Khairy's acceptance of PUNB appoinment sets off talk of mini Cabinet revamp

News of Umno Youth Chief Khairy Jamaluddin's acceptance of the PUNB chair with effect from April 1 has set tongues wagging on both sides of the political divide. All eyes are now on April 8, when disgraced Women's minister Shahrizat Jalil will be dropped from the Cabinet and a new appointment made.

Initially a mini reshuffle had been envisaged, with MCA's Ng Yen Yen shifted from Tourism to take over Shahrizat's portfolio and Khairy, the Rembau MP, appointed the new Tourism minister.

But with the PUNB confirmation, it looks like Khairy has been cut out of the picture again - this time by Shahrizat's deputy, Kamilia Ibrahim. To pacify Kamilia, who was vocal in demanding Shahrizat's resignation as the Wanita Umno chief, Prime Minister Najib Razak is believed to have agreed to let her assume the Women's portfolio. Yen Yen will stay put in Tourism, while Khairy will become the new PUNB chairman!

No choice but to swallow it

Such is life. The turn of events would surely be a huge disappointment for Khairy, a 30-something Oxford graduate who once aspired to become Malaysia's prime minister before 40 years of age. He may well still achieve his ambitions but the odds are now stacked against him. In PUNB, he would basically be little more than the chief debt collector of the obscure agency tasked to fast track the commercial aspirations of Malay and Bumiputera groups.

Nonetheless, it is a blow that Khairy has to accept with a smile on his face although his heart may be crunching with pain. It is indeed a huge humiliation for an Umno Youth chief to be snubbed a second time for a Cabinet post. It also reduces his chances of being reappointed the head of the Youth wing at the Umno party elections due to be held later this year.

Najib must have his reasons for the decision. The NFC debacle is now the main issue blighting the Umno-BN's prospects in the 13th general election that Najib is expected to call later this year. Even so, as veteran political watchers have noted, there are many and much better ways to resolve the NFC debacle than the sequence chosen by the Najib camp. So far, it appears that Najib has done next to nothing to nip the NFC debacle in the bud, the pundits say.

Shahrizat may be dropped from the Cabinet but that appears to be the only concession. In supporting her decision to cling on to the Wanita chief post, Najib sent the horrifying signal that he was endorsing corruption in Umno as well as Malaysia.

Neutral analysts are of the view that the people are now more convinced than before of the abuse of power and endemic graft in Umno; and that Najib is powerless to control graft as he himself has vested interests. Be that as it may, the die is cast and Umno will have to march into GE-13 with Shahrizat's RM250 million NFC debacle clouding its horizon.

Khairy also involved in NFC

Khairy ,on the other hand, was the one who matched the project to the Shahrizats when his father-in-law was the then prime minister. At that time, Khairy wielded enormous power and he picked the project to be awarded to Shahrizat's family when Badawi asked him to help Shahrizat, who had then lacked funds to challenge Rafidah Aziz for the top Waita post.

Khairy has ow to accept the offer to show that he is a gentleman and has no hard feelings. But frankly, what else can do. He has upset former premier Mahathir Mohamad and will be blacklisted until Mahathir changes his mind. Given the current infighting in Umno, which is due to hold its internal elections later in the year, there is no way Mahathir or his supporters will cede an inch to Khairy and his camp.

It also looks like Khairy will have to wave goodbye to his Rembau seat, with Najib using Khairy's loss of prestige and lack of results as Youth chief to 'gently' explain why he cannot be fielded.

An early retirement

Khairy used to have the ambition of being the youngest prime minister in Malaysia's history. When his father-in-law was in power, he should have strategized properly because that was the best opportunity for him to lay his plans. Unfortunately he wasted his chance because he was preoccupied with making money from trading shares. Although he has made millions, he also lost quite a bit. On the balance, Khairy is still a very privileged man and enjoys more wealth than 99% of Malaysians will ever see. Yet he may feel he has not got what he wanted, only what he doesn’t need.

Established in July 1991 under the Malaysian Companies Act 1965, PUNB’s business operations are focused on providing integrated entrepreneur development packages to assist Bumiputera entrepreneurs in retail and small- and medium-sized enterprise sectors. These development packages are designed to help Bumiputera entrepreneurs develop business acumen, maintain profitable ventures and shape their enterprises, par excellence.

But the PUNB is most probably not doing well. The Umno-BN government has not highlighted this entity as a show case of success, which means it is either not performing well or a failure. None of the Umno politicians are also eager to grab the post in PUNB, which was given RM400 million to start with but until now not much is known about the status of the funds or how much has been loaned out, how much has been recouped and what is the balance in the books and accounts. In short the PUNB is an obscure body unknown to most.

But going by Umno's standard operating procedure of the past five decades, one can assume that the loans will be given to the cronies and UMNOputeras. Chances are high, there will be more failures than successes. So unless Khairy manages to recoup back all the bad loans, in other words be a successful debt collector, he will be deemed to have failed.

Also, unless Najib has promised to give PUNB a fresh injection of funds, there is not much that can be siphoned out either. Khairy will have to make good on whatever he has and plan his own strategy to revive his political career - if he still has the ambition, that is.

Malaysia Chronicle