In Malaysia, corruption breeds crony capitalism. In business, all businessmen try very hard to get favours from the people in power of the government of the day. Some are luckier than others.
But the crony capitalism is a double edged sword. When you are not smart in the game you get sidelined. One must always be servile and sycophantic. Most of all the kickbacks that you give must match the appetite of the person who gives the favour for you to make money. You must act with subtlety.
There are still many more mega projects in Malaysia. Many of these mega projects can still be had by negotiations. Malaysia will not discard the practices that have been there for about half a century.
YTL Corporation managing director Francis Yeoh reported that in Singapore, Australia and Britain, doing business is very transparent. There is no corruption, malpractice and cronyism of any type. They practice the rule of law. He further pointed out that before and after any big deal is done, he does not have to kowtow to the prime minister of these countries.
Malaysia and these countries are poles apart.
In Malaysia, open tender has normally rarely been done. Negotiations are the normal practice. The prices are therefore heavily padded for many purposes. Therefore the Auditor-General’s Report is flooded with cases of officials buying things many times above the actual market prices.
There is no punishment from the powers-that-be, which emboldens the officials further. This is because the powers-that-be could be more corrupt than these officials. Many cases are therefore conveniently whitewashed.
The New Economic Policy (NEP) has been rebranded as the New Economic Model (NEM). Shortly after GE13, the NEM has been further rebranded to the Bumiputra Economic Empowerment Agenda (BEEA).
Whitewashing away the dirt
Why do we need to rebrand? Without rebranding many dirty malpractices are too glaring. Every rebranding will whitewash away the dirt in the linens. It starts all over with a clean slate and the corrupt officials will come around like angels telling the rakyat how righteous they are.
With BN/Umno running this country we can wait until the kingdom come but the country cannot come near Britain, Australia and Singapore.
Many countries in the world play with gutter politics with rampant cronyism, corruption. nepotism and abuse of power. Those in power will milk the country’s coffers until the country is nigh the brink of collapse. Former dictator Marcos of the Philippines is a case in point. This has resulted in many Filipinos having to work overseas as there are no jobs available in their home country.
Corrupt leaders have no qualms about abusing their citizens, no matter how poor they are.
YTL’s Francis Yeoh stressed that the powers-that-be should do away the crony capitalism and stem the racial and religious rhetoric altogether.
This is a very tall order for Malaysia to achieve as corruption in the country is very rampant. The Malaysian Ant-Corruption Commission (MACC) is a lame duck and does not dare to gun down the big fishes.
Seeing Malaysia’s competitive edge is losing out as doing business in Malaysia is not transparent due mainly to the crony capitalism practiced by the BN/Umno government, Francis Yeoh has boldly sounded out to right the wrongs.
Many have taken Francis Yeoh to task that he should not bring it up. They reckoned that one who lives in glass houses should not throw stones. The writer feels that his intention is sincere and a good one.
As I see it, Malaysia will continue what it has been doing the past 45 years heading south. Bloomberg has reported that Malaysia is the weakest Asian link, very much worse than India and Indonesia, plus many other negative comments about Malaysia. Hence can Malaysia make a U-turn? It may be a sheer impossibility.
