The local stock market may be badly battered but that is not the subject of coffee-shop talk on this side of the South China Sea. In Sarawak, people's attention have been focused more on issues such as Malaysia Airlines (MAS), the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) and the Pensions Trust Fund (Kwap) and, of course, Halim Saad's Time dotCom Bhd and the poor showing of its initial public offer (IPO) at the KLSE.

The general concern, as in Peninsular Malaysia, is over the use of the people's money in what is seen more as a series of bailout exercises. The manner in which Time Engineering's RM5 billion debt was cleared overnight with what is evidently government help has really worried a lot of people in this state.

When questions are posed in Parliament and the finance minister's answers either say nothing or are plainly evasive, that naturally worries the citizens of this country even more.

For example, on the buy-back of the RM1.7 billion shares from MAS' former chairman Tajuddin Ramli at well above the market price, Finance Minister Daim Zainuddin simply evaded the DAP MP's question. Instead he rambled on to talk about how big an airline MAS is, how comprehensive its route network is, and how great are its potentials.

According to the talk in most of the kopi tiam in Kuching these days, people only want to know why the government must pay RM1.7 billion to buy its shares back when it should have paid nothing more than half of that, if the prevailing market price is a basis. Obviously, the price was fixed on a different basis, and this not only took into account what Tajuddin still owed his creditors but also allowed him what is widely seen as a huge profit.

Very sad

The question that has been repeatedly asked is why was the government not ready to save money and buy at a lower price? The government should not be concerned whether Tajuddin could settle his personal and his company's debts arising from his MAS venture. Like everybody else, he should not have been treated as a special vendor. For this could only lead to a lot of negative comments, innuendoes and suggestions.

"Government leaders must be seen to be more accountable and transparent," one Sarawakian teacher said. "It is all very sad when public money is seen to be used to bail out only a handful of people. Tajuddin Ramli could go down for all I care. Save only MAS."

Another question that is frequently asked in coffee-shops is why the need for the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) to lend Time Engineering RM500 million of contributors' money and for the government to agree that the company pay back half in cash and the other half in shares? Where are the immediate returns for EPF?

"If this is not a bailout, I don't know what it is," one angry EPF member in Kuching commented.

What about the close to a billion ringgit to take up a sizeable portion of Time dotCom Bhd's shares by the Pensions Trust Fund (Kwap) only to find the shares closing almost a third lower two weeks after listing is another question.

Daim Zainuddin's explanation that Kwap had expected Time dotCom's shares to be over-subscribed suggests a poor judgment, and this coming from the finance minister is very surprising. Everyone knows what the market is like and that many prospective listings have been put off because of the poor sentiments.

No strangers

So why proceed with an IPO under such conditions? The answer is obvious: get hold of whatever money that people are willing to subscribe, and leave the rest to the underwriters. In the case of Halim Saad's Time dotCom, the underwriters appeared to have very poor judgment too. This is not something that can generate confidence, say several Kuching-based individual investors in the KLSE.

Furthermore, with the mopping up of so much money from the market, what is there left for the others who perhaps have an even more important role to play in the country's economic development and in giving a new lease of life to the national economy?

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's comments on the performance of the local stock market and blaming its lack-lustre performance on the US economic slowdown ignores basic facts. Among this is the open public admission by the minister of domestic trade and consumer affairs that there is a lack of good corporate governance and transparency.

Sarawakians, like their counterparts in Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah, are however, no strangers to contradicting public statements by leaders.

TONY THIEN is a freelance writer based in Kuching.