Anwar Ibrahim, former Deputy Prime Minister, instructed his boy Ahmad Zahid Hamidi (then UMNO Youth Chief) to speak out against then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on the issue of cronyism and nepotismduring 1998 UMNO General Assembly. The plan was, of course, to topple Mahathir’s leadership by alleging that his government was practising cronyism and nepotism.
The plan backfired spectacularly. Being a clever fox, Mahathir easily outsmarted his deputy’s naughty plan. Mahathir retaliated by issuing a long list of recipients of shares in government projects. As it turned out, a long list of jaw-dropping recipients of special shares and privatisation projects exposed that the lion share had actually been given to Anwar’s cronies.
After the plan had failed, Zahid quickly met with Mahathir seeking forgiveness. And it’s not hard to understand why he made the U-turn at lightning speed. Zahid’s name was also listed as among Anwar’s cronies who benefited from the government projects. That disgraceful Zahid is now the Deputy Prime Minister, the same person who admitted to owning RM230 million in assets 20 years ago.
In a nutshell, cronyism and nepotism are part of UMNO’s culture. But how did the shameful practice started in UMNO, the backbone of Barisan Nasional (National Front) government of Malaysia? More importantly, who was the architect of cronyism and nepotism in UMNO? Anwar wanted UMNO members to think that it was Mahathir, the evil premier who ruled for 22 years from 1981 to 2003.
In reality, the architect of cronyism and nepotism was actually none other than Abdul Razak Hussein, Malaysia’s second prime minister who happens to be the father of present Prime Minister Najib Razak. Yes, out of greed, not only Mr. Razak was instrumental in endorsing and architecting the 13 May 1969 bloody racial riots to seize power, he was also the real father of cronyism.
For as long as one can remember, the ethnic-Malays have been worshipping Mr. Razak because he was also the architect of FELDA, formed in 1956 to handle resettlement of rural poor (the Malays) on 10 acres of land each to cultivate crops such as oil palms. Interestingly, the same FELDA scheme is being turned upside down by Razak’s own son – PM Najib Razak.
The older generation of ethnic-Malays have every reason to be thankful to Razak. But that doesn’t change the fact he was equally responsible for the disease of cronyism today. All hell breaks loose when Robert Kuok, Malaysia’s undisputed richest man, released his memoir – “Robert Kuok – A Memoir“.
The unleashing of the book comes at a bad time to Najib son of Razak as the prime minister struggles to win the hearts of not only the Chinese, but also the Malays as FELDA plunges into scandal of corruption, resulting from cronyism and nepotism. For speaking the truth, the 94-year-old billionaire Robert Kuok is now the punching bag of Najib’s paid-bloggers.
Kuok is being called anti-UMNO, anti-Malay and whatnot, and even accused of having a hidden agenda to replace the UMNO-led government with a DAP-led government – never mind that Chinese-based DAP is to contest only 35 Parliamentary seats (out of 165 seats) in Peninsular Malaysia for the coming 14th General Election.
The funny thing is, if “Sugar King” Kuok wanted to topple UMNO-led government, he would have had done so decades ago, when UMNO was so poor they had no money for election. After all, Kuok had already moved his empire base to Hong Kong since 1974, giving little attention to Malaysia. It’s rather insane to suggest he wants to change the status quo now.
While it’s hard to justify, let alone prove, that Kuok wants to topple the corrupt Najib regime, it’s easy to prove that Najib’s father was the architect of cronyism and nepotism, and even corruption or extortion for that matter. In spite of general perception, MISC (Malaysian International Shipping Corporation) was actually established by Kuok together with Frank WK Tsao.
Within a year of establishment, however, Prime Minister Abdul Razak came knocking asking for free shares. Razak, the father of the current Prime Minister Najib Razak, shamelessly told Robert Kuok – “I want you to make a fresh issue of 20% of new shares. I’m under pressure because there is not a high enough Malay percentage of shareholding.”
Of course, those 20% of MISC shares didn’t go to the poor FELDA settlers but the elites within UMNO. But the Malays didn’t know that. The daylight robbery didn’t end there though. Two years later, thanks to MISC roaring success, the same Abdul Razak came knocking again – this time demanding another 20% – making Malaysian government the largest single shareholder.
Those parasites in UMNO are the same band of freeloaders who had benefited from the hard work of Robert Kuok but have the cheek today to badmouth the Chinese billionaire. The Johor-born tycoon had advised his good friend, third Prime Minister Hussein Onn, that in order to move the country forward, racial representation is not important but integrity, capability, honest and hard-working are.
Kuok’s memoirs also revealed how the greedy and powerful Malays abuse the 30% free stake of Chinese companies for the so-called poor Malays. After given the free shares, the elite Malays would sell off their shares for profit. Then they would claim that the same company that had already given away 30% has not fulfilled the obligation and is forced to give – again – free shares to meet the 30% requirement.
Perhaps Abdul Razak didn’t realize that he had effectively opened the floodgateof making the Malays incompetent, lazy and handicapped the moment he demanded free shares from Robert Kuok. Heck, he hadn’t a clue that his policy of cronyism and nepotism would corrupt the next generation of UMNO leaders that even his own son would be crowned the biggest crook in the world.
So no, it wasn’t Mahathir who is responsible for the incompetency hitting the ethnic-Malays in this country. Mahathir, Anwar, Zahid were just the lucky freeloaders riding on the gravy train because they were there at the right time and right place. Like it or not, Abdul Razak was responsible for the rotting of UMNO, not DAP and certainly not Robert Kuok.
– http://www.financetwitter.com
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