Keadilan’s (and Malaysia’s) Shining Stars

By
M. Bakri Musa

www.bakrimusa.com

Great organizations have great leaders. Everyone recognizes that. Less appreciated is that to maintain its greatness an organization must actively nurture its next generation of leaders. Failure to do so would doom the organization.

            The late Tun Razak was acutely aware of this crucial aspect of leadership. In his frequent visits to the districts he was always on the look out for talent. On spotting one, he would bring that promising individual back to headquarters for what we would call today “fast tracking.” Likewise Jack Welch, the legendary chief executive of GE. Whenever he toured the various units, he would ask those divisional heads to name two or three of their promising underlings. He would then ask those managers what they were doing to nurture the talents they had under their wings.

            As a corollary to my observation, you can tell much about the potential for future greatness of an organization by looking at its next tier of leaders. It is for this reason that I am bullish on the future of Keadilan. The party is blessed with an abundance of young talent.

            Currently in the news is its chief strategist, Rafizi Ramli. It is a measure of the caliber of the young leaders in Keadilan that Rafizi’s rising status does not diminish the other shining stars. Nurul Izzah Anwar, Nik Nazmi Ahmad and Sim Tze Szin are among the many stars that glitter Keadilan’s sky. That augurs well for the future of not only Keadilan but also the nation.

            The challenge for current Keadilan leaders is to keep these bright stars shining, for they in turn would attract others into their orbit. Bright talents attract other even brighter ones. They are not like dim candles; the only way to make a dim candle shine brighter (or appear so) is to snuff out the other candles. Bright stars welcome competition, for together they form an even brighter galaxy to light up the evening sky.

            Except for Tze Szin, now Penang state assemblyman, I have never met the others. I knew Tze Szin when he was a graduate student and later an engineer in Silicon Valley. His quiet, unassuming but effective leadership clearly shone even then. I recognized his exceptional qualities when he sought my advice on attending an American law school. Such an enquiry from an American would not have surprised me, but for someone from Malaysia who had been brought up under our regimented education system with its trademark forced early streaming, that reflected a mind capable of extraordinary thinking, unencumbered by traditions and expectations. Even more remarkable was the fact that he already had a graduate degree in engineering at the time!

            Tze Szin aspired to play a major leadership role and knew the supremacy of the rule of law; hence his interest in pursuing law. I assured him that one need not have to be trained as a lawyer to appreciate this fact. On the contrary we have many examples of those formally trained in law and yet would later be as leader its greatest abuser. Philippines’ Marcos was not the only example, though he was easily the most egregious.

            I knew Nik Nazmi, a King’s College honors law graduate, through his book, Moving Forward: Malays of the 21st Century. In my review of that volume I wrote, “At the risk of discomfiting Nik, I am tempted to compare his book to one written nearly 40 years ago by another not-so-young politician. It is not so much a comparison as a contrast. Where Mahathir’s The Malay Dilemma is shrill and emotional, Nik’s Moving Forward is cerebral and rational. While Mahathir irritates, Nik Azmi persuades; while Mahathir excoriates, Nik conciliates. Nik beckons us to share his dreams of Malaysia.” Mahathir on the other hand, imposed his on us. Nik is now a state assemblyman in Selangor.

            I judge political leaders not by their soaring rhetoric or oratorical flourishes but on the merit of their ideas and the clarity of their thinking. Nik Nazmi is definitely a promising political leader.

            As for Nurul Izzah, she, like Nik Nazmi, is barely 30 and already a Member of Parliament. She won it on her first try at elective office, trumping a veteran and then-popular woman minister. It is to be noted that Lembah Pantai, Nurul’s district, comprised the University of Malaya campus and the upscale Bungsar area. Meaning, her well-educated and sophisticated constituents were swayed less by titles and promises, more by substance and capability.

A Young Tun Razak

Then there is Rafizi Ramli. If there is one person who has caused the Barisan government much embarrassment today it would be Rafizi. If Barisan, specifically UMNO, were to do badly in the next general elections, much of the credit would have to go to him, specifically his dogged pursuit of the National Feedlot Corporation scandal involving the family of Women’s Minister Shahrizat Jalil as well as UMNO and the Barisan government.

            Rafizi’s tenaciousness matches his meticulousness in his pursuit of that national mess. Then in a brilliant display of strategy, he released the details in tantalizing bits and pieces, lulling his opponents. Shahrizat, her family, and UMNO leaders fell right into his trap.

            When the first brief details were revealed, NFC officials quickly responded with their vigorous denials. Then having successfully lured them into the trap, Rafizi pounced upon them by revealing even more facts, forcing them to essentially recant their earlier denials. Continuing to underestimate Rafizi, they put forth another vigorous line of defense, only to be demolished by yet another revelation from him. Rafizi made them appear unbelievably stupid, embarrassingly incompetent, or both, quite apart from possibly breaking the law.

            When Rafizi released the fact of the purchase of luxury condos, NFC officials initially denied it in and tried to gain the offensive by belittling Rafizi, only to quickly backtrack when he released even more specific details. This time they tried to rationalize the purchase as prudent “investment” decision!

            The NFC managers were not the only ones snared by Rafizi. The Chief of Police initially dismissed the allegation only to backtrack and reopen the investigation. This time those wise investigating officers went public with their recommendation that NFC officials be charged for criminal breach of trust, essentially preempting his superiors who might be tempted to whitewash his work.

            All these conflicting accounts prompted Law Minister Nazri to tell NFC officials to essentially shut up, a very unusual advice from a typically babbling politician.

            Rafizi’s biggest trap was to trigger Shahrizat’s filing a defamation suit against him. In a civil suit, in contrast to a criminal one, both plaintiffs and defendants are subject to cross examinations. Now Rafizi will have a forum where those involved would have to testify under oath and in open court. This libel suit may prove to be the most effective way to expose the corrupt nexus of politics, government and business that so blighted our nation over the decades.

            In terms of amount, at RM250 million this NFC scandal is but small change as compared to Bank Negara’s foreign exchange debacle or the current Port Klang Development scandal, for example. What it lacks in monetary value however, is more than made up by the sordid details that would be exposed, especially the unbelievable greed and pure hubris of those UMNO Putras.

            Rafizi Ramli very much reminds me of a young Tun Razak. Like him, Rafizi is from a village in east coast Malaysia (Trengganu for Rafizi, Pahang for Razak). Both were top students at Malay College, and both were sent to Britain on a scholarship to pursue professional studies, law for Razak and engineering for Rafizi. Again, both had promising careers before giving them up for politics. Razak could have been the first “native” Governor-General of British Malaysia. He gave that up to join UMNO at a time when there was no promise of success or material rewards. Rafizi had a “fast track” career in Petronas and could have been its future CEO but gave that up to join Keadilan at a time when the party had no political power.

            Razak’s formidable adversary was the white-skinned, deeply-entrenched colonial-minded British; Rafizi’s was equally formidable – those brown-skinned, deeply-entrenched feudal-minded warlords in UMNO masquerading as Malay nationalists.

            It would be easy to dismiss Rafizi as another freelance muckraker or to call him names, as Women’s Minister Sharizat did. It would be worse to underestimate him, as many in UMNO are. Those involved in this shameful greed of the NFC scandal would be better off answering the specifics exposed by Rafizi, and do so without insulting the intelligence of Malaysians.

            Rafizi could not have secured those details and documents without the help of “insiders.” That they have chosen to entrust him reflects their confidence in him. That is the measure of this bright young man.

            Rafizi Ramli, Nik Nazmi, Tze Szin and Nurrul Izzah are not only Keadilan’s shining stars, they are also Malaysia’s. It is young leaders of their caliber who will guide Malaysia to a bright future.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 5 March 2012, 11:09 am and is filed under
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Lupakan masalah masa lampau, kata Muhyiddin

— Aspan Alias

The Malaysian Insider

Mar 05, 2012

5 MAC — Muhyiddin Yassin tidak bersetuju untuk bercakap tentang kesilapan dan kesalahan Barisan Nasional (BN) yang lampau. Katanya apa yang perlu dilakukan sekarang ialah untuk memandang kehadapan dan lupakan masalah lampau.

Beliau memberikan komen ini sebagai reaksi kepada permohonan maaf Najib Razak yang dibuatnya di Alor Setar dua hari yang lepas. Tindakan Najib berpatah sikap itu mendapat banyak reaksi ramai dan menjadi bahan perbualan disetiap tempat kita pergi. Di setengah tempat ianya menjadi bahan jenaka rakyat.

Seperti Najib, kata-kata Muhyiddn itu mempunyai satu ciri yang sama; iaitu mengakui yang BN telah banyak melakukan kesalahan dan kesilapan yang datang dari masalah kelemahan kepimpinan BN selama masa mereka membuat salah dan silap itu. Muhyiddin tidak mahu mengingati cerita lama yang telah membuatkan BN hampir tersungkur dihadapan mata rakyat.

Maksud kata-kata Muhyidin itu, ialah untuk rakyat lupakan segala kesalahan BN dan Umno selama ini dan dalam waktu kita menanti kedatangan PRU ini, Muhyiddin meminta rakyat memberikan sokongan kepada Umno dalam PRU nanti. Pendeknya BN boleh membuat kesalahan dan maafkan mereka. Apabila pilihanraya sampai kita berikan sokongan kepada mereka lagi. Itu sebenarnya maksud Muhyiddin.

Lagi satu maksud Muhyiddin jangan undi PR walaupun belum pernah memerintah, apatah lagi untuk membuat silap dan salah seperti yang dilakukan oleh BN. Dengan kata-kata lain hanya BN boleh melakukan segala kesalahan terhadap rakyat dan hanya BN sahaja yang boleh dimaafkan dan terus diberikan kuasa memerintah sampai hari kiamat. Jika PR hendak melakukan sesuatu yang baik Umno akan kata yang PR belum tentu lagi baik dan bertanya kepada kita yang “entah-entah lebih teruk dari Umno”.

Tetapi mereka hendak mempertahankan parti yang sudah tentu melakukan segala gejala buruk untuk negara dengan memberikan alasan yang PR belum tentu memberikan pentadbiran yang lebih baik. Pemimpin-pemimpin Umno dan penyokongnya mahukan rakyat memberikan sokongan kepada mereka walaupun mereka telah melakukan kesalahan besar dengan alasan yang PR belum tentu baiknya. Alasan yang menghina perasaan rakyat yang berfikir ini membuatkan Umno telah menunjukan sikap yang “arrogant” dan memporbodohkan rakyat yang mempunyai pemikiran.

Najib dan Muhyiddin meminta kita sentiasa memaafkan mereka walaupun melakukan perkara-perkara yang buruk. BN mahukan kita menjadi seperti Tuhan yang sentiasa memaafkan umatnya yang membuat kesalahan dan mereka (Umno) sentiasa mahu melakunkan watak syaitan kerana mendapat laba yang besar. Setelah melakunkan watak syaitan, mereka memohon ampun dan maaf terus-terusan. Najib dan Muhyiddin mahukan kita menjadi “net giver” seperti Tuhan. Siapa yang memahami madsud saya boleh lah sambung kata-kata saya tadi itu.

Tetapi hakikatnya dibawah ini telah ramai rakyat yang sedar dan mahu mengikut apa yang diperintah Tuhan dan apa yang terkandung didalam Quran, kitab suci agama kita. Itu sebabnya telah ada trend yang jelas mereka tidak mahu lagi mengikut jejak Qarun tetapi mahu mengikut Quran.

Sesiapa yang sedar dan menerima kenyataan, yang membuat kesalahan besar akan tetap mendapat pembalasan. Tetapi itu juga adalah hak Tuhan yang Maha Esa. Bukan kita yang menentukan dosa pahala sesiapa. Hanya ada setengah pihak yang telah menjatuhkan hukum yang saya ini adalah munafik dan kafir kerana menyertai DAP.

Saya jawab juga sikit-sikit mereka ini. Saya kata, “kita jumpa sahaja di yaumil mahsya” kerana kita tidak tahu siapa sebenarnya yang kafir. Hanya Tuhan sahaja yang menentukan siapa yang beriman dan siapa yang kafir.

Tetapi masih ada yang mahu mangambilalih kerja Tuhan walaupun tanggungjawabnya sebagai ummah tidak diselesaikannya, apa yang kita hendak buat. Tengok sajalah… kalau tidak tahan melihatnya kita hanya beristighfar sajalah sementara menunggu pilihanraya nanti untuk melakukan pembetulan. — aspanaliasnet.blogspot.com

                This entry was posted on Monday, 5 March 2012, 9:19 pm and is filed under
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Najib’s apology for BN’s mistakes – a test of Najib’s authority and leadership as Prime Minister and UMNO President

“Najib apologies for BN’s past mistakes” (3/3/12)

“PM”s apology shows humility, says Muhyiddin” (4/3/12)

“Umno info chief: BN needs mandate to fix its mistakes” (4/3/12)

These three Malaysiakini headlines in 24 hours raise a thousand questions  – whether the Prime Minister is genuine and sincere in extending an apology for Barisan Nasional’s past mistakes, what exactly are the mistakes Najib is apologising for but most poignant of all, Najib’s authority and leadership as Prime Minister and UMNO President.

Right from the beginning, I have taken the position that Najib’s apology for Barisan Nasional’s past mistakes should be accepted, provided it is  genuine and sincere.

My position has not changed.  This was why I said in my media statement yesterday that Najib should be given an opportunity to enumerate the past BN mistakes for which he is extending an apology and his undertaking not to repeat them.

Although Najib said in Kedah on Saturday that he apologised for BN’s past mistakes, he failed to identify or particularise them whether it is for the abuses of power, corruption, cronyism  and lack of accountability which had increasingly worsened under the Mahathir, Abdullah and Najib premierships; the destruction of the independence, impartiality, integrity and professionalism of major national institutions whether the civil service, the judiciary, police, elections commission or anti-corruption agency; the worsening race and religious polarisation in the country or for the illegal and undemocratic power grab in Perak state from Pakatan Rakyat in February 2009.

But the Prime Minister was not allowed to demonstrate that he was sincere and genuine in making the apology by enumerating the BN’s past mistakes, as the Deputy Prime Minister and Deputy UMNO President Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yasin stepped into the limelight the very next day to rule out all such possibility, declaring that Najib’s apology shows humility and that “the crucial thing now was to look ahead”.

As if Muhyiddin’s message was not clear enough, another UMNO leader, its information chief, Datuk Ahmad Maslan declared that  “UMNO needs mandate to fix its mistakes” – which was an open and public rubbishing of Najib’s “apology” as it tantamounts to a proclamation that UMNO need not and would not be able to correct its “mistakes” unless Barisan Nasional wins a two-thirds parliamentary majority in the next general elections!

This reminds me of the occasion two years ago when Najib’s 1Malaysia policy to create a Malaysia where every Malaysian regards himself/herself as Malaysian first and race, religion, geography and socio-economic status second was publicly rubbished and repudiated by his Deputy Prime Minister who declared that he was Malay first and Malaysian second.

Najib’s apology for BN’s past mistakes has again been reduced into a farce by the other UMNO leaders led by Muhyiddin.

This has also been the fate of Najib’s other grandiloquent programmes like the New Economic Model.

The ball is in Najib’s court. Is he going to spell out the BN’s mistakes for which he  is promising not to repeat them so that Malaysians can decide whether his apology is genuine and sincere or is he going to succumb to the UMNO voices led by Muhyiddin that there is no need to particularise the mistakes and that the “fixing” of the mistakes is even conditional on the BN winning the “mandate” in the next elections?

How will Najib acquit himself in this test of his authority and leadership as Prime Minister and UMNO President on the eve of his third anniversary as sixth Prime Minister of Malaysia?

                This entry was posted on Monday, 5 March 2012, 1:13 pm and is filed under
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Public forum – PEMANDU and the ETP: Truly Transformative or Business as Usual?

by
Liew Chin Tong

Is the ETP truly transformative or is it just another expensive Public Relations exercise? The Rakyat has a right to know.

The government of Malaysia has invested a significant amount of resources and energy towards its Economic Transformation Program (ETP) which is currently being led by Senator Datuk Idris Jala , CEO of the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (PEMANDU). According to a media report, RM66 million was paid to various consultants to establish PEMANDU. And this agency is not cheap to maintain. It’s eight directors have an average salary of RM30,000 a month each while an associate director each receive an average of RM23,300 per month. With this amount of taxpayer’s dollars being spent, the Rakyat has a right to know the concrete results which the ETP is supposed to deliver.

More important than how much PEMANDU costs is the ETP’s goal to transform Malaysia into a high income country. Here, PEMANDU has set very ambitious goals for itself – RM48,000 GNI per capita, 3.3 million new jobs, RM1.4 trillion in new investments, annual growth rate of 6% per annum, from now until 2020. In the eight ETP Updates announced by PEMANDU from October 2010 to November 2011, its transformation roadmap seems to be going on very well, with almost all of its targets achieved.

However, when the ETP is examined in greater detail, as was done in an ongoing series entitled “A Critique of the ETP” by the Research for Social Advancement (REFSA), we find that the ETP is not as transformative as it sounds. For example, we would have reached RM48,000 GNI per capita with or without the ETP. And reaching this target does not mean that we will be twice as rich in 2020 as we were in 2009.
 In addition, many of the Entry Point Projects (EPPs) announced in the ETP Updates have been in the pipeline before the existence of the ETP. How transformative is the ETP when a lot of what it does is to announce the completion or commitment of already pre-existing projects such as the Johor Premium Outlet or the St Regis Hotel?

Even more worrying is the fact that some in the corporate sector seems to be taking advantage of the ETP in order to gain more access to public resources. One such example is the integrated eco-resort in Sabah under the Karambunai group, which ballooned from an initial RM3 billion budget in the 2010 budget to RM6.7 billion in the ETP Roadmap report to RM9.6 billion when it was announced as an EPP in 2011. Projects such as these are entitled to public funding of up to 10% of development costs under the 10th Malaysian Plan. The higher the expected development costs, the higher the public funding. Is PEMANDU indirectly giving a stamp of approval for this public funding by naming these projects as EPPs? Again, there is very nothing transformative about some elements in the corporate sector making use of public funds for their own private gain.

Finally, the EPPs with high investment values which have been announced thus far are concentrated in a small number of NKEAs, namely Oil, Gas and Energy and the Greater KL / Klang Valley NKEAs. Two EPPs, Petronas RAPID project in Pengerang, Johor and the MRT project in KL / Selangor, contribute nearly RM100 billion of the RM177 billion of committed investments announced thus far. Just one NKEA – the Oil, Gas and Energy NKEA – accounts for 53% committed investments. The top 10 EPPs (out of 104 announced) account for 140 billion or 80% of the announced investments. What this means is that a small group of workers and corporations will disproportionately benefit from the ETP.

REFSA has calculated, using PEMANDU’s own figures, that only 21% of the output generated from the ETP will go towards the wages of workers while 74% will go into the pockets of corporations. Again, there is nothing very transformative about creating an economy which disproportionately benefits the already well-off and the large corporations. As a high income nation, more of our country’s economic output should be distributed in the form of wages to workers, not profits to corporations.

This covers only a small part of many of Pakatan Rakyat’s concerns over the Economic Transformation Program (ETP).

We will explain our concerns in greater detail in a public forum entitled: PEMANDU and the ETP: Truly Transformative or Business as Usual?

The details for this forum are as follows:

Date and Time: 8pm, Wednesday, 7 March, 2012

Venue: Auditorium, Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall (KLSCAH)

Speakers:

YB Dr. Dzulkefly Ahmad, PAS MP for Kuala Selangor

YB Liew Chin Tong, DAP MP for Bukit Bendera

Razifi Ramli, Head of Strategy, PKR

Teh Chi-Chang, Executive Director, REFSA

Moderator: Dr. Ong Kian Ming

For further enquiries, please email:
[email protected]

                This entry was posted on Monday, 5 March 2012, 10:36 pm and is filed under
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Electoral reform: Towards fairness and a level playing field

— Francis Loh

The Malaysian Insider

Mar 06, 2012

MARCH 6 — From the outset, we wish to clarify that Aliran is a member of the Bersih 2.0 coalition and one of our exco member sits in its Steering Committee.

In this regard we fully endorse the Eight Demands of the coalition to usher in free, fair and clean elections in Malaysia. We support Bersih 2.0’s call that these demands should be addressed before the next elections are held. We have also gone through Bersih 2.0’s submission to the Select Committee and fully support its recommendations.

For Aliran, elections in Malaysia have been generally free although there have occurred instances when voters have complained that they were denied their right to vote on polling day because their names had been removed from the rolls, or that they had been transferred to other polling stations or districts without their awareness. In the last election there were also allegations that some had not had the opportunity to vote because the stations had not remained open long enough for people to cast their votes. However, there have rarely occurred instances when ballots boxes have gone missing or that large numbers of people have been prevented from voting.

That said, there remains a major problem with Malaysian elections: they have not been conducted fairly or cleanly. Malaysians are well aware of the non-level playing field that characterises our electoral process. As elections approach, we see clearly the Barisan Nasional’s (BN) near monopoly and manipulation of the mainstream media, its access to and abuse of federal government facilities and funds, and its possession of huge electoral war chests, which allow the BN component parties to outspend its challengers.

In this submission, we would like to highlight some of these instances of unfairness as they relate to the so-called 3 M’s (media, money and machinery). We shall offer some recommendations on how these can be overcome.

A related problem of unfairness is how these votes are translated into seats. We shall not elaborate on this aspect of unfairness except to emphasise that we agree with the points raised in Bersih 2.0’s memorandum submitted to the Parliamentary Select Committee. Clearly, if the principle of one-person one-vote is to be maintained, the electoral constituencies must be apportioned among the 13 states according to the population size of the various states.

Subsequently, the total number of seats within each state should be delineated such that the disparity among constituencies be not more than 15 per cent from the average constituency size as recommended by the Reid Commission and which was apparently followed by the first head of the Election Commission in 1959, prior to the introduction of the constitutional amendment of 1962, which also introduced Schedule 13 that, among others, restored the 2:1 weighting given to rural constituencies, before its removal altogether in the 1973 constitutional amendment. We believe that this point has been well made by Bersih 2.0 and by others. It remains for Parliament to have the political will to put this matter right and to ensure fairness in the translation of votes into seats. — aliran.com

* Dr Francis Loh is president of Aliran

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 6 March 2012, 7:10 pm and is filed under
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How Effective Has the Enforcement of the Whistleblower Protection Act 2010(WPA) Been in Malaysia?

by Lim Guan Eng

Political Will, National Commitment And Even Personal Obligation Rather Than A Single Law Such As The WPA Will Determine Whether Integrity In Leadership Centred On An Ethically Based Society Can Be Established

It gives me pleasure to speak to you today at this 4th Annual Corporate Governance Summit organised here in Kuala Lumpur. I have been asked to speak on the issue of the Whistleblowers Protection Act 2010 (or “WPA”) which was passed by the federal Parliament and has been in force in Malaysia since December 2010.

Many of us here who are interested in corporate governance will have been captivated by the ongoing saga of alleged corruption and mismanagement in the RM250million National Feedlot Centre project. This is a corporate governance issue as well as a national governance issue. The question is will there be any action taken or will be it just be another case of of  the RM2.52 billion losses incurred by MAS without anyone being punished and even those that caused losses such as Tan Sri Tajuddin Ramli being let off the hook.

Danaharta had agreed to settle with Tan Sri Tajudin on February 14 without enforcing a High Court decision on December 2009 in Danaharta’s favour ordering Tan Sri Tajudin to pay RM589.14 million to Danaharta, over a loan taken to purchase MAS. Where is the moral hazard?

I think I can summarise my view of the WPA by saying that is not so much a Whistleblowers Protection Act but rather a “Whispering to the Police Act”.
When one blows a whistle, everyone can hear. This Act is different. It only protects those who report to the police or other government enforcement agencies under conditions of secrecy. Under the WPA, a whistleblower is supposed to make a report to an enforcement agency such as the police. If the police don’t take any action, that is tough. If the police decide that action should be taken, but the Attorney-General decides not to prosecute, that again is tough. All you have as a whistleblower is the right to be notified of the authorities’ decision, and the right not to have any detrimental action taken against you.

Under the New South Wales Public Interest Disclosure Act, if no action is taken by the enforcement agencies, a whistleblower will be protected if he brings the matter to the attention of a Member of Parliament or the media. In the UK, once he has reported the wrongdoing, or if he reasonably fears retribution from his employer, there is no restriction at all on whom a whistleblower can notify as long as the disclosure in good faith and judged by an employment tribunal to have been reasonable in the circumstances.

However, in Malaysia, it is an offence punishable by a fine of up to RM50,000 and imprisonment of up to 10 years if a whistleblower or the person receiving or investigating the report discloses any information about the person accused of wrongdoing, or any other information disclosed by the whistleblower, to a third party.

Under the WPA, a whistleblower does not enjoy any protection if he decides to communicate his allegation of wrongdoing to a person other than a government enforcement agency. And under the Act, even if the report is made to a government enforcement agency, the protection can be revoked if the enforcement agency is of the opinion that the report “principally involves questioning the merits of government policy, including policy of a public body”, or if the whistleblower commits an offence under the Act, such as disclosing the contents of his report to a third party.

I think we can all see that the WPA would have had absolutely no effect in the present cows and condos scandal, as it would not have protected any whistleblower who believed that the Malaysian public deserved to know about how a RM250 million soft loan given for the rearing of cattle was used to buy luxury condominiums in Bangsar and in Singapore. Without any media and public pressure, it is clear that no action would ever be taken and the allegations of wrongdoing in the NFC issue would simply have hushed up by the authorities.

But yet another issue that faces any whistleblower in this country is the fact that any information gained from government sources is routinely deemed to be an official secret, the disclosure of which is punishable under the Official Secrets Act 1972 by imprisonment of a minimum of one year and a maximum of seven years. This is not by any means a hypothetical risk. In 1979, my own father was convicted under the Official Secrets Act when he revealed the purchase price paid by the Government in a Swiss arms deal, though the minimum punishment of one year’s imprisonment was not yet then in place.

Such information should be made public. Whilst any person who has been unjustly defamed or maligned by malicious and false police reports should have the right to sue, the authorities should make available to the truthful whistleblower or the “lying” whistleblower as well as to the public all information obtained from such investigations. Even I was sued by the late Tan Sri Eric Chia when I exposed the RM 5 billion Perwaja scandal but I did not obtain the requisite information from the authorities.

The test should always be whether there is real public loss of funds. If there is then the protective safeguards should be in force. If none, then the whistleblower is merely whistling in the wind. More importantly, the MACC or any body authorised to conduct such investigations must be independent, possess powers to prosecute and free from any political oversight and accountable only to Parliament.

It is obvious to me, and I hope also to you, that the WPA will always be ineffective in fighting corruption and corporate wrongdoing involving the Government as long as the Official Secrets Act is not abolished and the culture of secrecy in Government is not replaced by a culture of transparency. Since 2008, both Selangor and Penang have enacted Freedom of Information Enactments that gives the rakyat the right to demand information from the Government instead of giving the Government the right to hide information from the rakyat.

In Penang, we have replaced direct negotiations with open tenders for all major government contracts, and introduced public asset declarations for all elected State Executive Councillors. The Penang state government does not expect any praise for our political commitment and personal obligation to promote integrity in leadership and transparency. However neither did we expect to be pilloried for politicising the public declaration of assets and even allowing Ministers to be endangered if they are compelled to follow suit.

Is our crime or public safety or the performance of Malaysian police so appalling that even Ministers are not safe if they publicly declare public assets? Or should I be walking around under police protection since I am endangered as I have declared my assets. This endangered argument is nothing more than a silly pretext by Ministers who want to hide their assets from public view. Those who hide their assets behind this “endangered” argument only arouse public suspicion that they have unexplained or unaccounted assets.

But to return to the Act that is the subject of this Session, I am afraid to have to conclude that the WPA unfortunately appears to be the product of the old mindset in this country that values secrecy above everything else. I believe that it is now high time for a culture of openness and transparency to become the norm in Malaysia, both in the corporate world and in the world of Government.

The lack of protective safeguards and proactive investigation in the WPA makes no difference for genuine whistleblowers. As long as there is no leadership by example and no moral outrage against those who refuse to comply with international norms of proper behaviour and trustworthy conduct of public assets, laws such as the WPA will only be an empty symbol of our fight against corruption.

Despite laws such as the WPA, Malaysia has suffered a precipitous decline in the rankings of Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index from 56 in 2010 to 60 last year. For this reason it is political will, national commitment and even personal obligation rather than a single law such as the WPA will determine whether integrity in leadership centred on an ethically based society can be established. Thank you.

(Speech by Chief Minister of Penang at the 4th Annual Corporate Governance Summit Kuala Lumpur on 6 March 2012)

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 6 March 2012, 4:46 pm and is filed under
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Mahathir’s Disastrous Financial Speculation

By
Our Correspondent
 | Monday, 05 March 2012

Asia Sentinel

A murky and embarrassing case is closed, hiding top government officials’ involvement

Sometime over the next few days, a court in Kuala Lumpur will put the finishing touches to an agreement that allows Tajudin Ramli, the former head of Malaysian Airline System, not only to walk away from charges that he had allegedly looted the airline of tens of millions of US dollars but with an RM580 million (US$293.2 million) out-of-court settlement from the government.

It appears to be a settlement that the government would rather keep to itself. At the heart of the agreement with Tajudin is a convoluted story that began as long ago as the 1980s when Malaysia’s central bank, Bank Negara Malaysia, at the urging of then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, began speculating aggressively in global foreign exchange markets, at one time running up exposure rumored to be in the region of RM270 billion — three times the country’s gross domestic product and more than five times its foreign reserves at the time.

Eventually, playing with the big boys came home to roost. In 1992 and 1993, Mahathir became convinced he could make billions of ringgit by taking advantage of a British recession, rising unemployment and a decision by the British government to float the pound sterling free of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

Mahathir ordered Bank Negara to buy vast amounts of pounds sterling on the theory that the British currency would appreciate once it floated. However, in what has been described as the greatest currency trade ever made, the financier and currency wizard George Soros’s Quantum hedge fund established short positions borrowing in pounds and investing in Deutschemark-denominated assets as well as using options and futures positions.

In all, Soros’s positions alone accounted for a gargantuan US$10 billion. Many other investors, sensing Quantum was in for the kill, soon followed, putting strenuous downward pressure on the pound. The collapse was inevitable. Quantum walked away with US$1 billion in a single day, earning Mahathir’s eternal enmity and earning Soros the title “the man who broke the Bank of England.”

Mahathir and Bank Negara, on the other hand, walked away with a US$4 billion loss, followed by another US$2.2 billion loss in 1993, the total equivalent of RM15.5 billion. Although the disastrous trades destroyed the entire capital base of Bank Negara, after first denying it had taken place, the then-Finance Minister Anwar Ibrahim repeatedly reassured parliament that the losses were only “paper losses” and, now that he is Opposition Leader and head of the Pakatan Rakyat opposition coalition, has managed to skate free of the controversy.

Eventually, the Finance Ministry had to recapitalize the central bank, almost unheard of for any government anywhere. It is reliably estimated that Bank Negara lost as much as US$30 billion in this and other disastrous currency trades, costing the head of the central bank and his currency trader deputy their jobs.

It was at one with Mahathir’s unfortunate penchant for believing he could beat the global financial system in other ways. In the early 1980s, at his behest the Malaysian government attempted to corner the tin market through Maminco Sdn Bhd, a dummy company set up to buy tin futures and physical tin to push up prices on the London Tin Market. Malaysia at that point was producing 31 percent of the world’s tin.

However, the rising prices as a result of Malaysia’s action caused miners to increase production in the other 69 percent of the tin world. At the same time the US government released its tin stockpile. The price collapsed, costing Malaysia RM1.6 billon with the subsequent low prices wrecking Malaysia’s tin industry. Mahathir has repeatedly railed against western governments for rigging the rules against him.

The attempt to corner the tin market and the subsequent loss established an interesting precedent in terms of what would take place with the speculation in the pound sterling. Rather than acknowledge the losses in the tin speculation, the government set up another dummy company called Makuwasa Sdn Bhd, creating new shares supposedly reserved for ethnic Malays which were allocated to the Employee Provident Fund, the country’s retirement fund for private and public workers. The plan was to sell these cheaply acquired shares at market price for a profit to cover Maminco’s losses. Finally, in 1986, Mahathir was forced to admit that Makuwasa was created to recoup the government’s losses from the Maminco debacle and to repay loans to Bank Bumiputra.

Fast forward to today and the out-of-court settlement between several government-linked companies and Tajudin Ramli, in which the government quietly cancelled Tajudin’s debt of RM840 million. It is believed to be the biggest such sum awarded in Malaysian history.

In 1994, according to affidavits that Tajudin filed in court he bought 32 percent of the shares of the government-controlled Malaysian Airline System at a price of RM8.00 at Mahathir’s behest – while the shares were trading at RM3.30 – and became executive chairman using funds from government-linked companies. According his allegations, the idea was to use the “profit” off the share sale to cover as much as possible of the forex losses by Bank Negara from Mahathir’s currency speculation.

When Tajudin took control of MAS in 1994 through his company, Naluri Bhd, MAS had a cash reserve in excess of RM600 million. Seven years later, in 2001, when the government bought back MAS for RM8 a share, the state-owned airline had accumulated losses in excess of RM8 billion. The government bought back an almost bankrupt airline for the same price that it sold to Tajudin.

In the welter of lawsuits and countersuits that eventually followed, including a RM13.46 billion statement of claim that Tajudini brought against a government-linked company involved in the mess, he alleged in his affidavit that it was Mahathir who had instructed him to acquire the stake to bail out Bank Negara.

Like Mahathir, the then 49-year-old Tajudin was a native of Alor Setar in Kedah state. He was regarded as a shining example of the bumi businessman that Mahathir wanted to foster to run the country and take the commanding heights of the economy back from the ethnic Chinese.

Unfortunately, according to a long list of whistle-blowers within the airline, he was also involved in looting it of tens of millions of dollars and very nearly putting it into bankruptcy before the government buyback. When officials not connected to the United Malays National Organization recommended prosecution, they came under fire that nearly ruined their careers and almost put them in jail.

According to allegations in documents made public in August of 2010, Tajudin colluded with three other MAS officers and directors through two nominee companies, one in Singapore and the other in Hong Kong, to establish a company called Advanced Cargo Logistics GmbH Germany, at Hahn Airport in Frankfurt, Germany, to provide ground-handling services for MAS.

According to a report filed in March 2007 to then-Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi by Ramli Yusuff, the director of Malaysia’s Commercial Crime Investigation Department and an official who seems to have been singularly incorruptible, “Tan Sri Tajudin Ramli was in control of MAS from 1994 to 2001. When he left MAS in 2001, MAS had accumulated losses in excess of RM8 billion (US$2.54 billion). Many projects were made under very suspicious circumstances.”

Ramli Yusuff’s report indicated a wide range of abuses that indicated Tajudin’s family was deeply involved in setting up shell companies to siphon off money from MAS ancillary operations. But instead of preferring charges against Tajudin, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) went after the inspecting officer, Ramli Yusuff instead for allegedly not declaring his assets, for misusing a police airplane, and abusing his power as a police officer, all of which were convincingly refuted.

Ramli, however, wasn’t the only one to go before the courts. His lawyer, Rosli Dahlan, who was also the lawyer for the airline itself, prepared Ramli’s defense against the criminal charges only to be arrested on charges of collaborating with Ramli. At one point, on a pretext that Rosli had mishandled a letter from the MACC, police officers invaded Rosli’s office, arrested and handcuffed him, then kept him in a cell overnight, refusing him medical treatment for injuries to his wrists from the handcuffs. They also refused his request to file a report against the arresting officers.

Rosli went to a court especially created to handle MACC cases, only to have the case fizzle out when a prosecutor announced that neither Rosli nor Ramli had been charged for corruption, having been summarily acquitted without having to put on a defense.

For his part, Rosli has charged that the MACC, Bank Negara, the government of Malaysia and the three major newspapers owned by the political parties had conspired with those in power to damage him for his attempts to defend Ramli.

And for his part, Tan Sri Tajudin Ramli remains uninvestigated and uncharged, and a continuing example of bumiputera power at the top of Malaysia’s political and social structure, apparently RM580 million richer.

It also brings into question Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s March 30, 2010, statement that the government “can no longer tolerate practices that support the behavior of rent-seeking and patronage, which have long tarnished the altruistic aims of the New Economic Policy.  Inclusiveness, where all Malaysians contribute and benefit from economic growth – must be a fundamental element of any new economic approach.”

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 6 March 2012, 12:34 pm and is filed under
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Revoking aid to disabled is ‘illegal’

Joseph Tawie | March 6, 2012

Free Malaysia Today

An assistant minister’s order to revoke aid to a disabled man in Sarawak because he supports the opposition contravenes the federal constitution.

KUCHING: A minister in Chief Minister Taib Mahmud’s cabinet may have landed himself in hot soup after it was revealed that he had instructed two departments to revoke government extended subsidiaries and welfare aid to a disabled man who had supported an opposition candidate.

Sarawak DAP, which lodged a police report against Assistant Minister of Agriculture (Research and Marketing) Mong Dagang last Friday, said the minister has contravened the law.

Mong had allegedly directed, through a letter, the Assistant Director of Agriculture in Sri Aman to cease all forms of subsidies to Frusis Lebi.

Party secretary Chong Chieng Jen said DAP want the police to investigate Mong for his ‘heinous crime’.

“This is a heinous crime, and what Mong has done is a contravention of the federal constitution which clearly provides that all citizens have basic right of association.

“This is a clear case of discrimination based on a person’s political affiliation. Discrimination is a contravention of the law.

“We want the police to take an immediate action,” said Chong.

Mong had allegedly issued the instruction to stop immediately all forms of agricultural subsidies to Lebi as he had openly supported an opposition candidate in the last state election.

Mong had said that Lebi had also allegedly flown the opposition flag and allowed his house to be as an operation room in the 2011 state election.

Following Mong’s letter, all forms of subsidies including Lebi’s welfare allowance were stopped from October last year.

Silent Mong

Chong, who is also Kota Sentosa assemblyman, said DAP will lodge a complaint with the Human Rights Malaysia (Suhakam) over the matter.

“This is something inhumane done by a BN Assistant Minister. What more to say on top of the letter there is a 1Malaysia logo.

“So much for being a a caring government,” he said.

Chong added that the party would also, if needed, make a formal report with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.

Reacting to Mong’s silence over media reports of his action, Chong said: “We are totally disgusted by the lack of response from Mong.

“He has made no comment over the issue. He tried to hide over this matter. This is something inhumane,” he said adding that he will raise the matter in parliament next week.

Chong said, Najib Tun Razak as the Prime Minister who is flogging the 1Malaysia spirit must answer for this uncaring act by Mong.

Najib must answer

Chong has also demanded that Mong, who is the youth chief in BN-Parti Rakyat Sarawak, explain his actions.

“I call on Mong to give a satisfactory explanation failing which he should resign, because a person of that nature is unfit in my opinion to hold office of assistant minister.

“Even to hold office as an elected representative, he is not only unfit as he discriminated against one of his constituents, but also has no compassion for a person who needs help from the government.

“He has total lack of understanding on the principle of democracy because by supporting the opposition, Frusis (Lebi) is not against government policy. He is only against BN.

“It appears that the BN policy is ‘BN first and people second’ and this is against 1Malaysia: People first performance now,” Chong said

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 6 March 2012, 4:36 pm and is filed under
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When old men start cheerleading

By
Gomen Man
 | March 06, 2012

The Malaysian Insider

MARCH 6 — Is it a coincidence that Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Tun Daim Zainuddin have suddenly taken to being cheerleaders of Datuk Seri Najib Razak and Umno?

Isn’t it a sad day when the prime minister has to rely on a former prime minister whose legacy is in tatters and a former finance minister who was more of a wheeler-dealer than a stellar minister for his affirmation?

Wasn’t it not too long ago that Mahathir was telling everyone who would listen that Umno was corrupt from top to bottom? In addition, it is an open secret that in private meetings he has chastised the indecisiveness of the Najib administration, the “leakages” and the grabby mentality of the politically-connected.

But apparently the man famous for bringing down leaders as opposed to nurturing them did not want to take down Najib ala Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi because he knows that any move to weaken Najib will only benefit his nemesis: Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

And nothing gives Mahathir and Daim the shivers more than the thought of Pakatan Rakyat coming to power and Anwar being the PM!

They believe that Anwar will want to settle scores and will open up files and set up commissions to investigate Mahathir and Daim, both the main players in Malaysia’s privatisation and skewed implementation of the NEP.

So everything has to be done to shore up Najib and Umno and that is why the old tag team is now out there telling us all sorts of rubbish about Umno and the prime minister.

Daim’s interview with Utusan was laughable especially the part where he said that Najib was ready to take off and lead the country to great heights! So what has he been doing since March 2009? Daydreaming?

Daim is a sought after commentator because apparently he predicted correctly that Pakatan Rakyat would make big gains in 2008. Well, so did Anwar.

In the midst of the 2008 campaign, Anwar said that Pakatan would win at least 75 parliamentary seats.

Latest reports show that the opposition will do just as well or even slightly better and that has got the old foxes Mahathir and Daim worried.

The last thing they want is a thorough examination of their deeds in office. So they will promote Najib and corrupt Umno to the hilt.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 6 March 2012, 12:29 pm and is filed under
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A Critique of the ETP: Part 6 – Socio-Economic Impact – The ETP will make the rich even richer

By
Dr. Ong Kian Ming BSc (LSE), MPhil (Cantab), PhD (Duke)

Teh Chi-Chang, CFA, BSc (Warwick), MBA (Cantab)

Refsa

The ETP will be bad for wage-earners.
 Workers’ share of national income under the ETP will be just 21%, compared to 28% currently. Wage-earners’ losses will be corporate gains. The corporate share of ETP income will be 74%, up from 67% today.  We fully support a vibrant corporate sector, but a healthy middle class is also crucial for sustainable high-income status. In developed economies, wages take about 50% of national income.

Income disparity will continue.
 The top 20% of households currently gobble up 49% of all household income. Under the ETP, the top 15% of wage-earners will tak 40% of all wages. The bottom 36% will have to make do with just 12% of total wages. It appears that KR1M thrift stores and Menu1Malaysia austerity meals will still be required in 2020 as the promised ‘high incomes’ benefit only a small minority.

The ETP will double our dependence on cheap foreign labour.
 If the ETP succeeds, there will be 16.2 million jobs and just 14 million workers to fill them. Who will fill the 2.2m million shortfall? The lower 1.2 million jobs the ETP creates will pay just RM1,100 in today’s terms.  We would hope that Malaysians take the higher-paying jobs, which means that low-paid, poorly-skilled foreign workers will be required.

‘E’ for socio-economic impact.
 The newly generated  wealth that the ETP promises to create will not produce a balanced economy where the fruits of its transformation are fairly shared by corporations, wage-earners and the government. Instead, it will do the reverse. The ETP may, in fact, exacerbate the already wide gap between the few rich Malaysians and the very many poor ones.

The ETP is elitist

The ETP
1
 claims that its projects and initiatives will transform Malaysia into a high-income economy. In 2020, GNI (gross national income) per capita will be RM48,000, and 3.3 million new medium to high-income jobs created. RM48,000 per year, or RM4,000 per month is far higher than the average RM2,500 income for the lower 80% of Malaysian households
2
. It seems most of us will be rich!

Sadly, the reverse is true. If PEMANDU
3
 achieves its ETP investment and income targets, only a small group of people and businesses will reap a disproportionate share of the new wealth, leaving the vast majority of Malaysians to pick up the crumbs, as it were.

We now focus on Socio-economic impact – the ‘S’ and the final criterion of the DEEDS framework with which we are evaluating the ETP. We are disheartened to find that the ETP will not transform real wages and the standard of living of the vast majority of Malaysians. Of the RM800 billion additional GNI  that the ETP targets
4
:

74% will go to corporate profits
5
. This is much larger than the already high 67% today. Put another way, the corporate share of gross national income is ¾ under the ETP, compared to ⅔ today;

Only 21% of the incremental income will go into the pockets of wage-earners. This is even lower than the 28% today. The ETP will in fact take us further away from the norm in high-income countries, where wage-earners’ share of national income tends to be closer to 50%;

The small share to wage-earners will be very unevenly distributed. The top 15% of wage-earners will take 40% of all wages. Put another way, the average real wage for the vast majority 85% of wage earners will be just RM2,300 per month in today’s terms;

The ETP will double our dependence on cheap foreign workers – at least an additional 2 million foreign workers will be required if the ETP is achieved.

It’s the bosses who will be the very big winners

Gross national income (GNI) is the value of the products and services produced by all Malaysians and Malaysian companies. As such, GNI comprises the profits generated by Malaysian companies and the incomes earned by the rakyat, and the portion of these profits and incomes that are taken by the government in the form of taxes.

The big winners of the ETP are entrepreneurs and capitalists:

RM594 billion of the incremental RM800 billion GNI that the ETP creates will go to corporate profits;

Just RM166 billion will go to wages for employees; and

RM40 billion will go to the government in net taxes
6
.

Figure 1: In 2009, employees took 28% of national income in Malaysia

Source: Razaman et al. As per footnote
7
.

Figure 2: In developed countries, employees’ share is closer to 50% of national income

Country

Wages as % of national income

Malaysia

28%

Singapore

40%

Korea

46%

Canada

51%

Japan

52%

UK

55%

US

57%

2005 data, except Singapore, 2007

Source: Government statistics, as per footnote
7
.

Figure 3: Only 21% of the GNI created by the ETP will go to employees

Sources: ETP data from ETP Roadmap and authors’ analysis. 2009 data as per Figure 1.

Figure 4: So the ETP will take us even further away from the norm of developed countries

Sources: As per Figures 1, 2 and 3

The 28% proportion of national output that is currently given to wages in Malaysia is relatively low. In contrast, approximately 40% and 46% of national outcome is given to wages in the newly developed countries of Singapore and Korea respectively. In the older developed countries of Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, this figure exceeds 50%
7
.

The ETP, if it goes as planned, will take us even further from developed status as just 21% of the incremental income it anticipates to generate will go to wages
8
. In fact, our calculation errs in PEMANDU’s favour. The 21% share is based on gross wages. It should rightfully be wages net of tax. We do not strip out taxes as the information is not available, but if we did, it would very likely take wages share to below 20% of the incremental income that the ETP targets to generate.

Sustainable high-income is about balance

We are not against enterprises and corporations making profits. We believe a healthy and vibrant private sector guided by a light government hand is the basis for sustainable economic growth.

However, sustainable economic growth is also dependent on a healthy and vibrant middle class. If Malaysia is to reach the status of a high-income nation, the share of national income that goes to wages should increase and should eventually approximate that of developed economies. It should be closer to 50% of GNI rather than the 21% or less level that the ETP targets.

In addition, the ETP does little to address the income chasm in Malaysia. The top 20% of households in Malaysia currently gobble up 49%, or nearly half, of household income
9
. The bottom 40% of households make do with just 15% of all household income. The World Bank says income inequality in Malaysia is one of the highest in Asia and not far from Latin American levels
10
.

The 3.3 million ‘medium to high-income’ jobs that PEMANDU aims to create under the ETP will do little to redress the situation:

The top 15% of wage-earners will take 40% of all wages;

The bottom 36% of wage-earners will take just 12% of the already small wage pie.

Figure 5: Top 20% of households take 49% of total household incomes currently

Source: New Economic Model. As per Footnote
2
.

Figure 6: ETP will perpetuate the situation. Top 15% of ETP jobs will take 40% of wages

Sources:  ETP Roadmap and author’s analysis

85% of ETP jobs will pay less than half of what a fresh graduate earns in Singapore

From another perspective, 85% of the 3.3 million ‘medium to high-income’ jobs that PEMANDU promises by 2020 will pay an average of less than RM3,000 per month. That may sound high, but remember that just like RM100 today is worth a lot less than RM100 nine years ago
11
, RM3,000 in 2020 will be worth a lot less than RM3,000 today.

Based on PEMANDU’s own inflation estimates, RM3,000 in 2020 is equivalent to only about RM2,300 today. That is an improvement over current levels
12
, but is nowhere near high-income status. It is equivalent to just SGD$975. Put another way, 85% of the jobs created by the ETP will, on average, pay less than half the SGD2,400 that a fresh graduate in Singapore can expect to earn
13
.

Figure 7: Distribution of jobs that PEMANDU promises – 85% will average <RM3,000 per month

Average RM750 monthly income*

3%

Average RM1,500 monthly income

33%

Average RM3,000 monthly income

27%

Average RM5,500 monthly income

21%

Average RM2,955 monthly income

85%

Average RM8,500  monthly income

10%

Above RM10,000  monthly income

5%

Note that the above is based on income in the year 2020.

* The ETP states that 3% of the jobs will pay less than RM1,000 per month. We assume RM750 is the average.

Sources: ETP Roadmap and authors’ analysis.

Figure 8: RM3,000 in 2020 will be worth a lot less than RM3,000 today. How much is it worth?

If inflation is 2.8% per year, as PEMANDU estimates, it is equivalent to

RM2,340

In Singapore dollars @ RM2.40:SGD$1

=SGD$975

In US$  @ RM3.00:US$1

=US$780

Singapore fresh graduate starting salary

2,400

Sources: ETP Roadmap and authors’ analysis

Is the ETP creating more low-paid jobs for foreigners?

The number of available jobs in Malaysia will rise to 16.2 million by 2020
14
. The 3% per year job growth rate is three times the 1% per year population growth that PEMANDU anticipates. As population growth is slower than job growth, the gap has to be filled by:

Raising the labour force participation rate, that is the percentage of Malaysians choosing to work;

Net migration – which could be in the form of tempting our vast, highly-qualified diaspora back; and/or

Bringing in foreign labour.

The labour force participation rate in Malaysia was 63% in 2010.  Assuming this rises to the 65% average in developed economies such as Australia and the United States
15
, there would be approximately 14.0 million workers in 2020
16
. Assuming all these local workers are employed, there will still be another 2.2 million jobs to fill from the 16.2 million total jobs anticipated in 2020.

Who will fill this gap? The ETP Roadmap does anticipate ‘150,000 high-skilled Malaysian Diaspora to return’. That covers the high-paying jobs, but scarcely makes a difference to the 2.2 million gap. It appears that more foreign labour will be required.

Figure 9: Majority of ETP jobs will pay just RM1,643 on average in today’s terms

Number of ETP jobs

% of jobs

Average monthly salary

Bottom 1.2 million workers

36%

1,122

Lower 0.9 million workers

27%

2,340

Majority 2.1 million workers

64%

1,643

Upper 0.7 million workers

21%

4,290

Top 0.5 million workers

15%

8,657

This assumes the very bottom 3% jobs earn an average RM750 while the very top 6% jobs earn an average RM15,000 per month in 2020.  The 2020 incomes are brought back to 2012 levels assuming inflation is 2.8% per year as PEMANDU expects. Sources: ETP Roadmap and authors’ analysis

What type of foreign labor? 1.2 million or 36% of the new jobs that the ETP aims to create in 2020 will pay an average RM1,400 per month in wages in the year 2020
17
 . This is about RM1,122 in today’s terms
18
, which is not particularly high. We would assume and hope that most Malaysians will be in the jobs that pay better. So the bulk of the remaining jobs will be low-paid, and likely filled by unskilled foreigners.

At a time when we are trying to reduce our dependence on foreign workers, it does not make sense to have an economic transformation programme that requires a minimum addition of 2 million foreign workers on top of the existing 2 million legal foreign workers in the country
19
. The continued over-reliance on cheap foreign labor lessens the incentive for productivity improvements and capital investment necessary to increase average wages and the share of national output given to wages.

Conclusion: E for socio-economic impact

We give the ETP ‘E’ for socio-economic impact. The newly generated wealth it promised to create will not be broadly spread across all Malaysians. It will not create a balanced economy where the fruits of Malaysia’s success are fairly shared by corporations, individuals and the government.

The reverse is true. Most Malaysians will not be much better off. The ETP will not help, and in fact may, exacerbate the already wide gap between the few rich Malaysians, and the very many poor ones:

Corporations will take an even bigger slice of national income – ¾ under the ETP compared to ? currently;

The share of national income going to wage-earners, under the ETP, will shrink to about 20%, much less than the 28% today and take us further away from the developed countries norm of about 50%;

The small share to wage-earners will, in turn, be largely devoured by a few Malaysians. The top 15% of wage-earners will take 40% of all wages; and

The ETP will double our dependence on cheap foreign labour – it requires at least another 2 million foreign workers, on top of the 2 million legal foreign workers who are already in Malaysia.

If not the ETP, what then?

Following the many weaknesses which we have identified, we have been asked a recurring question. What would we do?

There are two parts to our response. The first part comprises recommendations we have made in this series, such as improving data integrity and transparency, applying a high bar when naming projects related to politically influential entities as EPPs and making sure that the red tape cut for EPPs does not come back to stifle other entrepreneurs with ideas but not EPP status. Our hope is that this series results in constructive dialogue that will improve the ETP for the benefit of Malaysians, and sets some foundations for more effective policies by future governments.

The second part involves proposing a transformative strategy or framework or programme of our own if we had the opportunity to start over or if PEMANDU, for whatever reason, is dissolved. We will cover this in a series of subsequent Focus Papers.

A sneak peak: We consider productivity crucial. One of the main reasons a larger share of income in developed countries is given to wages is because of the higher productivity of workers in these countries. This could be due to higher skill levels, higher levels of capital per worker (in the form of machinery, for example) and involvement in higher value-added economic activities (such as research and development and design rather than low end manufacturing, for example). We think the ETP focuses too much on pushing through EPPs which may create many jobs but fail to significantly increase the productivity of the average worker. We believe measures to improve the productivity of the existing and future labour force need to be put in place. This involves not only improving the skill levels of the workforce but also making politically difficult decisions to reduce our dependence on unskilled foreign labour.

Appendix 1: Calculation of how the incremental RM800 billion ETP GNI is shared among Malaysians

Table 1: Annual wages of the 3.3 million ETP jobs in 2020

Average Wage (RM/month)

No. of New Jobs (million)

Monthly Wage Bill (RM million per month)

Yearly Wage Bill (billion)

750

0.1

75

9.0

1,500

1.1

1,650

19.8

3,000

0.9

2,700

32.4

5,500

0.7

3,850

46.2

8,500

0.3

2,550

30.6

15,000

0.2

3,000

36.0

Total

3.3

13,825

165.9

Sources: ETP Roadmap Report and authors’ analysis

Total Incremental GNI from the ETP = RM800 billion

Total Yearly Wage Bill of the additional 3.3 million jobs from the ETP = RM166 billion

% of Incremental GNI going to wages = RM166 billion / RM800 billion = 21%

We assume the government share i.e. taxes net of subsidies is similar to today’s = 5%

The share to corporations under the ETP is therefore = 74%.

Note that this calculation overstates the share going to wages. 21% is gross wages from which taxes should be deducted.

Table 2: Average salaries of the 3.3 milllion ETP jobs in 2020

2020 average income RM per month

No. of jobs

% of jobs

Total wages RMm per month

Cumulative total income RMm per month

Cumulative % of jobs

No. of jobs

 Average Salary RM per month

750

0.1

3%

 75

75

3%

 0.1

750

1500

1.1

33%

1,650

1,725

36%

1.2

1,438

3000

0.9

27%

2,700

4,425

64%

2.1

2,107

5500

0.7

21%

3,850

8,275

85%

2.8

2,955

8500

0.3

9%

2,550

10,825

94%

3.1

 3,492

15000

0.2

6%

3,000

13,825

100%

3.3

4,189

Total

3.3

100%

13,825

165,900

Sources: ETP Roadmap Report and authors’ analysis

___

1
 The ETP calls for 131 entry point projects (EPPs) within 12 National Key Economic Areas (NKEAs), which will pour RM1.4 trillion worth of investment into the economy and create 3.3 million new jobs by 2020.

2
 Extrapolated from 2008 data published in the New Economic Model, 2010 (pg 58). We assume 8% p.a. growth in average household incomes since then.

3
 The acronym that the Performance Management and Delivery Unit within the prime minister’s department is better known by. PEMANDU is the government agency that created and is now steering the ETP.

4
 Exhibit 2-3, ETP Roadmap Report (pg 79).

5
 In technical terms, the share going to corporations and enterprises is gross operating surplus which is the ‘income from production of corporate enterprises’ and gross mixed income which is ‘the income from production of unincorporated enterprises’. Source: Measuring Gross Domestic Product – Using Income Approach’, Razaman Ridzuan, Syed Ibrahim and Mohd Jamaluddin. pg. 18.

6
 Our calculations are set out in Appendix 1.

7
 Malaysian and Singapore government statistics available at http://www.statistics.gov.my/portal/images/stories/files/journal/2.2009/Measuring_Gross_Domestic_Product.pdf and http://www.singstat.gov.sg/stats/themes/economy/ess/aesa111.pdf and Measuring Gross Domestic Product – Using Income Approach. Razaman Ridzuan, Syed Ibrahim and Mohd Jamaluddin, pg. 18, http://www.statistics.gov.my/portal/images/stories/files/journal/2.2009/Measuring_Gross_Domestic_Product.pdf. Retrieved 27 Feb 2012.

8
 We estimate this will take the share of wages down to 25% in 2020 from 28% currently. Note that our 2009 data is based on the distribution of income by GDP whereas the ETP is based on GNI. This does not materially affect our findings as the difference between GDP and GNI in the form of repatriated profits has averaged only 5.6% of GDP from 2006 to 2010

9
 Derived from data published in the New Economic Model, 2010 (pg 58).

10
 Malaysia Economic Monitor: Inclusive Growth. A report by the World Bank, Nov 2010.

11
 Do check out Part 2 We won’t really be twice as rich in 2020, for an easy explanation of the crucial difference between nominal and real incomes, illustrated by cups of ‘kopi’. Available at www.refsa.org.

12
 80% of households survive on RM2,500 per month. As per footnote 7 above.

13
 SGD2,418 to be more precise. Fresh Grad Salary in Singapore 2011. Available at http://www.salarysingapore.com/fresh-grad-salary-in-singapore-2011.html. The students from the top 21 courses at NUS, NTU and SMU can expect to earn a lot more – averaging from SGD2,900 to SGD4,000 per month. Salaries of our Fresh Grads. Available at http://www.transitioning.org/2010/04/07/graduate-employment-survey-2009-published-2010-salary-sg/. Retrieved 29 Feb 2012.

14
 The ETP projects total jobs to rise by 4.5 million to 16.2 million jobs in 2020 from 11.7 million in 2009. Exhibit 2-12, ETP Roadmap Report (page 88). 3.3 million of the new jobs will be created by the ETP and 1.2 million new jobs under natural, business-as-usual (BAU, as PEMANDU terms it) growth.

15
 See http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.ZS for a complete listing of labour force participation rate by country from 1980 to 2011. Retrieved 27 Feb 2012.

16
 We assume that 70% of the 31.6 million population, which includes legal foreign workers, will be in the working age group by 2020. This is actually higher than the 64% average from 2006 to 2010. If we use the 64% figure, the additional number of foreign workers needed to fill the ETP jobs would increase further!

17
 RM1,438 to be more accurate.

18
 Assuming inflation is 2.8% per year as PEMANDU anticipates.

19
 This 2 million figure predates the recent 6P program to legalise foreign workers without proper immigration documentation.

*******

The story so far

Part 1,
Let’s evaluate PEMANDU on its DEEDS
, introduced this series. We assess PEMANDU and the ETP on the goals, plans and targets stated in the ETP Roadmap document. Doing so facilitates constructive debate as it uses the framework which PEMANDU has chosen to work within. In that vein, and in keeping with the spirit of the alphabet soup of NKEAs, NKRAs, SRIs, EPPs, GNI surrounding the entire GTP, we evaluate PEMANDU and the ETP on its DEEDS:

D
ata transparency was covered in Part 2,
We won’t really be twice as rich in 2020
. We declared, “It does not compute!”  PEMANDU’s target is to double nominal income per capita to RM48,000 by 2020. But using its forecasts for income and population growth, and inflation, the target should be RM54,145, not RM48,000. Can this ‘roadmap to transformation’ be trusted when even the basic math is wrong?

E
xecution took three Focus Papers:

Part 3(i),
PEMANDU strengthens the ‘know-who’ cancer
, focuses on PEMANDU’s practice of taking credit for pre-existing projects and its role in cutting red tape.  PEMANDU is institutionalising the role of middleman if it cuts red tape only for EPPs. Malaysian innovation, creativity and productivity will continue to lag if long-term policy changes are not made.  It does not matter how good your product or idea is, or how efficiently you can make it, it depends on who you know to get it through the system.

Part 3 (ii),
The hothouse labs probably killed innovation
 posits that large companies would naturally dominate the vaunted ‘labs’ that chose the EPPs. Also, the tight 8-week time frame to research best practices, distil them and support them with detailed analysis would have incentivised participants to select EPPs for which research was already ready, rather than pursue genuinely transformative alternatives.

Part 3 (iii),
Doubtful EPPs; doubtful achievements and due diligence
 says the selection of projects with very little hope of success as EPPs raises serious doubts about the due diligence process at PEMANDU. The RM10 billion Karambunai Integrated Resort needs 2.8 million visitors per year to break even – more than all the travellers arriving at Kota Kinabalu airport! The multi-billion ringgit plan to transform Tanjong Agas from a fishing village to a petrochemical hub has REFSA aghast. It creates redundant infrastructure, and goes against the government’s own master plan identifying the already established Kertih and Gebeng as the focus areas for such activities in the Eastern Corridor Economic Region (ECER).

E
nterprise is severely lacking so far. Part 4,
Private enterprises are rejecting the ETP
 highlights that the private sector makes up only 35% of the total investments in EPPs, far below the 60% that PEMANDU says is required to take Malaysia to high-income status by 2020. It is understandable that priority is given to government-led, big-ticket infrastructure project in the early days of the ETP. However, PEMANDU’s attempt to paint a rosier picture by citing figures excluding large public sector projects like the MRT draws suspicion that something is amiss. REFSA debunks PEMANDU’s selective figures with a simple cake analogy and some telling numbers.

D
iversity, or the lack thereof, was the focus of Part 5,
The ETP so far is just a handful of mega-projects.
 131 EPPs across 12 NKEAs are supposed to take us to high-income status. But two mega-projects – the MRT and Petronas RAPID project – account for more than half the apparently impressive RM176 billion of investments achieved in the first year of the ETP.  The Oil, Gas & Energy NKEA dominates. There has been zero progress in Financial Services, which is crucial to high-income and the Palm Oil, Agriculture and Business Services NKEAs also languish. Broad-based transformation is not happening. Not yet.

Note on PEMANDU’s response

Upon hearing that we were writing an evaluation of the ETP, the communications team at PEMANDU kindly arranged interviews with a Director from the Minister’s Office who is also the Director of the Oil, Gas and Energy & Financial Services NKEAs, the Director of the Wholesale and Retail (W&R) NKEA and the Assistant Director of the Tourism NKEA. We are grateful for these interviews and will include clarification points from these interviews in our evaluation. These interviews were recorded by the ETP communications team and we hope that they would be made available online for public access.

About the authors

Visiting contributor Dr Ong Kian Ming holds a PhD in Political Science from Duke University and Economics degrees from the University of Cambridge and the London School of Economics. He is attached to UCSI University, which has been named as the project owner of two Entry Point Projects (EPPs). To avoid any potential conflict of interest, he will not make references to or analyse these two EPPs. He can be reached at
[email protected]
.

REFSA (Research for Social Advancement) Executive Director Teh Chi-Chang holds a first class degree in Accounting & Financial Analysis from the University of Warwick, an MBA from the University of Cambridge and the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) charter. Prior to joining REFSA, he headed highly-regarded investment research teams covering Malaysia, and was himself highly-ranked as an analyst. He can be reached at
[email protected]
.

Help REFSA do more!

REFSA is a not-for-profit research institute that provides relevant and reliable information on social, economic and political issues affecting Malaysians. We aim to promote open and constructive discussions that result in effective policies to address these issues.

REFSA depends primarily on donations to fund its operations. Research such as this consumes much time, expertise and effort. Please contribute if you share our vision for a better Malaysia and support our commitment to impartial, constructive analysis. Donations can be:

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Other Information

The information in this report has been obtained from and is based upon sources that are believed to be reliable but no guarantee is made as to accuracy and completeness.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 7 March 2012, 2:43 pm and is filed under
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Lynas: A ticking time bomb?

By
Joint Action Group for Gender Equality
 | March 07, 2012

The Malaysian Insider

MARCH 7 — The Joint Action Group for Gender Equality (JAG) gave our support for the Himpunan Hijau 2.0 protest of February 26. We joined thousands of our fellow Malaysians in calling for an immediate cancellation of the proposed Lynas rare earth plant.

We understand that this plant would involve the production and handling of radioactive waste materials that are highly toxic and not easily disposed of. Moreover, public concerns about the plant have not been addressed nor have adequate measures been taken to ensure that the plant’s operations pose no threat to the residents of Gebeng and its surroundings.

While we are heartened to see that Malaysians are increasingly mindful of and willing to speak up on issues of public interest, we are disappointed with the government’s dismissive attitude towards the legitimate concerns of ordinary Malaysians on this issue.

If most governments around the world steadfastly refuse to build similar plants in their own countries despite the economic incentive to do so, why is Malaysia going ahead with building this plant?

Development should not come before public health and safety nor jeopardise the integrity of our environment. We are concerned that this plant will not only damage our environment but will have an adverse, lasting effect on the health of those who live around the plant.

We are deeply concerned that the Lynas plant received its licence to operate without a detailed environmental impact assessment. Although Lynas claims to have plans to “recycle” the waste into industrial products, these plans have not been explained. Nor has Lynas identified permanent disposal grounds for the radioactive waste.

There have been reports in international press alleging shoddy design and building materials for the plant. A failure to build according to high standards and follow proper protocol, combined with the material contained within, makes such constructions ticking time bombs.

Mitsubishi’s now-defunct rare earth plant in Bukit Merah sets an alarming precedent. Two decades after ceasing operations, the plant is still in the process of being cleared of radioactive waste. While it was in operation, residents and plant workers faced various horrifying effects of radiation. The government’s decision to grant that plant a licence despite popular resistance caused needless suffering for a prolonged period of time to the community. Such a decision should not be repeated.

Man-made disasters affect women acutely because they intensify existing inequalities in terms of mobility and access to resources. As caregivers, many women bear the burden of supporting the victims of maldevelopment: children born with severe deformities, adults who develop cancer and other illnesses.

Indeed, such maldevelopment affects communities unequally; often it preys on the most vulnerable among us. It is no accident that plants such as this one are built away from centres of politics and affluence and high population density so there is little or no transparency of its operations to the local community.

All Malaysians stand in solidarity with the people of Gebeng and Pahang and for the basic principle that everyone should have the right to a decent life. The onus is on the government to provide a healthy, safe, and sustainable environment for all Malaysians.

Disasters like Chernobyl, Bhopal, or Bukit Merah were not inevitable, but the result of deliberate decisions to put short-term thinking of profits before longer-term concerns about our lives and environment.

Furthermore, it does not become a democratic government to ignore the thousands of protestors who have rallied, written complaints, and voiced consistent and popular objections against this plant.

JAG urges the government of Malaysia to withdraw the Lynas plant licence immediately.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 7 March 2012, 3:11 pm and is filed under
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Najib should apologise for his own mistakes first before apologizing for past BN mistakes resulting in the political tsunami four years ago

Four days after the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak extended an apology for past Barisan Nasional (BN) mistakes resulting in its loss of several states and electoral seats in the last general elections, it remains a mystery and state secret  what were the mistakes Najib was apologizing for.

Nobody knew what past BN mistakes Najib was confessing and apologizing, allowing the Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yasin to immediately dismiss the need to find out what these “mistakes” were arguing that  “the crucial thing now was to look ahead” and the UMNO Information chief Datuk Ahmad Maslan to make nonsense of Najib’s “apology” by declaring that  “UMNO needs mandate to fix its mistakes”!

Does Najib himself know what past BN mistakes he was confessing and apologising for in Kedah last Saturday or was it a meaningless political rhetoric just to win votes?

While Najib mull over  and decide what were the past BN mistakes which he is prepared to confess and apologise, let him apologise for his own mistakes first, especially those committed during his 35-month premiership.

Najib’s mistakes alone run into scores. Off-hand, just to mention ten, as follows:

1.	Illegal, undemocratic and unconstitutional power grab of the Pakatan Rakyat Perak State Government led by  Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Nizar Jamaluddin which he orchestrated and executed two months before he became Prime Minister.

2.	His failure to defend his 1Malaysia policy to create a Malaysia where every Malaysian regards himself or herself as Malaysian first and race, religion, region and socio-economic status second when his Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin declared right from the beginning that he was Malay first and Malaysian second.

3.	The politics of hypocrisy where he preached the virtues of moderation in international forums while allowing the rise of extremism, ethnic and religious, in the country spearheaded by UMNO mouthpiece, Utusan Malaysia resulting in worsening racial and religious polarisation in his 35 months as Prime Minister with unprecedented political rhetoric of racial hatred and religious intolerance founded on lies and falsehoods and the outsourcing of the politics of extremism by Umno to Perkasa.

4.	His speech at the UMNO General Assembly in 2010 warning of  “crushed bodies, lives lost” (“walau berkecai tulang dan juga badan, walau bercerai jasad dari nyawa”) to defend UMNO in Putrajaya. Is Najib prepared to apologise and retract this threat  by declaring that in keeping with his aim to make Malaysia “the best democracy in the world”, he and all UMNO leaders will fully and peacefully accept the electoral verdict of Malaysians in the next general elections, including a change of government in Putrajaya?

5.	Increasing incidence of political violence against opposition politicians and civil society activists like the UMNO Youth and Perkasa attack on anti-Lynas protestors at the Penang Speakers’ Corner injuring two reporters, while the police looked on and did nothing.

6.	Worsening corruption in Malaysia with the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2011 falling to the worst-ever ranking of No. 60 and lowest-ever score of 4.3, placing Malaysia at the most corrupt level in the nation’s 55-year history under six Prime Ministers.

7.	The death Teoh Beng Hock and the failure to take action against his killers from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), as well as to bring to book persons responsible for the death of Ahmad Sarbaini Mohamad at the MACC premjises, V. Kugan in police custody and all other cases of custodial deaths.

8.	The return of the politics of Mahathirism, with the present generation of Malaysians still paying for the financial scandals of  Tun Mahathir’s 22 years as Prime Minister, as in the recent third and latest RM840 million bailout of former Malaysian Airlines (MAS) chairman Tajudin Ramli with his out-of-court settlement with Danaharta and GLCs.

9.	Continued politics of corruption, cronyism and patronage as in the award of RM2.2 billion Kinrara-Damasara Expressway (Kidex) to two companies, Emrail Sdn Bhd and Zabima Engineering Sdn Bhd linked to Umno lawyer Datuk Hafarizam Harun and wife of former Chief Justice,  Tun Zaki Azmi and the RM7.1 billion West Coast Expressway from Banting to Taiping awarded to Kumpulan Europlus Bhd for a 60-year concession period.

10.	The refusal to set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the long-standing problem of illegal immigrants in Sabah which have made Sabahans strangers and minorities in their own land.

There is a long list of “mistakes” made in the past 35 months for Najib to apologise on his own behalf, without yet going into the past BN mistakes resulting in the BN debacle in the last general elections in 2008.

Where will Najib begin?

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 7 March 2012, 9:36 am and is filed under
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Tajudin cannot be indemnified against prosecution, says Mat Zain

By
Shazwan Mustafa Kamal
 | March 07, 2012

The Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, March 7 — Tan Sri Tajudin Ramli is not immune from criminal prosecution over his handling of Malaysia Airlines System (MAS) during his tenure as its chairman, a former senior policeman has charged.

Referring to the out-of-court settlement reached between one-time national asset management firm Pengurusan Danaharta Bhd (Danaharta) and Tajudin, Datuk Mat Zain Ibrahim said that this did not change the fact that three police reports with “damning allegations” had been filed by MAS against the tycoon in 2002, 2005 and 2009.

“[Even] if all civil suits between Tajudin and the rest of the parties involved, MAS in particular, were to be settled out of court, they do not in any way nullify the three reports made against Tajudin by the MAS management. Those reports still stand to be valid,” the ex-KL CID chief said in a statement today, and also challenged Tajudin’s successor, Datuk Seri Idris Jala, to refute allegations made in the 2009 report.

“Tajudin cannot claim immunity from criminal prosecutions using ‘national service’ as an excuse. If he can be granted such immunity, then all police and military personnel can claim similar immunities, since all of them joined the forces to do ‘national service’,” added Mat Zain, referring to Tajudin’s insistence that his takeover of MAS was forced “national service” disguised as an arm’s length commercial deal.

Mat Zain pointed out that while former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed did “give the nod” to Tajudin to purchase the controlling stake in MAS in 1994, it was also Dr Mahathir who had removed Tajudin from the national airline’s helm in 2000.

“Tajudin may have been indemnified against any losses he suffered. But no one, not even the Attorney-General or the prime minister have the power to indemnify Tajudin against any criminal culpability,” he added.

The terms of the Danaharta-Tajudin settlement remain confidential despite a High Court decision in December 2009 for Tajudin to pay Danaharta RM589.14 million with two per cent interest per annum backdated to January 1, 2006.

The Najib administration decided recently to settle out-of-court the outstanding RM589 million debt owed by Tajudin from the loan he took to buy MAS in 1994.

The case between Danaharta and the tycoon arose after he executed a facility agreement on July 13, 1994 to borrow RM1.79 billion from a group of syndicated lenders to finance the purchase by him of a 32 per cent stake in MAS.

However, from 1994 to 1998 he failed to service the original loan, causing it to become a non-performing loan (NPL).

In 1998, Danaharta acquired the NPL from the lenders but Tajudin also failed to settle his debts to Danaharta until it was in default of RM1.41 billion as at October 8, 2001.

As at December 31, 2005, the amount outstanding was RM589.14 million and on May 11, 2006, Danaharta and the subsidiaries commenced action to recover the money.

Tajudin alleged in his affidavit that he was directed by Dr Mahathir and former finance minister Tun Daim Zainuddin in 1994 to buy a controlling stake in MAS to bail out the government.

Today, the former top cop also accused A-G Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail of taking efforts to “screen” Tajudin from legal punishments, and said that he could no longer be considered a neutral party in the matter.

“Unfortunately the power to institute, conduct or discontinue any criminal proceedings lies with the A-G, who in turn is seen to be a party to the conspiracy to the extent that he appears, to be unable to properly discharge the functions of his office,” said Mat Zain.

He said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak should advise the Yang-di Pertuan Agong to appoint a tribunal to look into Gani’s conduct as A-G to determine whether the allegations of misappropriation and power abuse were true.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 7 March 2012, 3:07 pm and is filed under
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The trouble with our race relations

Kee Thuan Chye | Mar 5, 2012

Malaysiakini

COMMENT

Blogger Hussein Abdul Hamid aka Steadyaku47 made waves when he wrote in a posting asking the Chinese not to blame the Malays for being treated as ‘second-class citizens’.

Civil society activist Haris Ibrahim felt “troubled”. He was equally disturbed by what Raja Petra Kamarudin (RPK) had written about the Malays having become “kecik hati” (disappointed) because they feel the Chinese are not real friends to them.

Haris asked a senior journalist friend about what RPK had expressed, and the friend said it was true. He said the Umno-controlled media had been influencing the Malays by spinning that the DAP, “which is painted as a Chinese party, would be the principal benefactor if Pakatan Rakyat came to power”.

As I see it, this is ironic. The media says that the DAP is riding high in Pakatan and Umno leaders drum it in that PAS has become a puppet of the DAP, but look at what the MCA, Umno’s partner, is saying.

Repeating his theme for the umpteenth time, MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek has just called the DAP, in relation to PAS, a “political eunuch”. He insists, as he has insisted many times before, that the DAP will have no guts and ability to stop PAS from bossing Pakatan and getting its way, including implementing hudud and establishing an Islamic state.

What a contradiction between what Umno says and what the MCA says! Umno says the DAP will be the principal benefactor, the MCA says PAS will be the one and the DAP will be the loser. So whom do we believe?

Of course, it’s plain to see that the BN strategy adheres to the archaic mould – Umno says one thing to its Malay audience, the MCA says another thing to its Chinese audience. Never mind if they are contradictory.

Perhaps that could have worked in the old days, when mass communication technology was not so sophisticated, but today anyone with brains and knowledge would say, “Whom are Umno and the MCA trying to deceive?”

The truth must be somewhere in the middle – if Pakatan wins, both the DAP and PAS will be winners, and both will likely see each other as equal partners. On hudud and the Islamic state, they have already agreed to disagree. So if Pakatan takes Putrajaya, there cannot be an Islamic state unless the DAP agrees.

Not all Malays are Umnoputras

Coming back to Steadyaku47’s proposition, I have to say that although some Chinese might have been resentful of the Malays in the past, they have since realised that the people responsible are actually Umno – and, by extension, the MCA as well.

This explains why the Chinese have largely rejected the MCA. Even former finance minister Daim Zainuddin has recently said that at the next general election, he expects only 20 percent of the Chinese to vote for BN. And that these would mostly be rural Chinese.

Nowadays, the majority of the Chinese blame Umno – and therefore BN – for making them “second-class citizens”.

In fact, a Chinese friend of mine asserts, “The Chinese have never blamed the Malays. Ask any Chinese person and they will tell you that. They do not blame; instead, they will compromise and look around for a solution. If they cannot find a solution, they will move away.”

He’s mostly right. It explains why Chinese businessmen still do all right settling for sub-contract work from bumiputeras who get government contracts (unless they are cronies of the government, like some of the big towkays, who get contracts directly); why until March 8, 2008, they rarely spoke out against the system even though it discriminated against them; and why so many Chinese have emigrated since the New Economic Policy came into force.

Those who stay back work doubly hard to make sure they fulfil certain dreams, and if they can’t get into the civil service, they go to the private sector. They do grumble and sometimes target certain Malays who have beaten them to certain opportunities, but they rarely malign the entire race.

Gov’t has poisoned ethnic ties

But to be fair to Steadyaku47, his blog posting does not accuse the Chinese of blaming the Malays as a whole. It is most unfortunate that his blaring headline, ‘The Chinese Must Stop Blaming the Malays!’ (with exclamation mark, to boot), gives that wrong impression.

After reading his article carefully, one would realise that Steadyaku47’s real intention is to urge the Chinese to blame the BN government, Umno, the MCA and “the lack of education to make our young understand the need to celebrate our differences”.

In fact, a large part of the article shows understanding and sympathy for the plight of the Chinese. And it also expresses the embarrassment Malays feel for having “a Malay-led government that is corrupt, arrogant and totally without compassion for its own race”.

Steadyaku47 asks, “Do you want to be a Malay whose private life … is under the control of … government-appointed religious bodies that think that it is their duty to raid houses of ill-repute to save Malay girls from … depravity while the same politicians that appointed them have lives that would rival Hugh Hefner’s?”

I think Steadyaku47’s intent is honest and sincere, and his meaning is clear.

We should be more concerned about Haris’s concern, i.e. that the Malays are “kecik hati” regarding the Chinese, thanks to the spin of the Umno-controlled media.

This idea that the Chinese are not friendly needs to be debunked, but it’s going to be very difficult because the government has done such an excellent job over the last few decades of polarising the races and sowing suspicion between them.

It will take decades more to undo the damage. It will take re-education. It will take new government policies that radically change the racial paradigm, beginning with the dismantling of race-based political parties. It will take the organising of countless programmes to foster goodwill among the various races.

Will it happen under the current BN government? Or will it stand a better chance under a Pakatan government? This is something Malaysians will need to think about when they cast their votes at the next general election.

The day when the Chinese and the Malays feel they are real friends will still be a long time coming, but the outcome of the next elections could decide if it can be somewhat shortened.

——————————————————————————–

KEE THUAN CHYE is the author of the new book ‘No More Bullshit, Please, We’re All Malaysians’.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 7 March 2012, 12:19 am and is filed under
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