The Country Heights Berhad, a listed company, owes the Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ) RM9 million in assessment arrears. As a housing developer, its managing director, Tan Sri Lee Kim Yew, seems confused about the difference between quit rent and assessment. The deputy minister for local government and housing, Dato' M. Kayveas, when he berates the MPSJ when it moved to seal Country Heights premises for non-payment. It should have asked his ministry to sort it out, he thunders. Tan Sri Lee does not deny the claim, only that he had paid RM3.8 million. That may be, but his compay still owes RM9 million. That he overpaid RM3.6 million in quit rent for the properties is no concern of the MPSJ. Quit rent is collected for the state, assessment for the municipality.

The Malaysian Airports Berhad believed that one the airport is operational, the world is its oyster. Its arrogance is unbelievable. The taxi system was farmed out to a crony, and threats and promises of the state-of-the-art GPS systems which could direct a taxi to where is needed at the quickest possible time. But there is no sign of the GPS now; it cannot be used because it interferes with KLIA's sophistacated electronics. The ugly plastic dome each of the official taxis had to be wear is now dismantled. Service is atrocious, and taxis do a roaring business. The most efficient in the airport now is the tout, who marries travellers and taxis so efficiently that one is in a taxi within five minutes of clearing immigration and customs. He also sees to it that those queing in vain for the official limousine service are quickly diverted. This works because he palms his way out with the right dollop of cash into the right hands.

The RM350 million Miri Port Authority is incensed. The while elephant is built, like so many projects, for no reason than to tell the world it has one. Like the Kuantan Port, a white elephant the moment it opened its doors in the 1970s, it is built for some crony to make money. If it works, it is an incidental benefit. We know what happened to the Bakun Hydroelectric Dam project, for the failure of which one Tan Sri Dato' Paduka Dr Ting Pek Khiing and his property company, Ekran Berhad, got RM800 million; and is now given a contract worth about RM150 million for the anciliary works for the naval base in Sabah. Ekran say it is for the naval base itself; it lied. Besides, if the Sepanga naval base, with the most modern submarine facilities, can be built for far less than it cost to build Miri Port, then even sampans could not land in there safely. The naval base will in fact cost more than RM1 billion. Even that could be an underestimate.

The drum beat and the hype about a computer-owning democracy rose in shrill pitch when the government announced last year one could buy a personal computer with savings in one's EPF account. The computers would be sold through Pos Malaysia Berhad, there would be ample choice to fit any pocket and need. The steps were simple. Select the computer from a list, and a company called Oda Saja (Order Saja? Order Only?) would put the order through, take care of the paperwork, get the computer delivered to your house and collect the money from the EPF. Service? You should not ask questions like that! The main computer dealer for the brand you purchased would be responsible for that, you dolt.

Malaysia looks into creative ways to sell its burgeoning stocks of palm oil, and even looks into research for converting into diesel. Its impact on the government is more serious. The Perbadanan Nasional Berhad (PNB) can continue to high dividends, even when it seems it does not make sense, only because of the high prices obtained for its palm oil. It controls the country's largest oil palm estates. When it loses on its palm oil deals, how can it continue to bribe the Malay with higher divideds so that it hopes they would be eternally grateful to UMNO? Especially when the Malay is shortchanged if he went into a Felda or Felcra scheme to survive. When was he told he ought to be eternally grateful to UMNO for the privilege of being shortchanged?

Ekran Berhad published the following announcement in the Star about what its beloved chairman, Tan Sri Dato' Paduka (Dr) Ting Pek Khiing aka Tan Sri Dato' Paduka (Dr) Candonodam Ting, about his inability to pay an initial installment of seven per cent of loans he took from the company. This advertisement appears on page 38 of the Star of 17 January 01:

So, the government is in hock for RM15.2 billion at least from these five companies. Add to the the RM26 billion of Renong's debts, another RM8 billion which disappeared when a company its chairman bought, on his account, in the Philippines became bankrupt. Just six companies have lost RM50 billion. Taking another crony company at random -- MRCB and its New Straist Times Berhad owe nearly RM4 billion; Tan Sri Vincent Tan's three Berjaya companies (there are more unrecorded) RM11 billion. But more than a hundred (possibly several hundred) companies quoted on the KLSE have debts in excess of RM1 billion and technically bankrupt,

Within UMNO itself, after Tun Abdul Razak's unexpected death in January 1976, there was no clear cut successor. Tun Razak had, as Tan Sri Abdullah, points out in his New Straits Times column "On The Record" (NST, 26 September 00, p12), identified a brood of politicians who could take over from him. Amongst them were Dr Mahathir, Tengku Razaleigh, Dato' Musa Hitam, Tun Ghafar Baba. Indeed, if Tengku Razaleigh had joined the cabinet, instead of continuing to head Petronas and Bank Bumiputra Malaysia Berhad, after the 1974 general elections, he would have been deputy prime minister under Tun Hussein. But he miscalculated. He was not an outsider. The outsider was Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie, the then home minister. When Tun Hussein wanted him as deputy prime minister, the three UMNO vice presidents -- Ghafar Baba, Tengku Razaleigh, Dr Mahathir -- in a demarche said none would serve if one of them was not appointed deputy prime minister. Only the three said they would not serve, not as Tan Sri Abdullah insists the UMNO Supreme Council. Ghafar was not considered, Tengku Razaleigh was not in the cabinet, leaving only Dr Mahathir, who was. This was done in anti-Hussein surroundings, in the fallout from the Selangor mentri besar, Dato' Harun Idris's arrest for corruption, with his backers accusing close aides of Tun Razak as being pro-communist. This led to Tan Sri Abdullah's detention under the Internal Security Act for five years. But that is another story.
Tan Sri Abdullah is right when he suggests Tan Sri Lee and the MCA president preferred Tengku Razaleigh to Dato Seri Mahathir Mohamed as UMNO deputy president and therefore deputy prime minister after Dato (later Tun) Hussein Onn became Prime Minister in 1976 after Tun Abdul Razak Hussein died in London. He was close to Tengku Razaleigh, and he paid the price by being forced to resign. There was no question that UMNO stabbed him in the back. He miscalculated in his support for who should be UMNO president and paid dearly. He had to go. The MCA leaders themselves decided it could not have as president one who backed the Prime Minister's rival. That they did underlines not that the MCA has Chinese support but when the crunch comes, they had no choice but to kill their leader for putting lucrative contracts at risk. The non-Malay parties in the National Front survive, especially after the 1969 riots, by destroying their own standing with their communities if their leader's links with the UMNO president suffers. The MCA leaders' ability to shoot themselves in the foot when everything works in their favour is uncanny. It also makes Tan Sri Lee's claim the MCA had Chinese support even more questionable. When Dr Mahathir became Prime Minister in 1981, Tan Sri Lee's political career had come to an end, especially when Tengku Razaleigh prepared to challenge Dr Mahathir for the UMNO presidency after Dato' (now Tan Sri) Musa Hitam was appointed deputy prime minister. The MCA realised that with Tan Sri Lee as their leader, it would suffer at the hands of a vindictive Prime Minister. So, he had to go. That paradoxically proved how misguided Tan Sri Lee was at his victory in Seremban in the 1982 general elections.

The government appointed the National Front MP and chairman of the National Front backbencher's club, Dr Jamaluddin Jarjis, as Tenaga Nasional Berhad;s new non-executive chairman three days ago (04 September 00). As one has come to expect from this disaster-prone administration, it mentioned not then the fate of its outgoing executive chairman, Tan Sri Tajuddin Ali. The Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange gave its verdict by depressing Tenaga Nasional Berhad, the country's main electricity utility, share prices by eight per cent to RM11. The Tenage board met two days ago to recoup and to tell the world nothing had changed; Tan Sri Tajuddin would not, as widely believed, leave but remain but as president and chief executive officer. He continues, the Star informed its readers yesterday (06 September 00), as before, on the same terms, to run Tenanga, but with a politician to look over his shoulder. If this indeed was the intention, why were not the two appointments made at the same time, instead of the appearance of the re-appointment viewed as an afterthought? If indeed there was some some kinks to be ironed out, as the Star sources say, why could not that be ironed out before the appointments? Since Dr Jamaluddin, with a doctorate in electrical engineering from McGills University in Canada, heads a power consultancy, EPE, which with its subsidiaries, are consultants to Tenange, his appointment is akin to a poacher turning gamekeeper. Since both Tenaga and EPE power is involved in the Bakun hydroelectric power project in Sarawak, the appointment also has a incestuous ring to it.

What frightens one in the runup to National Day is the official, deliberate re-writing of history, in which only the Prime Minister takes pride of place. The three former prime ministers, and the giants who walked with them, barely mentioned and only in passing. The past is history, we are made to believe. But the past is important in the present, to seek tenuous links with those now in office. A newly created Tan Sri, an estate clerk at independence and barely in his twenties, talks confidently of his friendship with the Prime Minister, and of his own fanciful role in the creation of the National Land Finance Co-operative Berhad. Tun Sambanthan is mentioned, in passing, as of Dato' K.K. Nair, then an MIC icon in Kedah -- how many of these peodple who think he was a great man bothered to look him when he was ill and bedridden, and attended his funeral a few years ago? -- but Tan Sri Somasundaram would have us to believe he, as a clerk could rub shoulders with the local medical doctor, one Dr Mahathir bin Mohamed. He now heads the NLCFCB, and talks of the difficulties of raising funds and buying estates at a time. He, of course, conveniently ignores the M$6 million interest-free government loan the then Prime Minister, Tengku Abdul Rahman, extended to Tun Sambanthan to set up NLCFCB. (That would be worth about 50 times more today). Tun Sambanthan, a chettiar landowner, was himself a shy, quiet man so forbidding to those he meet him for the first time that none would dare approach him. Something clearly has gone wrong in the telling. I still do not know if that money was ever returned.

The market is abuzz with talk that Ekran Berhad would be paid RM700 million for not building the Bakun hydroelectric dam. The sum is said to have been approved, although no confirmation of this is possible. The high quality timber in one of Sarawak's best timber areas which Ekran Berhad got by executive fiat -- by allowing it to clear the area not of timber but biomass. There is pressure within the government that this RM700 million should be offset against the value of the timber extracted, but as matters stand that would be a pipe dream. Whether this would prevent the wolves from gathering at Ekran's door is, of course, another matter. It shares are suspended, and if recent trends are any guide, the already depressed shares should drop like a stone.

Despite deputy prime minister Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim's insistence, the MOF Inc's takeover of the Bakun hydroelectric project from the floundering Ekran Berhad is a bail out. Whether the Bakun dam is a national or international project is irrelevant. When Ekran Berhad was given it before the Sarawak state elections, the decision was taken by two men, the prime minister Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed and the financial adviser Tun Daim Zainuddin. One reason for this was the growing disenchantment among the Chinese community in Sarawak with the government, and giving such a large project to a Sarawak Chinese would have swung votes towards the government, as it did. There were other financial conditions attached to this, mainly as a way for Tan Sri Dr Ting Pek Khiing to be paid for his "can do" buildings he built in a hurry in Langkawi and for extending the runaway there to take in Boeing 747s. That did not have Khazanah approval, since it was given in the usual Bolehland way of a prime ministerial directive.

The ABB-CBPO consortium, sitting on massive losses, is so sanguine that one cannot but believe it has much up its sleeve. Tan Sri Dato Dr Ting is certainly cornered, despite the bold front he puts up. He has had a recurrence of the stroke he suffers from within a fortnight of being sued by two directors of Wembley Industries Holdings Berhad for RM83 million. As I see it, it is a convenient time for him to give up the ghost of Bakun. Since the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a subsidiary of the World Bank, seem willing to finance the dam at market rates of interest, new Bolehland institutions will move to take that up. The current front runners are a consortium led by that great nodding marionette, Tan Sri Francis Yeoh: YTL, Tabung Haji, Siemens and Alcatel. My information is that Tan Sri Dr Ting would depart from the scene with control of Granite, the listed company that allegedly has a billion ringgit contract in Ekran Berhad's scheme for the Bakun dam, and little else.

There is 346 days before the Commonwealth Games begins in Kuala Lumpur. The Sukom Ninety Eight Berhad, which organises the Games, remains touchy at criticism of its organisation, attacking a reporter in a letter in the New Straits Times today (30 Sept) for suggesting that the money is not well spent. We still do not know if the facilities are up to mark. There is much huff and puff, but details are lacking. But given the way we spint at the last minute, all this would fall into place.

The long distance controlling of events seem to be an acceptable Bolehland business practice. There is a run on MBf branches in several towns in Malaysia caused by concern on the continued health of Tan Sri Dato Dr Loy Hean Hong is causing concern. In today's newspapers, there is a signed statement by him, as Chief Executive Officer/President of the MBf Group of Companies and on behalf of the Board of Directors and management of MBf Finance Berhad, assuring "valued customers and Business Associates" of the soundness of the company. He refers to "certain unfounded and untrue rumours" but does not mention the run on the company. The run started, as far as I can gather, on rumours that he is seriously ill with cancer -- of the stomach, I am told -- in a Paris hospital.

This problem over Bakun becomes curiouser and curiouser. Now Tenaga Nasional Berhad, with no experience in building hydroelectric dams of any kind, now wants to build the Bakun dam after its main proponent, Ekran Berhad, abrogated its contract with the ABB-CBPO consortium. The Star quoted industry officials as saying that for TNB, if it succeeds, it could be the biggest project for its subsidiary, TNB Engineers Sdn Bhd, "which has 300 engineers specialising in planning hydro stations, generation, transmission and distribution". (How do you "plan" hydro stations, when you have had no chance to put them into practice, but never mind.)

The Malaysian Government cancelled the Bakun hydroelectric dam project less than a day after Ekran Berhad vitiated its agreement with the Swiss-Swedish-Brazilian consortium, ABB-CBPO, to construct it. Also cancelled -- "delayed indefinitely", in bureaucratese -- were the Linear City project which Tan Sri Vincent Tan was to have developed, and some major highway projects. The announcement came amidst a further meltdown on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange and the UMNO General Assembly. The government, which had ordered stocks on the Composite Index to immediate delivery before buying or selling it earlier this week, has also withdrawn it. The UMNO General Assembly, which begins this morning, is out for blood, since there is hardly a divisional leader who has not lost at least heavily on the stock market. The decline of the currency to 3.04 against the US dollar has made the overall look uncertain. The government has also promised action against local short sellers, amongst whom are reportedly those among the high and mighty of the Malaysian financial scene.

The deputy prime minister, Dato' Anwar Ibrahim, recently ordered Ekran Berhad and the main Bakun contractor, ABB-CBPO, to sort out their differences over the Bakun project. The Ekran Berhad executive chairman, Tan Sri Ting Pek Khiing, immediately responded to say there was no problem. ABB-CBPO kept quiet publicly but told anyone who asked that there was indeed a problem. Dato' Seri Anwar says there is and major enough to give the two an ultimatum to resolve the issue. (But then, who is he? He is only the deputy prime minister, not the top honcho himself.) The two parties met this week, and suddenly the problem was there all the time. Tan Sri Ting insists, echoing the prime minister's statement that a project of this size would inevitably give rise to differences and problems, now there is a "minor" problem which six hours of negotiations could not erase. To emphasise this, the Bakun Hydroelectric company held a board meeting before and after their negotiations with the ABB-CBPO consortium.

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