How will outgoing Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad be remembered? For some, he is the architect of modern Malaysia.

But for Prof K S Jomo, the cronyism and tolerance of abuses in his 22 years at the helm has cost the country greatly.

How much? It's difficult to say, but it runs into billions of ringgit.

Cash cows such as the state-owned Petronas - which makes around RM15 billion in annual profit - have been repeatedly tapped to finance some of Mahathir's pet projects, among them the new capital in Putrajaya and the Twin Towers.

"If there was greater consultation, transparency and accountability, lots of disasters could have been averted and many billions saved," said the University Malaya academic in an exclusive interview with malaysiakini .

Jomo ( right ), one of the country's top economists, said another of Mahathir's flaws was that he had little faith in the abilities of those around him.

"He did not believe in genuine consultation, and ultimately trusted few others with economic policy making often unnecessarily getting involved in micro-management."

Jomo - who has just published a new book, ' M Way: Mahathir's Economic Legacy ' - said his criticism of the soon-to-retire leader's record was to ensure that future leaders do not repeat the same mistakes.

"Why be so critical when he is leaving? So that we learn from our mistakes, and I assure you they were very expensive mistakes," he said.

IMF-friendly policies

Jomo also took the opportunity to defend former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, who is currently behind bars for 15 years on charges of corruption and sodomy.

Mahathir has cast aspersions on his protege turned nemesis Anwar, who had served a stint as finance minister in his cabinet, for his pro-International Monetary Fund (IMF) policies.

Jomo said as the 1997 financial crisis unfolded, Anwar backed Mahathir's policy in defending the ringgit against currency speculators.

"Defending the ringgit meant losing over RM9 billion. Then the cabinet endorsed the bailout fund of RM60 billion which only confirmed suspicions of cronyism as it was only for certain shareholders, not companies or on some other more legitimate basis."

This was followed by a series of other 'blunders' which aggravated the hemorrhaging of the economy.

A few months later, Jomo said Anwar obtained unanimous support from the cabinet to back the Bank Negara's IMF plan.

"There is no doubt now that the IMF made the crisis worse, but we should also remember and acknowledge that Anwar changed his mind about the IMF when he realised that things were getting worse instead of better."

Blood-letting

Jomo said while he opposed Anwar's IMF-friendly policies at the height of the financial crisis, he believed that it was unfair of Mahathir to taint his rival with the IMF brush.

"I certainly was not in the Anwar camp, but I find many subsequent criticisms of an unjustly incarcerated man not only dishonest, but also most unfair," said the academic who earned his doctoral degree from Harvard University.

He suggested that the imposition of capital controls by Mahathir in late 1998 might not have contributed much in restoring the economy.

"Closing the door 14 months later was too late to check the blood-letting. And as it turns out, the whole region stabilised and the other East Asian economies recovered from the last quarter of 1998, while we only recovered from the second quarter of 1999.

"Our recovery was only second to Korea's, but that had more to do with the pre-Y2K demand for electronics, petroleum and palm oil prices and La Nina reversing El Nino," he said.