A case against the NEP: Sports Toto, the inside story

NOW YOU KNOW WHY THE NEP HAD FAILED ITS OBJECTIVES ?

Ahmad Mustapha Hassan

I read with great interest Zaid Ibrahim’s article on the NEP and the Chinese, and as he makes a reference to me I need to provide some details and my relationship with Vincent Tan and how people like Vincent made use of people like me. I am still seething with anger and hurt at the way Vincent Tan treated me. I played a pivotal role in the privatization of Sports Toto and Vincent went on to make billions while leaving me out in the cold. That is the NEP for you.

Zaid made an indirect reference to my role:

He had said: “So he (Mahathir) privatised Sports Toto... to Vincent. But to be successful, Vincent had to have a Mahathir relative as his ‘partner’. Vincent asked a nice gentleman, Mahathir’s nephew, who headed the national news agency Bernama then, to be his partner, with Mahathir’s blessings. But I doubt this nice guy got much in the end as Malay partners don’t last very long in this high-stakes game. The rest is history. Vincent built his fortunes on these ‘haram’ activities. An NEP success story, certainly.”

Let me put it the way it happened.

It is more than three years since I officially disclosed what is being owed to me by tycoons T. Ananda Krishnan and Vincent Tan in my book “The Unmaking of Malaysia”. The book was for a time a best seller and the intention of my writing the book was to expose how these two billionaires got a head start in business and how I had been instrumental in helping them in some of their initial ventures. The book had categorically mentioned that these men had made use of my services but had reneged on the terms of payment for my services. These were services that one would have thought impossible to deliver but I made it possible in view of my knowledge, administrative expertise and connections.

I have attempted for years to recover what has been owed to me by Ananda Krishnan and Vincent Tan. Ananda owed me for my services in getting him control of Inchcape Malaysia and Vincent Tan in the privatisation of Sports Toto.

I have sent countless letters, e-mails and also used the services of debt collectors. I have also sought the services of eminent personalities who are close to these two businessmen. I have also repeatedly tried to meet them but it was unfortunate that I was unable to have a face-to-face meeting with them; plain and simple they refused to see me.

They know that they owe me for what I had done for them and that is the reason why they have not taken me to court to answer the charges that I had levelled against them, especially in my book. The stark and plain details are clearly stated in it. Vincent Tan had the books removed from the shelves of Borders which he operates in Malaysia when he learnt that the international book chain had stocks of it.

I also met up with friends who were involved in the privatisation of Sports Toto, especially Ahmad Sebi, a former influential editor and close confidant of former Finance Minister Tun Daim Zainuddin and also Vincent Tan, and he wondered why Vincent Tan had not offered me a listed company like how he had taken care of him for the services he rendered. I thought then that Vincent Tan would rather offer me what he had promised about the shares in Sports Toto rather than handing me a listed company that he had no more interest in.

I also believed that he was deferring the transfer of the shares to me until Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad relinquished the post of prime minister and I was prepared to wait patiently for that day.

I based this belief on what he told me at our meeting at the then-Ming Court Hotel, where he said that we should not embarrass Dr Mahathir by appointing me as a director of Sports Toto. He asked me instead to name a proxy as a director. I chose a close buddy and a virtual unknown, Shuib Yaacob, who was then appointed as a director of Sports Toto.

But after the retirement of Dr Mahathir, Vincent simply kept mum on his promise of allotting 15 per cent of the shares of Sports Toto to me. This promise was made when we had the discussion at Ming Court Hotel.

I had at some point before when I was chairman of South Pacific Textile (later renamed Berjaya Textiles) informed Dr Mahathir about some unethical business practices of Vincent. One such practice was to rescind board decisions that displeased him. He did this by calling emergency board meetings and had resolutions approved the way he wanted them.

Thus he felt that my action in revealing this kind of unethical business practices would harm his cordial relationship with Dr Mahathir. He in fact demanded that I should absolve him and not report his bad practices so that his relationship with Dr Mahathir would not be affected.

He was also angry that I related in my book the sequence, details and the personalities involved in the quest to privatise Sports Toto to him. It was a gigantic task, something thought impossible at that time but I made that possible

He has forgotten the time when he kept disturbing me in the middle of the night about the urgency in this privatisation exercise. He always called me at unearthly hours to go and have discussions with him at the Raintree Club. He also forgot that it was I who told him to follow me to Rome to meet Dr Mahathir to sound out the prospect of having Sports Toto privatised.

He also seems to have forgotten the advice that I gave concerning the content of the proposal for this privatisation: “In no way must there be mention of gain in this exercise. The gain should only be on the side of the government.”

He also seems to have forgotten the reason why I told him to rope in Ahmad Sebi. Ahmad Sebi was very close to Daim Zainuddin who was then the minister of finance. It would be Daim who would recommend to the prime minister as to who should get Sports Toto.

I might not have been involved in the nuts and bolts of preparing the proposal but I was the ideas man and initiator in this project. I first thought of it and actively canvassed for it to be privatised. Without my initial input Sports Toto would not have gone Vincent’s way. How he has forgotten this and how he has gone on to renege on his promise to allocate 15 per cent of the shares of Sports Toto to me. I have vigorously pursued what rightly belongs to me and I will not rest till justice is done and the promised shares are allotted to me. It was a gentleman’s agreement and I had then thought Vincent was a man of his word although many had forewarned me to have everything in black and white and in proper legal terms.

It is always the case, as many have since pointed out. I was indispensable and highly needed and appreciated during the early stages of the proposal but when it came to the final and closing stages and once it was locked in , I was left to drift and had to beg and plead for what was promised and am still pleading that it be honoured. Vincent and I had worked on this privatisation proposal day and night to ensure that this was the the only proposal acceptable by the government. Unfortunately, when the privatisation proposal was accepted by the government those runners responsible for the ultimate decision became his blue-eyed boys and given the perks. I was completely left out but I held onto the belief that he would fulfil his promise once Dr Mahathir had stepped down from office. But he felt that he could conveniently push me aside without having to honour his words.

But that will not be, and so long as I have some iota of energy I will fight for what I believe is a just cause. I am still waging what I term as a fight to ensure that I am given what is rightly due to me.

Many have said that Vincent has no conscience .It is the fasting month and I am bringing out this matter afresh hoping that Vincent, for all his wealth and the head start he had as a result of the Sport Toto licence, will honour his pledge to me and settle the sums due to me. Until then I will not rest and I will resort to other more drastic measures to let the world know how I have been shortchanged.

(Ahmad Mustapha Hassan is the former general manager of national news agency Bernama and author of “The Unmaking of Malaysia”)