Few in Malaysia would miss a chance to be in the good books of the politically powerful. Especially if it means they could be wealthy in the bargain. But they will almost lose their magic when a new prime minister takes over. It does not matter to them that others who followed this route in the past are forgotten now. They do not realise, or their spin meisters forget to tell them, they should complete their legal actions when their patron is prime minister. If I were to say today that Tan Sri Vincent is powerful under Pak Lah, I would be laughed at. And rightly so. The legal action Tan Sri Vincent brought against me still awaits a hearing in the Federal Court 12 years later, contrary to what he and his lawyer said then. But the case is stuck in the Federal Court , certainly longer than it has taken to issue the writ by stealth to the Court of Appeal decision. Tan Sri Ting Pek Khiing did not proceed with his action in Miri in Sarawak after the initial steps, perverting justice in the process, and putting me to unnecessary and great expense. He is now in Kuching, ill and cannot move about though he makes his appearance daily at his new business venture. He is forgotten in Malaysia, his Ekran Bhd, which once was traded at more than 100 ringgit, is now a penny stock, as Tan Sri Vincent's Berjaya stock, which followed Ekran's route, is. It would be a foolhardy investor who bought either share on the stock market as investment.

Over the years, MPs were kept in the dark, and when they asked questions, they were threatened with defamation suits. The National Front got its favourite business men to silence the journalists. Tan Sri Vincent Tan took me to court, and on a serious of moves which showed that he gets the judges he wants, won all the way to the federal court. By then he was out, the I was given a rehearing of the Federal Court on the grounds that the Chief Justice had gone on a holiday with the lawyer for Tan Sri Vincent Tan. This was followed by Tan Sri Ting Pek Khiing of Ekran, who sued me in Miri and I have to go there to file. Both are friends of the former prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed. Tan Sri Ting's case did not go any further after he could not justitify his claim as events caught up with them, is now out of the corporate scene, a diabetic in Singapore. Tan Sri Vincent is ignored by the prime minister's friends now, and his flagship, Berjaya Corporation, owes RM800 million, most to its subsidiary. Defamation action will succeed, in Malaysia and Singapore, is it is quickly settled. The National Kidney Foundation in Singapore sued any one who said it was spending unnecessary money, but according to a government-appointed firm of accounts, it seems it did. But the National Kidney Foundation is in trouble, and the newspapers there go to town, because the PAP wants to bring down a popular politician.

NO PUBLIC DEBATE EXISTS in Malaysia. The threat of defamation, usually by men and companies with much to keep hidden, is thrown with alacrity to establish their position. They are in a hurry for they will lose their influence when the prime minister retires. Tan Sri Vincent Tan and Berjaya Corporation were Mr Khairy and ECM Libra. He sued this writer for defamation ten years ago, but that is not over yet although he and his company does not influence Pak Lah now as he did Tun Mahathir Mohamed then. He tries to be close to Pak Lah, but can he succeed where there is ECM Libra around? These companies will not explain, and Malaysians will know them as superb companies, and mention only that it is successful because they are close to the prime minister. Even political parties and MPs are not allowed to ask questions. Malaysians should be kept ignorant while these companies stole a march over other companies which do not have such connections.

THE NATIONAL FRONT (BN) GOVERNMENT quietly builds a RM250 million airport in Pulau Tioman, where the Prime Ministerial crony, Tan Sri Vincent Tan, owns a much-hyped holiday resort, so Airbuses could land. But the final cost could double. The second finance minister, Dato' Jamaluddin Jarjis - JJ to everyone but to the Opposition PAS he is JV - wanted it built in a hurry and ahead of more important public works projects like low cost houses, schools and rural health clinics. Why? When the Government cancelled the Tioman resort's additional 100 slot machines given it when Tan Sri Vincent breached his licence for 250 slot machines at his Bukit Tinggi Holiday Resort by installing 420 and advertising it worldwide as a casino. JJ justified it as a move to encourage eco-tourism. The Tan Sri Vincent-owned Berjaya Air runs propeller aircraft several times a week and it is hard put to fill the seats. In any case, the only reason people - even eco-tourists - fly to Tioman is the resort. If Tan Sri Vincent is so sure the airport would have crowds flocking to it, he should have built it on his own, and not ask the Government to build this wasteful airport. After all, it is built for his own benefit and for him alone.

The Berjaya Group, which comes next, sunk further into a quagmire when its leading light decided to turn his Bukit Tinggi resort into a casino, against the law, and ran into a political storm and had to surrender his licence. Its leading light is the self-styled international business man of unquestioned repute, Tan Sri Vincent Tan (he is upset when his given name, Chee Yioun, is not mentioned in the same breath, so I shall not) is next as the CEO of three companies whose shares scrape the bottom that it is a penny stock, there for the flutter but not serious investment. But that has not restricted his pay packet. Three companies are listed - Berjaya Group, Berjaya Sports Toto and Berjaya Land - and they paid him in salary and directors' fees about RM24.75 million which with his shareholdings in them rose to RM35.3 million.

TWO WEEKS AGO, THE UTUSAN MALAYSIA COLUMNIST, Awang Selamat, had a dig at the Berjaya Group chief executive, Tan Sri Vincent Tan. He had a tongue-in-cheek piece about Chinese towkays and gambling machines. No one was mentioned, but Tan Sri Vincent was right to claim it referred to him. He demanded a retraction and an apology. The article, he said, put Malay business men, especially those linked to him, in a bad light. That, as the world knows only too well, cannot apply to him. He got both. What else could this UMNO-owned and -controlled newspaper do but grovel. Especially when Tan Sri Vincent is the favoured super-crony of the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed. At least until 31 October 2003.

It is made worse by severe sectarian divisions amongst the Muslims, rarely above the surface, but nevertheless a fact of life. The appointment of an unknown civil servant as the Yang Dipertuan Negara (governor) last December revealed it. The Bajau faction amongst the Muslims are so dominant in numbers in UMNO, but without the consequent power, that its leader, Dato' Salleh Said Keruak, who although in the cabinet, is not one about to jump into any bandwagon at Kuala Lumpur's dictates. Politically, the former Berjaya Party members in UMNO are united against those they regard as the interlopers, and that, by and large, make up their own minds, usually at the last minute. Which is why the state assembly elections, which must be held within nine months cause many a national UMNO leader to get a heart attack.

ON VESAK DAY, 15 MAY 2003, THE PRIME Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, was in Serdang. He was to meet the second finance minister, Dato' Seri Jamaluddin Jarjis, for breakfast. The minister had to be in Kuantan at 12.30, time enough to be late for that. Cabinet ministers, like sultans, never arrive on time. Except, unlike them, to meet the Prime Minister. Dr Mahathir is late, which for him is unusual. As they discussed, over a late breakfast, the matter at hand, a helicopter landed on the grounds outside. Dr Mahathir was surprised: cabinet ministers can commandeer aircraft only if his office allows it; the minister in any case is too low in the pecking order to qualify. The super-crony, Tan Sri Vincent Tan's Berjaya Group had placed a helicopter at the minister's disposal. The Prime Minister was not amused.

The fear of the unknown after he retires worries him no end. He acted against Dato' Seri Anwar at the behest of his cronies and his closest adviser, Tun Daim Zainuddin. But he had to carry the burden alone. Now there is a move to have him stay on, and not retire as he promised. The plan is for him to be asked to stay on when UMNO celebrates its 57th anniversary on 11 May 2003. The former Anwar acolyte, Dato' Zaid Hamidi would propose that he not retire and continue in office in the national interest. He would be seconded by the cabinet minister and former Berjaya Group director, Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, and Dato' Ibrahim Ali, the Kelantan failed politician more popularly known as Al-Kataki for his penchant to switch sides whenever it suits him. This is a last ditch attempt to see continue in office.

Tan Sri Vincent Tan does not have a record in business that one would write home about. His Berjaya Group is billions in debt, and languishes at 90 per cent of what it once was. He has been bailed out more times than any other crony, all because he is close to Dr Mahathir. Let no one forget it: he has not baulked at suing any who does not have a high opinion of the man as he believes he is entitled to.

Why was the hurry to have it up and running this month, when he could, if he had any political, or indeed business sense, waited until after the general elections that must come next year? Could he not wait because he needed this potentially explosive political lifeline to stop his creditors from acting against him? Would it save him? Help in the past did not. He was given a RM1,000 million lifeline in 1991 and in 1998. He was given the Sports Toto gaming concession, the Indah Water Konsortium privatisation, the KL Monorail, and allowed to build some of the substandard stadia for the 1998 Commonwealth Games. This super crony is repeatedly bailed out, only to fail again, with a near-flawless record of turning every gold mine he is given on a silver plate into dross while making himself a lot of money. His flagship, Berjaya Group, languishes on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange around 20 sen, about five percent of what it once was. Along with every KLSE counter he controls, including his gaming counter, Sports Toto.

The usual hype follows: the series is called, ungrammatically, "Coin in Education", is "deemed perfect" for its purpose, is touted as a first step to coin collecting, features twelve endangered animals, and released monthly. How much does this 25 sen coin cost a child wanting to collect it or, implausibly, so he could become an entrepreneur? Oh, only RM5 a month. Why not 25 sen a month? Of course, if the schools join in the scam, there is a discount for bulk orders, says the scam's sales and marketing director, Ms Hashimah Hashim. There will be an annual theme: flora, sea animals, wonders of the world. With a few million children in schools, what kind of response does it expect? Well, 33,000 coins. How does the "entrepreneurial spirit" come into it? As she explains it, if one child misses a few coins in collection, he would buy it at a higher price or exchange it from another in his collection. "This is where the hobby will prove fruitful," Ms Hashimah gushes. Besides the value of the coins would appreciate in time. No doubt as firmly as the share prices of Renong, UEM, Ekran, Berjaya and other discarded playthings of establishement cronies!

In the mutually destructive infighting that followed, Tan Sri Salleh broke away and pushed his claim when the others had all but destroyed themselves. It was so neck-to-neck that one candidate was swamped with congratulatory messages on his selection around the time the Yang Dipertuan Agung formally appointed Dato' Ahmad Shah. The chief minister, Dato' Chong Kah Kit, threw his weight behind his old Berjaya Party colleague and old friend Tan Sri Salleh.

Sometimes they believe in their own hype. Not realising, as the Berjaya Group chairman, Tan Sri Vincent Tan would tell you of his gambling venture in Chinese, the killing of the magnitude Genting Berhad makes in its casinos in the Genting Highlands is a pipe dream; he must wish he did not venture into China. In all else, whether it is the Lion Group's venture into housing in China or Renong Berhad's venture into steel making in the Philippines, or the Berjaya Group's venture into timber in South America, or indeed, the YTL Group's ventures in Africa, they fail.

What should be important is not funny pieces of paper we are over the years forced to sign -- the Rukun Negara; Leadership by Example; the Clean, Efficient and Trustworthy campaign, to name just three, and extinct as the dodo -- but the social contract the BN promised in its elections campaigns. That it jettisons the moment it is returned, insist it could do as it liked, without Parliamentary oversight, cheerfully leading the country in bankruptcy, but any who challenges it are traitors. So the cronies of the establishment makes hay and the people pay for it. The debris and detritus of this -- MAS, MBSB, Renong, UEM, Berjaya, Ekran, Perwaja, the Bakun Dam, the privatised highways, the building of Putra Jaya, KLIA, the F-1 motor racing circuit, to name a few -- amplifies the BN government's disdain for its own election promises of a fair deal for Malaysians.

And in the Malaysia Borneo Building Society Berhad. A subsidiary of the Employees Provident Fund, it was to provide loans for housing. For years it had a stellar reputation, solid, reliable, dependable. Then it got into into the national penchant for acquiring debt as quickly as possible. It got into commercial and corporate lending, and got its chance to turn in huge losses. For the year ending Dec 31, 2001, it showed losses of RM491.9 million, and a cumulative losses of RM960 million since 1997. Most of this is for doubtful debts and lower value of buildings it underwrote. It is not mentioned that just two borrowers -- Tan Sri Vincent Tan of the Berjaya Group and Dato' Joseph Chong, the former BN MP -- owes it as much as its accumulated losses of the past four years.

What caused the disasters in Washington and Kuala Lumpur is the greed which drives modern life. Greed drives respectable auditing firms, lawyers, business men to throw caution to the winds. The fees they generate is more important than the due diligence they are paid to do. When a major foreign accounting firm qualified the accounts of the Berjaya Group, its principal shareholder, Tan Sri Dato' Seri Vincent Tan, promptly changed the auditors. It sent a warning to all auditing firms, who then audited the accounts as the paymasters wanted. With greed comes government influence. In Malaysia, that government influence is seen in the regularity with which it passes money-making enterprises and opportunities their way. And rescue them when they run into trouble.

In Pulau Tioman the only development of any note is a tourist resort owned by the Berjaya Group, whose owner is Tan Sri Dato' Seri Vincent Tan. To get there, you go by a three-hour often-choppy boat ride from Endau or fly Berjaya Air from Kuantan. The only beneficiary to making it duty free is Tan Sri Dato' Seri Vincent Tan. He has a head start. All others must start from scratch.

It is, as time proves, a brilliant recipe for disaster. Which is why IWK is back in government hands. Tan Sri Dato' Seri Vincent Tan laughed all the way to the bank. And to drive home the point he is an international business man of unquestioned repute, he attempted to muzzle via the courts any who questioned his self-proclaimed status of an internationally known business man of unquestioned repute. That succeeded as brilliantly as his management of IWK and the debts his Berjaya Group ran up.

The Berjaya Group chairman, Tan Sri Vincent Tan, insists any who he thinks defames him must be sued for for more money than he or she had earned in a life time. His particular target is journalists. He has yet to collect, although his legal victories, one of which is challenged in the Federal Court next month, is more to threaten than to assuage his reputation. How can it be assuaged if, after insisting only a high enough sum could, he cannot collect? It is more to threaten journalists not to go beyond praising him. Which is why he sues newspapers and journalists who challenge his own view of himself.

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