Recently, a newspaper editor boldly put his prescriptions on how to become rich in Malaysia.

In a nutshell, the essential ingredients prescribed are the need to have political connections (the higher the better) and with that the leverage to flip assets which must also receive the blessings and approval of the relevant authorities.

Many say that if they are given that privilege and leverage they, too, could become rich overnight because you do not really need much entrepreneurial skill or a Harvard-trained business mind to accomplish that.

At a glance the prescription looks too simplistic to hold water but on further reflections and having observed what had transpired in the corporate sector in this country over the last two decades particularly in the aftermath of the privatisation and the Malaysia Inc policies initiated by the previous administration in the 80s and 90s, there is a lot of truth in this prescription.

But we are not putting the blame on these two government policies per se for this phenomena. What we have been and will continue to be concerned with is that under the guise of these policies, major corporate deals involving acquisition of public assets and/or mergers have been tampered with by political patronage of the sort so much so that substantial private gains have been made at the expense of taxpayers’ costs or interest.

To put it in another way, the final benefits accrue to private individuals but the ultimate costs are borne by the public. Examples of such corporate deals are easily documented. And as a result of this, certain individuals have become very rich ‘billionaires’ within a short space of time.

There is nothing wrong for anyone to become rich as long as everything is done above board and conducted on a level playing field. Corporate acquisitions and mergers are commonplace activities in the business world.

But when eyebrows are raised especially by the general public, minority shareholders, business journalists, fund managers, and even those that are least connected to such deals, one begins to wonder why such a public opinion can arise and even more worrying, is ignored by relevant authorities like Securities Commission.

Just take the privatisation plan of the power sector embarked on in 1993 as an example. The resultant flaws have been clearly pointed out and protests against them still continue unabated until today, not to mention against other public assets acquisition like the highways and water supplies.

Now compare ourselves to what is happening in the UK and US - they too are suffering from the greedy excesses of their country's political and corporate elites, but their newly-elected leaders acknowledge the problem and are working hard at fixing it (via nationalisation and transparent oversight).

Sadly, it’s ‘business as usual’ in corporate Malaysia, the most recent being the proposal to privatise the National Heart Institute (IJN) and the building of another LCCT at Labu, Negri Sembilan, which have received objections from various quarters of Malaysian society.

In the light of all these, we believe that it is high time for the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission to move in and examine these specific cases for which public criticisms have been raised now and previously.

The purpose here is not witch-hunting but to establish that such deals have been made above board, in a transparent manner following rules and procedures currently in force. And most importantly, we do not want this phenomena to be repeated as the likelihood of that is very high in the face of present stock market meltdown and the prospect of slowing growth in the economy next year as a result of the uncertainty in the global economy.

Many corporate leaders are anxiously waiting for the coming global onslaught against Malaysian shores and may be looking for a ‘quick fix’ solution to their business problems using, for instance, political patronage to get some leverage.

The MACC must, therefore, be at all times alert and resilient and always be ahead of everybody or else some juicy public asset (eg. Petronas) may become the next target victim and then even the government itself may find itself in a difficult position.

A position short of being held at ransom given the impact on the Malaysian economy from a major corporate mover given Petronas’ business inter-linkages and ramifications.

As an ongoing and preemptive measure, the MACC must act pro-actively and move in quickly now to access and examine all the records of these dubious or doubtful past and present transactions for which concerns have been publicly raised by various parties including the millions of small investors.

To this end, it has to be made mandatory for the relevant authorities and the affected parties in these deals to give their full cooperation to the MACC which, in turn, should use all the powers it has under its new act.

Only then can we ‘change’ the way we do our business. Shame on the MACC if you don't act now for the public is becoming weary.