Malaysia on Australia News

While Malaysia fiddles, its opportunities are running dry

Michael Backman
November 15, 2006

MALAYSIA'S been at it again, arguing about what proportion of the economy each of its two main races — the Malays and the Chinese — owns. It's an argument that's been running for 40 years. That wealth and race are not synonymous is important for national cohesion, but really it's time Malaysia grew up.

It's a tough world out there and there can be little sympathy for a country that prefers to argue about how to divide wealth rather than get on with the job of creating it.

The long-held aim is for 30 per cent of corporate equity to be in Malay hands, but the figure that the Government uses to justify handing over huge swathes of public companies to Malays but not to other races is absurd. It bases its figure on equity valued, not at market value, but at par value.

Many shares have a par value of say $1 but a market value of $12. And so the Government figure (18.9 per cent is the most recent figure) is a gross underestimate. Last month a paper by a researcher at a local think-tank came up with a figure of 45 per cent based on actual stock prices. All hell broke loose. The paper was withdrawn and the researcher resigned in protest. Part of the problem is that he is Chinese.

"Malaysia boleh!" is Malaysia's national catch cry. It translates to "Malaysia can!" and Malaysia certainly can. Few countries are as good at wasting money. It is richly endowed with natural resources and the national obsession seems to be to extract these, sell them off and then collectively spray the proceeds up against the wall.

This all happens in the context of Malaysia's grossly inflated sense of its place in the world.

Most Malaysians are convinced that the eyes of the world are on their country and that their leaders are world figures. This is thanks to Malaysia's tame media and the bravado of former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad. The truth is, few people on the streets of London or New York could point to Malaysia on a map much less name its prime minister or capital city.

As if to make this point, a recent episode of The Simpsons features a newsreader trying to announce that a tidal wave had hit some place called Kuala Lumpur. He couldn't pronounce the city's name and so made up one, as if no-one cared anyway. But the joke was on the script writers — Kuala Lumpur is inland.

Petronas, the national oil company is well run, particularly when compared to the disaster that passes for a national oil company in neighbouring Indonesia. But in some respects, this is Malaysia's problem. The very success of Petronas means that it is used to underwrite all manner of excess.

The KLCC development in central Kuala Lumpur is an example. It includes the Twin Towers, the tallest buildings in the world when they were built, which was their point.

It certainly wasn't that there was an office shortage in Kuala Lumpur — there wasn't.

Malaysians are very proud of these towers. Goodness knows why. They had little to do with them. The money for them came out of the ground and the engineering was contracted out to South Korean companies.

They don't even run the shopping centre that's beneath them. That's handled by Australia's Westfield.

Next year, a Malaysian astronaut will go into space aboard a Russian rocket — the first Malay in space. And the cost? $RM95 million ($A34.3 million), to be footed by Malaysian taxpayers. The Science and Technology Minister has said that a moon landing in 2020 is the next target, aboard a US flight. There's no indication of what the Americans will charge for this, assuming there's even a chance that they will consider it. But what is Malaysia getting by using the space programs of others as a taxi service? There are no obvious technical benefits, but no doubt Malaysians will be told once again, that they are "boleh". The trouble is, they're not. It's not their space program.

Back in July, the Government announced that it would spend $RM490 million on a sports complex near the London Olympics site so that Malaysian athletes can train there and "get used to cold weather".

But the summer Olympics are held in the summer.

So what is the complex's real purpose? The dozens of goodwill missions by ministers and bureaucrats to London to check on the centre's construction and then on the athletes while they train might provide a clue.

Bank bale outs, a formula one racing track, an entire new capital city — Petronas has paid for them all. It's been an orgy of nonsense that Malaysia can ill afford.

Why? Because Malaysia's oil will run out in about 19 years. As it is, Malaysia will become a net oil importer in 2011 — that's just five years

away.

So it's in this context that the latest debate about race and wealth is so sad.

It is time to move on, time to prepare the economy for life after oil. But, like Nero fiddling while Rome burned, the Malaysian Government is more interested in stunts like sending a Malaysian into space when Malaysia's inadequate schools could have done with the cash, and arguing about wealth distribution using transparently ridiculous statistics.

That's not Malaysia "boleh", that's Malaysia "bodoh" (stupid).

email: michaelbackman@yahoo.com

http://www.michaelbackman.com

His latest article regarding Malaysia:

With this cash I thee wed: here comes the bribe

By Michael Backman
The Age
June 20, 2007

A NEW term has emerged in Malaysian political debate and it arose from a column I wrote at the end
of last year.

In the column, I said that Malaysian government waste wasn't "Malaysia boleh" (the national slogan
that means "Malaysia can") but "Malaysia bodoh" ("bodoh" translates as stupid.) The column was
emailed pretty much to anyone in Malaysia with an email account.

Many in Malaysia have taken to referring to government waste and poor decision making as coming
from "Bodohland".

But really the term is too strong because there's a lot that is good in Malaysia. And besides, Malaysia
is still a developing country. Allowances need to be made for that, but then the Malaysian Government
needs to be careful that allowances do not become excuses.

Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi came to office in 2003 claiming he would tackle corruption. His efforts
have been less than "boleh".

The man he appointed to head the anti-corruption agency was soon accused of corruption. At about
the same time, a deputy police minister was accused of taking bribes to set criminal suspects free.

Abdullah did not require either man to step aside while investigations were made. Instead, he insisted
that 85 per cent of corruption allegations proved baseless.

But then, that is because most are inadequately investigated in the first place.

Probably, there's less top-level corruption than is commonly imagined. The most damaging corruption
that eats away at the very foundations of Malaysia as a civil society relates to police corruption.

A recent survey by Transparency International found that the public and business nominated the
police as Malaysia's most corrupt institution, far ahead of more obvious candidates such as public
works authorities or land offices.

A royal commission established by Abdullah called for an independent police complaints body to be
set up. But the police chiefs objected. So, one was not set up.

Last year, Malaysians were shocked by the particularly nasty murder of a Mongolian model who had
claimed to have had a child by the head of the Malaysian Strategic Research Centre, a local think
tank with links to ruling party UMNO and the Malaysian armed forces. The head was close to Deputy
Prime Minister and Defence Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

The model was shot twice and her body blown up by hand grenades or explosives, presumably in an
attempt to destroy evidence. Two members of an elite police unit were arrested for the murder. The
unit is under Najib's administration.

That police allegedly would not only commit a murder but then go to such gruesome lengths to
destroy the evidence sums up for many Malaysians all that is rotten about their police force. The trial
of the police opened on Monday.

Why have Malaysians had to put up with such rotten police for so long? It makes you ask who is in
charge. The police are under the Home Affairs Ministry. And, who was home affairs minister under the
last prime minister? Current Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi.

Elsewhere a police minister in charge of such a corrupt police force would be fired, not promoted to
be prime minister. But of course that would be to judge the Malaysian Government by the international
standards from which it has long asked to be excused.

In more disappointing news for ordinary Malaysians, nine Japanese shipping companies that transport
timber from Malaysia's timber-rich Sarawak state have been accused by Japanese tax authorities of
failing to report $US9 million ($A10.6 million) income between 1999 and 2006.

The money was paid to a Hong Kong company, Regent Star, which is connected to Abdul Taib
Mahmud, Sarawak's Chief Minister since 1981, and his family.

The Japanese authorities decided these payments were not legitimate tax expenses but bribes. Taib
Mahmud has denied the allegations and has asked his administration's anti-corruption agency to
investigate. He has not stood aside.

Not only is Taib Mahmud the Chief Minister, he is also Resource Management and Planning Minister.
This means he is also Forestry Minister. And that is fortuitous because his brother, Moh'd Tufail bin
Mahmud, is co-owner of Sanyan Group, one of Sarawak's biggest timber companies.

When the state-controlled cement and construction group CMS was privatised, it was sold to the Chief
Minister's family. Two of the Chief Minister's sons are directors and CMS now gets the lion's share of
state government road works and construction tenders.
Wealth from CMS and huge timber concessions have helped the family to buy a bank in Malaysia, and
many other assets. The Malaysian media has reported, for example, that Taib Mahmud's wife and
children control an Australian company, Sitehost, which owns the Hilton Hotel in Adelaide.

The wealth of Taib Mahmud and his family has long been an embarrassment to the Malaysian
Government — but Taib Mahmud delivers votes and parliamentary seats.

As for the Japanese bribery allegations, no doubt Taib Mahmud and his family will be exonerated.
Perhaps the Japanese are confused. Or perhaps bribes were paid and the independent investigation
is not independent.

But it does seem unlikely that Taib Mahmud or his family would take bribes. They are already very
wealthy and it's hard to imagine they could be that greedy.

ends

To see this column on The Age's website, go to:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/with-this-cash-i-thee-wed-here-comes-the-
bribe/2007/06/19/1182019115987.html

想说：

政府可以为国人、媒体划定界限，
可是却阻挡不了其他人的认知。

或许，可以隐瞒国人视野便是当权的最大目的，
因为，马来西亚不在乎别人怎么想，
只要掌权的继续拥有权利，
便是他们的终极目标吧！

但是，作为马来西亚的国民，
绝对不能满足于当权划定的圈圈，
必须开脱视野，
看看这究竟是怎么样的一个国度。

用所有人的力量，
让一切变得更好！
因为，这是我们的国家。