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Tan Sri Dato' Paduka (Dr) Ting Pek Khiing Strikes Again!

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:

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Ekran Berhad ("Ekran" or "Company") Company No 224747-K
(Incorporated in Malaysia"

NOTICE

1. SETTLEMENT OF AMOUNT OF RM712,939,000 owing by Tan Sri Dato' Paduka (Dr) Ting Pek Khiing ("Tan Sri Ting" to Ekran; and

2. PROPOSED REVISED UTILISATION OF PROCEEDS from the Rights issue herinafter, collectively, referred to as the proposals.

FURTHER TO THE announcement made on behalf of the Directors of Ekran on 6 November 2000, Amanah Merchant Bank Berhad, on behalf of the Directors of Ekran, wishes to announce that the Board of Directors has granted approval to Tan Sri Ting for a final extension of time until 30 January 2001 for the settlement of the initial cash payment of RM50 million pursuant to the Settlement Agreement dated 29 June 2000 entered between Tan Sri Ting and Ekran.

The application to the Securities Commission in relation to the Proposals will now be submitted by 28 February 2001 instead of 31 January 2001 as previously announced.

This announcement is dated 16 January 2001"

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Tan Sri Dato' Paduka (Dr) Candonodam Ting, in other words, owes the company he controls as chairman nearly RM750 million, a three-quarters of a billion. He owes others, including banks, about or more than this, making him a billion-ringgit debtor. The company and its chairman broke the law and listing rules of the KLSE and the Securities Commission with this debt. Yet no action is taken against him and the company. Its share price at 75 sen is half as much as its low for the year and, like the debt he cannot repay Ekran, is a fraction of what its once was.

He is a super crony, and like super cronies, every project he is given is troubled; the biggest, in fact Southeast Asia's largest infrastructure project, the Bakun Hydroelectric Dam, collapsed spectacularly. He tried to build it on a shoe-string, parcelling out subcontracts to companies he controlled, wanted the foreign contractor to be responsible for cost overruns it was not responsible for. Remarkably, he was also the project managers. It was built to fail, and fail it did. He was helped with timber concessions which earned him more than RM2 million, but little of that was diverted to the building of the dam. When this was pointed out, he sued for RM100 million. He does not want to proceed with the defamation action, which confirms all that was said in the article he was upset about.

Now he needs more time to pay the first instalmanet of RM50 million, or about seven per cent of the sum owed. But he is still a super crony. At the Ekran AGM recently, Tan Sri Dato' Paduka (Dr) Candododam proudly reported of two projects which he could not reveal -- for reasons of confidentiality, you understand -- would transform Ekran the property pygmy into an engineering giant which would make even Bechtel Corporation shiver at the sound of its name! It is to be given the ancilliary works for the Sepanga Bay submarine base in Sabah and for the revised Bakun Hydroelectric project. He was given Bakun to recover costs of the Langkawi projects which were done without Treasury approval; now he is given two huge engineering projects to rescue him from his debts to Ekran. The projects are given to him personally not to Ekran so he makes money injecting them into Ekran to reduce his debt. And, hey presto, it is cleared.

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!

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my