Tan Sri Francis Yeoh does protest too much for someone who has benefited from being part of the system. Listening to him, you would think that YTL Corporation became financially strong only on the back of astute decision-making and the innovation of company executives; that the raft of lucrative projects from the lopsided IPP concession contract to the lucrative 1Bestarinet project just landed on the companys books through the competence of company executives. This is what Francis said in a statement to clarify what he allegedly said at a talk at Pemandu, the government agency famous for blowing its own trumpet with mind-numbing statistics. Francis was quoted as lamenting the culture of crony capitalism in Malaysia and added that cronyism and the current penchant for racial and religious rhetoric was holding back Malaysia on the global stage. He also allegedly said that the bulk of YTLs business was now in Singapore, the United Kingdom and Australia – jurisdictions where there was meritocracy and rule of law and where a businessman did not have to kow-tow to the prime minister. A pretty harmless statement in most countries. On any given day, thousands of businessmen in Malaysia are saying the same thing – more or less the same thing, with only a couple of caveats. Ninety-nine percent of them do not have the cushion of multi-billion ringgit business in Singapore, the UK and Australia. Or whose business entities have received some favourable deals by the government. In any case, Francis was prompted to issue a clarification, taking issue with a report published in a news portal that he said inaccurately portrayed what he told the audience at the Pemandu talk. He said that during the presentation he attempted to dispel the notion that crony capitalism was rife in Malaysia. He even denied that YTL received the IPP concession because he was a crony of former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. It is the right of Francis to say whatever he wants and to believe whatever he chooses to say. But it our right as Malaysians to look at the whole picture, to examine the facts and to look at the nuts and bolts of the IPP deal and just shrug our shoulders and laugh at Franciss protest. The only thing going for Francis is that he is not alone. More than 80% of Malaysias richest businessmen owe a significant portion of their wealth and success to who they know, instead of what they know. It is a fact. And many owe their big break to that champion of skewed privatisation, Dr Mahathir. They owe their big break to Dr Mahathir, whether it was road toll concessions or an opportunity to buy and re-develop choice pieces of property in downtown Kuala Lumpur. But ask them about their success and wealth and it is always about coming up the hard way, about their know-how rather than their know-who. Many of them have earned colossal profits from concessions at home and pumped those funds abroad. Good for them. Money makes money. But we Malaysians can choose our own narrative about them and their businesses. – June 5, 2014.
Posted on: Thu, 05 Jun 2014 03:48:51 +0000
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