Is it a myth that the right of being treated fairly also require additional costs?
In most situations, yes, because there are more and more deserving parties based on merits. As the nation grows, competency is common, knowledge based businesses spawned. Though everybody prefers to be priveleged, fairness is what they have to settle for.
This scenario is very common to the bidders of any government projects. Most of the tenders issued by the government clearly states the preferred bidders are Bumiputera companies.
This was the practice since the dawn of the New Economic Policy initiated by the late Tun Abdul Razak after realizing the marginalization of the Malays in the education and economic sectors, which resulted in the infamous May 13th incident.
Over the years the number successful Malay/Bumiputera entreprenuers grew progressively though there exist a large number of them plunged after reaching to the top.
The concerns grew as there are limited government fund to sustain the existing small and medium Bumiputera companies which totally rely on government projects.
To make things worse, to date, after the mid-term review of the 9th Malaysia plan, procurement of government assets in most departments are either slashed or freezed. Bumi companies are in deep trouble especially those who have existing contracts and have made the effort to stock their goods.
But on the other hand, concerns on the plights on these companies are not taken seriously by government agencies with the exceptions on certain sectors, construction, for instance. The rise in cost of building materials has caught the attention of the government which finally agree to cushion the rise in building material cost. But what about other sectors? Why only the construction sector being given due attention?
In their quest to survive, these small time and medium sized companies tend to be more creative to catch the attention of the departments. While all of them are free to voice out their problems, only few managed to being listened to. How? Basically, probably the principle of material interest may hold true. Or maybe, the 'why should I favour you?' syndrome ignites. In most cases, impossible to prove, but it exists.
So now, is it still a myth that one may have to pay to have fairness?