You want to read a set of the three-and-a-half (inch) high annexure of 20 appendices to the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PcW) audit report into the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) Rip-off to grill Ong and the PKA Chairman, Datuk Lee Hwa Beng about the PKFZ “mother of all scandals”…?? :)

Reminded me of “My eyes are glazed, my head swimming just from browsing through the 6,000 pages of report and Appendices” – what was attributed to your comment (as reported by New Straits Times, March 9, 1986 in relation to Committee of Inquiry’s Report) on the Bumiputra Malaysia Finance (BMF) scandal (US 1 billion) then.

To Malaysia’s credit we have some infamous ‘firsts’:

– BMF Scandal (Loss more than RM2.5 billion) the largest banking failure in the world then;
– Bank Negara’s huge losses of an estimated RM30 billion from foreign exchange trading, trying to speculate the British Pound (against Bank of England), then the biggest loss ever sustained by any Central bank in the world.

There were of course ‘smaller’ losses – eg RM600 million losses in a secretive but foolhardy and expensive foray to corner the international tin market in London via Maminco.

Once again these put into sharp focus that when government/government officials/politicians conduct business in semi government agencies – like (say) Port Klang Authority (PKA) – the economic rights and benefit of such entities are no sooner appropriated to serve the personal aims of individual officials, who made no distinction between their own interests and those of the official position they occupied. This an issue of values of politicians/ government officials.

All these – done ostensibly under auspices umbrella and excuse of NEP/patrimonialism/crony capitalism – have proven unworkable and soon need bail out from Tax payers moneys, Petronas, EPF, which of course is a form of socialisation of losses in service of privatisation of gains……a very imaginative adaptation (elevated to a state of art in Mahathir’s era of admin) of modern concepts of Privatisation to a throw-back of values of feudal past equating public position with private possession with those in authority not being questioned or held accountable.

Unless the above paradigm of soing business via semi govt agencies where politicians and govt officials having govt influence and authority can ‘ampur tangan’ (as has happened before in BMF Maminco etc) no lessons were learnt then, certainly none now, and whether there was Commission of Emquiry or Ministerial statement in Parliament etc makes no iota of difference to what had happened and what would recur.

For it all boils down to the general paradigm of govt involvment in business and specifically, the values and ethics of the person(s) in charge and making business decisions for these semi government agencies. Have they changed through the years? It transcends even the other question of who is in political power, whether BN or Pakatan Rakyat….