Indah Water Konsortium Sdn Bhd (IWK), once in the empire of that internationally known business man of unquestioned repute, one Tan Sri Vincent Tan, is in the news again. It goes without saying that what was once in the great man's domain would no longer be in it, unless it is a fast food restaurant like McDonalds and other cash cows. His empire is on course for protection under the Companies Act. It might be earlier than you think.

The monorail project was given to that international business man of unquestioned reputed, one Tan Sri Dato' Seri Vincent Tan, who promptly made a mess of it, as he did of the privatisation of sewage. He failed, as promised, to have the monorail ready for the 1998 Commonwealth Games, blaming it on the financial crisis of the previous year. He sold it to the present concessionaire, who says confidently it would be completed in 12 months. More than that, it wants to be listed on the KLSE as an infrastructure company, is upbeat about it, and wants to list between 25 and 30 per cent of the company. If it pins its hopes on that for the capital to complete it, it is in for a rude shock. After the TimeDotCom fiasco, and the bailouts, investors are not in the mood for further ripoffs, for that is what it would be.

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.

KUALA LUMPUR: Tycoon Tan Sri Vincent Tan lodged a police report on Friday alleging that a court document pertaining to one of his cases had been tampered with.

The government lost its way. Why should Danamodal absorb the debts Tan Sri Vincent Tan piled up in the Sun media group so that he could sell it to another business man for a profit? Both Danaharta and Danamodal exist to rescue these fellows, not the genuine business man who turned belly up not because of the economic recession and financial downturn, but because they could not get the official help that they could reasonable expect, or because they are harassed by these cronies, courtiers and siblings so that they are pushed to the wall with no recourse.

The Prime Minister said in Pahang if Malays wanted meritocracy they could have it, but they should not then expect preferential places in local universities and elsewhere. The other races, however you look at it, are beaten down to medicrity, and impediments placed when they do not conform. About the same time, the one attempt to have a newspaper which at least reports the news lost its focus, and the Sun threatens to return to mediocrity and mark time with the establishment newspapers. The internationally known business man of unquestioned repute, with a remarkable penchant to sue journalists and news organisations for defamation, Tan Sri Vincent Tan, is back in the saddle. When the former banker, Mr Tong Kooi Yong, offered to buy the Sun off him, he offloaded the RM100 million and more in debt to Danamodal, and did for RM30 million. He realised the news business brought him headaches galore, especially with his penchant to sue anyone who does not view him as he views himself. I should know.

My solicitors, Messrs Chellam Wong, files a motion in the Federal Court Registry tomorrow (23 Feb 01) for an order to quash its decision on the Vincent Tan libel case and rehear it. Mr M. Sivalingam will lead a team of counsel to argue my case. The Federal Court had, in July last year, dismissed my appeal and made it law that not only can general damages be quantified, it also need not be proved. Since this case, a flurry of defamation cases were filed, and some settled for millions of ringgit, with even cabinet ministers suing for RM100 million and clerks awarded as much as RM500,000 against newspapers. Now a company sues a bank for RM50 million because it bounced some checks. Defamation now threatens all and sundry. The Federal Court has also ruled that defamation damages must exceed personal injury awards.

The government cannot justify the bailout of its cronies, courtiers and siblings of the establishment. Some could have been but how would you justify the bailing out of a crony like the Super Bumiputra aka international business man of unquestioned reputed, one Tan Sri Dato' Seri Vincent Tan? Danaharta, to those interested, now controls the Berjaya Group, with 30 per cent of the company's shares, while the Great Man holds just over seven per cent. Why?

It is the practice these days, after the defamation suit brought against a now-defunct magazine and some journalists, including M.G.G. Pillai, by the Super Bumiputra aka international business man of unquestioned repute, one Tan Sri Vincent Tan, allowed general damages to be quantified. It is a fair bet Dato' Seri Samy Vellu has taken the same route. He could not be able to justify one per cent of what he claims in special damages, which have to proved. But one should not blame the minister for taking advantage of the law of the defamation as practiced in Malaysia. The Super Bumiputra, with his counsel, Dato' V.K. Lingam, got the Federal Court to accept that general damages can be quantified. It does not matter that it goes against settled law, that when he demanded RM20 million from the witness box (he got half of that) without proof or witnesses, that judgement was tainted because that went against settled law. But the Court of Appeal and the Federal Court did not think so.

The KL Monorail is now on track, so the transport minister, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, avers. Work on it began in January 1997 and was to have been completed in time for the Commonwealth Games in 1998. It was not. The Asian financial crisis is why, we are told. It was not. The Berjaya Group chairman and establishment crony, Tan Sri Vincent Tan, who was given the concenssion to build and run the monorail, could not. Despite a RM300 million soft loan, payable when able, it got stuck. The Commonwealth Games came and went. Now, two-and-a-half years later, work has re-started but with Tan Sri Vincent Tan. Strapped as he is for cash, he sold his interest and got out.

Were it as simple! This is the theory and the plan. But in Bolehland, it does not work so simply. As the Super Bumiputra aka internationally known business man of unquestioned repute, one Tan Sri Dato' Seri (not yet Dr, but there is time for that!) Vincent Tan, knows only too well there's many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip. If Tan Sri Dato' Paduka (Dr) Candonodam had attempted to resolve his debts earlier on similar lines a few years earlier, he could well have got away. Now, with the Renong bailout, the MAS bailout, the LRT bailout, the Park May-Intrakota bus bailout, the Monorail bailout, a Tan Sri Dato' Paduka (Dr) Ting bailout would raise the hatred of Malaysians fed up with the government's throwing of good money after bad. But, no doubt, hope springs eternal in the human breast!

In this school's relocation, the immediate beneficiaries are the "Super Bumiputra" aka international business man of unequestioned repute, one Tan Sri Vincent Tan, and his brother, Dato' Daniel Tan. This is how they built their empire of debt in Bolehland. This is how they ingratiated themselves into the establishment's cronies. The Super Bumiputra's role in the humiliation of He Who Must Be Destroyed At All Cost remains to be told. His continued "success" in Bolehland depends on such roles for which he occasionally has to take the fall. And so "successful" is he that every privatisation given him on the proverbial platter is in trouble, but, like Oliver Twist, comes seeking more. But, unlike Oliver Twist, gets it. He is propped up, and given continued government largesse even after he proved himself incapable of producing what he promised. Why?

The Government had the police guard the locked gates of the SRJK Chinese school in Damansara, threatened the pupils with expulsion, would not say why the 70-year-old school must be moved. The school must shift to temporary quarters in another school a few kilometres away near a completed project of that internationally known business man of unquestioned repute and "Super Bumiputra", Tan Sri Vincent Tan and his brother, Dato' Daniel Tan. But the pressure refused to die down. The government's mishandling of the affair turned into a question of Chinese education, and Chinese educationists entered the fray. The parents and students demonstrated in front of the education ministry two days ago.

Among new faces in the government are likely to be the former mentri besar of Selangor, Tan Sri Muhammad bin Taib; the UMNO executive secretary and a Vincent Tan business crony, Tengku Adnan bin Tengku Mansor, former editor-in-chief of the Utusan group of newspapers, Senator Zainuddin Mydin or Zam, as he is popularly known. Both are slated to be deputy ministers, one in the federal territory and the other in information.

The Chinese business men press-ganged are handpicked not for their ability but for their lack of it. So, Tan Sri Ting Pek Khiing, a former tractor driver, and his Ekran empire keeps going with projects which prove their incompetence: after making a mess of the Bakun hydroelectrice project, he is given another chance to build it; besides, he also gets an important subcontract for the submarine base at Sepanga Bay in Sabah. The former car salesman and insurance agent, Tan Sri Vincent Tan, cannot rise from his inability to run companies and businesses without fresh infusions of government projects.

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,

The Malaysian international business man of unquestioned repute, Tan Sri Vincent Tan, has his business empire crumble under him. His Berjaya Group's debts are four times its paid-up capital of RM2 billion. His Berjaya Toto is in a tangle over loans to his Berjaya Land, which continues to increase by leaps and bounds with no prospect of repayment. His Berjaya Times Square mall is the albatross it always was around his heck. He sold his interest in the monorail project for a fraction of the RM1 billion he insisted it would be worth when it turns in a profit. To add insult to injury, his Digicom mobile phones, now under Norwegian management with a contract of non-interference, turned an RM11 million loss into a RM90 million profit in a year. In short, he is looking for a new godfather who could bail him out. His present godfather cannot. How could he when he needs godfathers to keep him afloat? But hope springs eternal in the human breast. He was seen at the Kuala Lumpur Turf Club with the Prime Minister in what seems an attempt to take it over from another Prime Ministerial crony.

As it is, the Param and Anwar dominoes fall one by one. Tun Eusoff retires today under a cloud. Mr Justice Augustine Paul has disappeared into the legal woodwork with no future but one of ignomy. Mr Justice Ariffin Jaka cannot write the judgement in the second Anwar trial without incriminating himself. Mr Justice R.K. Nathan who thought he would be a federal court judge now considers retirement now that he is, if rumours are true, sent to East Malaysia, Miri or Tawau, depending on which rumour you choose to believe. Tan Sri Vincent Tan has important business in Ougadougou whenever his bankers want a word with him, and is further embroiled in a messy defamation case in Australia. He is one of the litigants who sued a little known magazine published in England for hundreds of millions of ringgit and forced insurance companies to settle for about RM20 million.

The judiciary's reputation declined fast after that happened. So quickly and thoroughly that Tun Eusoff retires under a cloud. The Prime Minister realised he was not "reliable" anymore. The most important man who advisers the Prime Ministers on matters judicial is the former Lord President, Tun Abdul Hamid Omar. It was he who recommended Tan Sri Mohtar as Attorney-General, after the outgoing A-G, Tan Sri Abu Talib Osman's nominee did not pass muster. It shocked many in legal circles at the time. Tan Sri Abu Talib had wanted Tan Sri Mohtar investigated for his conduct as a high court judge when he became his successor. His lack-lustre tenure is confirmed in his desire to ignore legal principles and procedure to convict the former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, of corruption and sodomy. Photographs of him on holiday with a Malaysian business man close to the establishment, Tan Sri Vincent Tan, and his lawyer, Dato' V.K. Lingam, and their families in Italy. He had about the same time gone on a similar holiday with Tun Eusoff and their families with a prominent business man's crony in tow.

And so, according to latest rumours, the Rulers would consider four names -- one Court of Appeal and three high court judges -- for promotion to the Federal Court when they meet next week. The man who, despite his judicial sleights of hand and behaviour, has a brilliant legal mind, Judge Gopal Sri Ram, is not favoured anymore. But Judge Mokhtar Sidin -- who in the Vincent Tan libel case allowed the plaintiff's lawyer, Dato' V.K. Lingam, to write the judgement giving him a total of RM10 million in damges even if neither libel nor damages were proved -- is. The inclusion of three high court judges raises judicial and legal eyebrows. Why should it? If kindergarten children can get double promotion, as the much-vaunted, ill-thought-out vision schools allow, why should not high court judges to the federal court? After all, the Malaysian judiciary has a more serious problem with judicial libido than dispense justice. If a man faces a prominent business man in court, he cannot succeed. The court would find creative reasons to damn him. This is so ingrained that few would rather opt to have disputes arbitrated. Indeed, in almost every contract involving foreign investment or investors, disputes are by arbitration overseas, usually in Singapore. So much for the integrity of Bolehland justice.

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