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Chaos in place with political rubber band

THE PRIME MINISTER, DATO' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, inconvenienced and angry he had his lunch in candlelight ( "fortunately the fish I ate had no bones"!), wants an immediate report on the blackout, has ordered Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) not to ever have another. The deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, is inconvenienced and angry a meeting he hosted is without electricity. The energy, water and communications minister, Dato' Seri Lim Kheng Yaik, jokes about how his wife heckles him about it. His predecessor, though with a different cabinet title, Dato' Seri Leo Moggie, is chairman of TNB, defends the staff over the blackout: he insists TNB staff acted promptly and did well to restore power. TNB deputy CEO, Dato' CEO, Dato' Abdul Hadi Mohamed Deros, is puzzled it happened.

In September 2003, after a similar blackout, this time in the five northern states, the then executive chairman, Dato' Awang Adik Husin, promised more live line maintainenance "to reduce line outages through audit of protection delays". A similar litany of promises followed then, too. For a few days, BN cabinet ministers, from the prime minister down, beat their breast in public, ordered it never happen again, as now, and went into hibernation. In other words, nothing changed then, and nothing will change now. But one is not surprised that it happens. The system is so structured that it cannot but happen. Chaos is firmly tied together by a political rubber band.

In turning the TNB into a plaything of the cronies of the establishment, it has no interest in what it is to do, only so it can be ripped off. It is run by those who espouse the corporate culture without understanding what it means, to ensure quick profits for the individuals, usually with huge kickbacks, high salaries and perks, share options. They would not stay on for the long haul, moving every three or four years, keeping the balance sheets in the black by asset stripping and not keeping what remains well maintained. The signs of this caused the Sultan Salehuddin Abdul Aziz power station to fail last week.

Every privatisation of government assets failed, is failing, will fail because it is so structured that it would. Only the cronies of the UMNO establishment and their cronies benefit. That is the unspoken truth of why the government privatised state assets. So it would work to the hidden plan, the government kept the golden share", which allowed it total control of the privatised companies, more to ensure the new management did nothing stupid by running the companies as it should. The "golden share" is so the government could place the cronies of the establishment, usualy of the prime minister, to run these companies, usually to ground. The prime minister is nominally in charge, but he often is told of the changes after the deed is done; that power is vested in a trusted deputy, who then acts as if it is his gift to do as he likes.

It is a matter of record that no government-linked companies (GLCs, as they are officially referred to) stands on its own feet. Many after running up mind-boggling debts are saved when the government without by your leave writes it off at the taxpayer's expense. The North-South highway is profitabe to those cronies who run it, because of a promise that whatever happens, and however much money it makes, the government would continue to compensate it one way or another. It does not matter that eight times more vehicles travel on it now than when it started, but it has a cast-iron contract to demand more every year. It is so weighted down in debt that it cannot repay even if the tolls are raised to RM5 a kilometre every year.

So what happens in TNB is the tip of the iceberg. The TNB now is controlled by the prime minister's son-in-law, Mr Khairy Jamaluddin. He appointed Datoi' Che Khalib Mohamed Noh, in his late thirties, who promptly ran it as his fiefdom, brooking no interruption from its technical or older staff, the divide between the board and senior management and the rest of TNB so wide that it is all but unbridgeable. He is an accountant who does not care if he runs a utility company, or a restaurant chain: all he is interested in is the bottom line, even if he has to destroy the company to achieve it. He is beholden to political power: when Mr Khairy sent him an SMS to order him to award the contract for a substation in Lenggeng, Negri Sembilan, to a company that did not make the shortlist but had the prime minsiter's cousin as chairman, he should have resigned. But he cannot. He is among the brilliant and the bright aligned to the smartest and most brilliant 29-year-old; the slightest hint of disloyalty and he is out in the cold. It does not matter if in politics or business. What happened to the former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, has to others too.

TNB, as it is structed, is beyond redemption. In theory, the power stations are maintained to such a high degree that should the transmission fail, the back-up system steps in so seamlessly that most would not even notice it. A maintenance crew, led by an experienced engineer, is on place round the clock so that when even, if unlikely, the back-up system fails, power will be restored manually in minutes. This mantra is what Dato' Abdul Hadi repeated at his press conference. But that is not how the power stations now operate: when political connexions, not technical competence, dictates which machinery is bought, the old standards go by the wayside. Often the main system and the back-up are not compatible.

Someone close to RP Jaya, which is dismantling the Tuanku Jaffar power station in Teluk Kemang (or Port Dickson, as it is commonly known) sent me an SMS, not to deny what I wrote, but to insist it had had an office at the site since November, had the right to enter it without permission, and had paid the RM3 million deposit, as I reported. I stand corrected on that. Now TNB must explain why, after giving the contract to dismantle the power station to two companies and then getting the two parties to work in tandem, it allowed RP Jaya, but not Bukake, the other awarded the contract, to set up an office at the station. And when, how, and why it did so. I have written, in an earlier piece, on how this breached national security.

This will not go away, not when procurement is a political, not a technical, decision, when standards are compromised, when no known international standard is adhered to. This is not only in government-linked companies. The New Straits Times today (17 January 2005) screams in a front page banner headline that RM330 million worth of traffic summons has not been settled, that the traffic police would knock on doors to arrest and handcuff "offenders" on the spot. In a similar exercise last year, it turned out that few were issued with the summons, the traffic police did not follow up because the computer system was down, and it was left to the motorist to decide if he wants to be embarrassed by being led away in handcuffs and spend numerous days in jail and court, or pay up, whether he is guilty of the traffic offence or not.

How and why did the police issue RM330 million worth of traffic summonses without any attempt to recover them? But then, why not, when failure is rewarded, and honesty punished? When the rot begins at the top, and seeps down to the most junior and lowest paid civil servant? When political intervention is only how a decision can be extracted from the civil servant? When the government and its leaders brush aside major cracks in the system as of no consequence, how could fairness, fair play, honesty and competence survive? It is a frightening indictment of the system that Malaysians stay clear of authority if and when he can, and is prepared to pay a bribe when he has to so he would not be sent on a wild goose chase.

The government system is rotten to the core. It reflects what happens in every government department. Political control of it has introduced rigor mortis into the system. This is made certain by the four ills inherent in the system: Malay racism, Islamic fanaticism, corruption and incompetence. To complicate it, several groups run riot to implement it to the exclusion of every other. Pak Lah, even if he means what he says, is impotent. He would be destroyed politically if he should be foolish enough to try. He does not, nor do any one else, know the powers ranged against a return to the politics and the civil service when both were looked up to. The mess in the TNB happens in every government department, and government-linked company. It now spreads to the private companies, when the politicians move in for the kill there, too. It is helped by political and civil service arrogance and naivete.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com