Adani’s fall, Turkiye quake hold lessons for Malaysia

 

Are there lessons to be drawn from two disparate events that have hogged the headlines in recent days: the devastating earthquake in Turkiye and the spectacular fall from financial grace of Indian industrialist Gautam Adani?

At first glance, it appears difficult to draw common inferences from a massive natural disaster - an ‘act of God’, as it were - and the defenestration of what was a short time ago the world’s third richest man.

But if you take what the French novelist Honore de Balzac said that behind every great fortune, there lies a crime, we might get somewhere.

In early 19th century France, Balzac was a matchless discerner of societal particularities, such that his take on the causal factors behind the accumulation of great wealth possesses relevance for our times.

In the construction boom that fuelled Turkiye’s rapid growth in the Recep Tayyip Erdogan era, safety corners were cut by building tycoons considered allies of the Turkish leader.

Their shoddy works were put up in earthquake-prone zones in south-eastern Turkiye and northern Syria, the epicentre of the colossal disaster that killed tens of thousands of victims while they slept.

The buildings toppled like a house of cards when the 7.8-magnitude tremor struck on Feb 6, causing a greater loss of life than would have been the case had the building tycoons not circumvented safety rules.

In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, with more than 40,000 deaths and counting, a slew of construction magnates was arrested and indicted for their evasion of construction rules.

India’s Adani Group

Presently, there is speculation that lax scrutiny by regulators in India enabled opaque entities in the tax haven of Mauritius to manipulate the prices of Adani-owned stocks in the country’s financial markets.

The prices fuelled a boom in credit for Adani projects in port construction and power transmission, the building blocks of the billionaire’s dizzying rise to great wealth.

When a report compiled by an American entity cast doubt on the basis of Adani’s wealth, stock prices in his portfolio nosedived, wiping off in a matter of days tens of billions from the value of his holdings.

In democracies, politics and business make for an uneasy mix.

Throughout his climb from obscurity to world prominence as a businessperson, Adani enjoyed a close association with fellow Gujerati, Narendra Modi, when the latter was in power as chief minister of the state (2002-2014) and then prime minister of India (2014 onwards).

Adani Group chairperson and founder Gautam Adani

It was in Adani’s private jet that Modi flew to New Delhi to be inaugurated as prime minister in 2014.

Monastic ideal

Perhaps the moral behind Erdogan’s and Modi’s comportment with tycoons is that governors must observe the political equivalent of what is known in judicial circles as the “monastic ideal”.

This is that judges must be less worldly (stay aloof from social circles) in order that they be seen as more judicial.

In the political arena, this monasticism requires power-wielders to avoid being seen as excessively companionable with people from the corporate realm, so that the playing field on which the latter make their moves is seen as level and impartial.

It is the work of ruling politicians to ensure that the playing field – whose rules it is the task of politicians to legislate - is one in which no quarter is given and none asked.

It is not healthy for politicians associated with the ruling elite to be seen flying around in private jets and declining to take payment for their work in roles to which they are appointed because that would spawn speculation over the source of their sustenance.

Every working adult needs an income. That obtained by those elected to rule must be seen as unimpeachable as Caesar’s wife. - Mkini

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TERENCE NETTO is a journalist with half a century’s experience.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.