Something about Malaysia by an Australian for the Aussie papers!!

While Malaysia fiddles, its opportunities are running dry
Michael Backman


November 15, 2006


MALAYSIA'S been at it again, arguing about what proportion of the economy each of its two main races — the Malays and the Chinese — owns. It's an argument that's been running for 40 years. That wealth and race are not synonymous is important for national cohesion, but really it's time Malaysia grew up.

It's a tough world out there and there can be little sympathy for a country that prefers to argue about how to divide wealth rather than get on with the job of creating it.

The long-held aim is for 30 per cent of corporate equity to be in Malay hands, but the figure that the Government uses to justify handing over huge swathes of public companies to Malays but not to other races is absurd. It bases its figure on equity valued, not at market value, but at par value.

Many shares have a par value of say $1 but a market value of $12. And so the Government figure (18.9 per cent is the most recent figure) is a gross underestimate. Last month a paper by a researcher at a local think-tank came up with a figure of 45 per cent based on actual stock prices. All hell broke loose. The paper was withdrawn and the researcher resigned in protest. Part of the problem is that he is Chinese.

"Malaysia boleh!" is Malaysia's national catch cry. It translates to "Malaysia can!" and Malaysia certainly can. Few countries are as good at wasting money. It is richly endowed with natural resources and the national obsession seems to be to extract these, sell them off and then collectively spray the proceeds up against the wall.

This all happens in the context of Malaysia's grossly inflated sense of its place in the world.

Most Malaysians are convinced that the eyes of the world are on their country and that their leaders are world figures. This is thanks to Malaysia's tame media and the bravado of former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad. The truth is, few people on the streets of London or New York could point to Malaysia on a map much less name its prime minister or capital city.

As if to make this point, a recent episode of The Simpsons features a newsreader trying to announce that a tidal wave had hit some place called Kuala Lumpur. He couldn't pronounce the city's name and so made up one, as if no-one cared anyway. But the joke was on the script writers — Kuala Lumpur is inland.

Petronas, the national oil company is well run, particularly when compared to the disaster that passes for a national oil company in neighbouring Indonesia. But in some respects, this is Malaysia's problem. The very success of Petronas means that it is used to underwrite all manner of excess.

The KLCC development in central Kuala Lumpur is an example. It includes the Twin Towers, the tallest buildings in the world when they were built, which was their point.

It certainly wasn't that there was an office shortage in Kuala Lumpur — there wasn't.

Malaysians are very proud of these towers. Goodness knows why. They had little to do with them. The money for them came out of the ground and the engineering was contracted out to South Korean companies.

They don't even run the shopping centre that's beneath them. That's handled by Australia's Westfield.

Next year, a Malaysian astronaut will go into space aboard a Russian rocket — the first Malay in space. And the cost? $RM95 million ($A34.3 million), to be footed by Malaysian taxpayers. The Science and Technology Minister has said that a moon landing in 2020 is the next target, aboard a US flight. There's no indication of what the Americans will charge for this, assuming there's even a chance that they will consider it. But what is Malaysia getting by using the space programs of others as a taxi service? There are no obvious technical benefits, but no doubt Malaysians will be told once again, that they are "boleh". The trouble is, they're not. It's not their space program.

Back in July, the Government announced that it would spend $RM490 million on a sports complex near the London Olympics site so that Malaysian athletes can train there and "get used to cold weather".

But the summer Olympics are held in the summer.

So what is the complex's real purpose? The dozens of goodwill missions by ministers and bureaucrats to London to check on the centre's construction and then on the athletes while they train might provide a clue.

Bank bale outs, a formula one racing track, an entire new capital city — Petronas has paid for them all. It's been an orgy of nonsense that Malaysia can ill afford.

Why? Because Malaysia's oil will run out in about 19 years. As it is, Malaysia will become a net oil importer in 2011 — that's just five years away.

So it's in this context that the latest debate about race and wealth is so sad.

It is time to move on, time to prepare the economy for life after oil. But, like Nero fiddling while Rome burned, the Malaysian Government is more interested in stunts like sending a Malaysian into space when Malaysia's inadequate schools could have done with the cash, and arguing about wealth distribution using transparently ridiculous statistics.

That's not Malaysia "boleh", that's Malaysia "bodoh" (stupid).



Shameful truth, isn't it??!!

 

Malaysia? Whats that? Jking.

But it is a fact that Petronas is forced to be an underwriter for all the dumb things that goes on there.

But whatever, politicians are clowns and they're making the country as the center ring.

 

That Australian guy is hitting so hard on M'sia.



But what to do? Guys outside are already complaining about the 'work' there. *Sigh*. Gotta fix the reputation.

 

nothing new right? we make joke out of ourselves everyday

 

I think those people who responsible for this is time to change, not just consider about themselves only...

 

How about the Kompleks Sukan in London anyway? I don't understand, why should they build a huge Kompleks Sukan in London when they can do all the sports practice here??? And they want to train themselves in the Winter for the Summer Olympics?


Y'see, the guys in Kenya can run, jump and swim better than the M'sian counterparts even WITHOUT all the facilities.

 

thats a very intresting article indeed! its good to know how other people perceive us so that we may change... if indeed we do mend our ways.

oh well... MALAYSIA BOLEH!!!!

 

Now this really got me scratching my balls.....errrr I meant my head

 

Here is our trade minister's reply:
Rafidah plays down Aussie barbs
KUALA LUMPUR: An article in an Australian newspaper The Age ridiculing Malaysia and calling Malaysia "bodoh" (stupid) has left International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Rafidah Aziz unperturbed.
"What do we care? Obviously, this person doesn't know Malaysia. He is an outsider and he can say what he likes. I don't really care about what others say – as long as it is not a Malaysian saying it," she said.
The Wanita Umno chief said the Australian writer had apparently not followed the Umno general assembly proceedings closely.
"If he did, he would have seen things differently."
The Nov 15 article by Michael Backman said it was time Malaysia grew up and stopped arguing about what proportion of the economy the Chinese and Malays owned.
The Government was more interested in stunts like sending an astronaut into space when the country's inadequate schools could have done with the cash, the writer said, adding "that's not Malaysia Boleh, that's Malaysia Bodoh."

 

Michael Backman's column following Trade Minister's remarks
(sorry for the long post but worth reading imo)
Malaysia bites back and industriously trades the insults
by Michael Backman
The Age
November 29, 2006

MY LAST column on wasteful government spending in Malaysia (Business, 15/11) generated a furore. I
received more than 600 emails from readers, mostly Malaysians (both expatriate and in Malaysia) and
nearly all supportive.

The column was the most emailed item on The Age's website for six days straight and it was replicated in
dozens of blogs worldwide.

My personal website received more than 50,000 hits. A Malaysian Government minister criticised the
column publicly. And the Malaysian Opposition Leader issued a news release in its support.

The minister, Rafidah Aziz, Malaysia's Minister for Trade and Industry, declared somewhat imperiously
that she didn't care what I said because I am a foreigner and I probably don't know much about Malaysia
anyway.

Rafidah knows her trade brief like few others. Her knowledge of the complex rules of the international
trading system, with its many trade barriers, is remarkable. In meetings with other trade ministers, she
rarely needs assistance from minders. Hard working and tenacious, I once thought she might make a
reasonable prime minister.

But her technical abilities are marred by her mishandling of other issues, most recently her ministry's
allocation of much coveted car import permits. Most went to a handful of well-connected businessmen,
including her own relatives.

The issue exploded in Malaysia late last year and she was lucky to keep her job.

And then there are the corruption allegations. In 1995, in a report to the attorney-general, the public
prosecutor said there was a prima facie basis for Rafidah's arrest and prosecution on five counts of
corruption.

An opposition activist later acquired official documents that appeared to confirm this. He was jailed for
two years under the Official Secrets Act simply for possessing them. Rafidah, on the other hand, was not
even charged.

Rafidah added to her remarks about my column that no Malaysian should say such things. It's little
wonder that she doesn't welcome scrutiny from her own people. But then the idea that Malaysians
cannot comment publicly about how their country is run but a non-Malaysian can, is disgraceful.

Perhaps Rafidah needs to be reminded who pays her salary.

And as if to underscore my points about waste, on the day that my column was published, an assistant
minister told the Malaysian Parliament that Malaysia's first astronaut to be sent into space next year
aboard a Russian space mission will be tasked to play batu seremban, a traditional Malay children's
game played with pebbles, will do some batik painting and will make teh tarik, a type of Malaysian milky
tea, all to see how these things can be done without gravity.

The day before, the Government announced that a new RM400 million ($A142 million) palace will be
built for Malaysia's king, a position that is almost entirely ceremonial.

And the week before a groundbreaking ceremony was held for a second bridge between Penang and
the Malaysian peninsular costing RM3 billion, a bridge that many consider unnecessary.

Where would the money be better spent?

Education is the obvious answer. But not on school buildings, for it matters less in what children are
educated than how. And how children are educated in Malaysia is a national disaster.

Learning is largely by rote. In an email to me last week, one Malaysian recalled her schooling as being in
a system "all about spoon-feeding, memory work and regurgitation. Students are not encouraged to
think for themselves and they become adults who swallow everything they're told."

Even the existing system fails many. It has just emerged that in Sabah state, only 46 per cent of the
students who had sat the UPSR — the exam that students sit before going to secondary school — had
passed. One small school actually had a 100 per cent failure rate.

But does the Malaysian Government want creative, critical thinkers? Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi said
to the ruling party's recent general assembly Malaysia needed to make students creative. But that
means they must be questioning and thus critical; what hope is there of that when one of Abdullah's own
ministers tells Malaysians that they cannot say the things that I can and hundreds of them write to me to
complain because they don't feel that they can complain to their own Government?

Malaysia needs to do something. Its oil will run out soon and it has lost much of its appeal to foreign
investors — recent UN figures show that from 2004 to 2005, foreign investment in Malaysia fell by 14 per
cent, when the world economy was enjoying one of its longest periods of growth. One might wonder what
the Trade and Industry Minister has actually been doing.

But, while politicians from the ruling party preach about Malay nationalism, there are at least some who
quietly go about the business of trying to secure the country's future. Not all of them are Chinese.

Two weeks ago, Malaysia's MMC Corporation, together with a local partner, won a $US30 billion
infrastructure deal in Saudi Arabia. That's a huge undertaking for any company, let alone a Malaysian
one, and just as well too — someone has to pay the bills.