Media downplay another lucrative privatisation deal

Sometimes what is omitted by the media can be more important than what is included.

Another privatisation contract has been dished out and most Malaysians are none the wiser - thanks to the media, which have marginalised the news. The lucrative job of supervising medical checks on drivers of commercial vehicles has gone to one company - Syarikat Pantai Supreme Sdn Bhd.

The Star on 9 December parroted the official reason for this i.e. to curb corruption:

Deputy Transport Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Azlan Sultan Abu Bakar said the appointment of one company was to curb fraud. He was replying to a question from Datuk Badruddin Amiruldin (BN – Jerai) who asked why the company was given the monopoly to handle the health checks.

It appears that only The Edge raised the alarm - and that too in a small snippet on page 82 of its 12 December 2005 edition.

The business weekly quite rightly asked in its Frankly Speaking column:

Now, how does awarding a contract to one company, which essentially gives it monopolistic powers, be able to achieve that? What one should be asking is, on what basis was the company given the job. Why only one company? What happened to open tender and transparency? Why not open it up to all clinics that are able to carry out medical checks?

It complained that the government was merely creating "another Fomema" - that other "lucky" monopolistic company supervising the medical checks of foreign workers. Interestingly enough, Fomema comes under the umbrella of Pantai Holdings Bhd.

The Edge added:

What's disturbing about the whole episode is we are creating another middleman when the government has time and again called for their role to be eradicated

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What's also disturbing is the media have on the whole not given this privatisation deal the prominence and coverage it deserves - to express public concern over the whole privatisation saga. The media should be pressing for more information such as the basis on which this deal was awarded to Syarikat Pantai Supreme Sdn Bhd. They should also disclose the company's shareholders/owners and directors as well as try and identify the politicians responsible for this latest "brainwave".

Guan Eng, Betty voted out: media's double standards

It is the ‘innate nature’ of Malaysia’s controlled mainstream press that it does not, as a general rule, highlight issues and events involving opposition parties. Most ordinary Malaysians do not get to know about these political parties due to this virtual blackout even though they, as citizens and voters, have a democratic right to be informed.

The exception to the rule is when these parties are deliberately demonised or painted in a negative light in the media – and then they receive prominent coverage.

And so it was in the case of the DAP – or more precisely, the party’s secretary-general, Lim Guan Eng, and Kota Laksamana state assembly member and Lim’s wife, Betty Chew, both of whom had been voted out of the Malacca DAP committee in the party’s state election on Sunday. Both ‘graced’ the front page of yesterday’s Star and even had their faces displayed prominently as well.

From its ‘investigative reporting’, the paper managed to ferret out some information from some ‘party insiders’. Its report suggests that there has been a serious rift within the party - or at least within the Malacca DAP.

It is not that this incident isn’t newsworthy or that it deserves to be insulated from the general public. Any political party is bound to have its own problems, rifts, rivalries and tensions. The problem is that the internal dissensions, rivalries, factionalism or splits in many of the ruling coalition parties are often not exposed in the same way to the general public. In other words, the mainstream media is often guilty of selective ‘investigative journalism’.

Worse, while the internal contests of the DAP has been made the subject of public scrutiny, the absence of any electoral competition for the leadership of certain ruling Barisan Nasional component parties has not excited these mainstream journalists the same way. ‘Selective investigative journalism’, indeed.

In short, the difference in the press coverage of political parties on both sides of the political divide is glaring. It is uneven, unfair and undemocratic. This is the crux of the matter and it a problem that is perennial.

A humongous RM23 billion bill

RM23 billion. That's what it cost to clear up the scandalous non-performing loans in the banks, which came to light following the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis.

The job of clearing up the mess was carried out by three government agencies, which had to deal with massive amounts of non-performing loans.

The government's share of the losses was RM12.5 billion while the cost to the banks was RM10 billion. Never mind the cost to the banks, it is the cost to the government (the Malaysian public) that we should be concerned about.

Much of the RM12.5 billion bailout bill that the government incurred came from two banks, namely Sime Bank and BBMB.

Hardly any media picked up this story except the The Edge business weekly in a revealing report.

As The Edge quite rightly asks:

And the sad part of the entire restructuring exercise is that the culprits responsible for the worst of the bad loans have not really been taken to task. At least, not yet.

In other countries, probably a few heads in both the public and private sectors would have rolled for causing the banking system to incur such huge losses. Here, heads have rolled in the private sector. Several corporate chieftains of well-connected companies were forced out. But it was not the end of their career, as some have resurfaced in other companies.

One banker, Datuk Ismail Zakaria, who was the chief executive officer of the now defunct Sime Bank, is facing criminal charges in court. Several other chief executives are also facing criminal charges. But considering that it has been more than seven years since the crisis, there are doubts anyone would eventually face the music.

Whether or not the authorities have taken action, the last of the agencies that was established to help sort out the mess in the banking system is finally closing shop.

Credit should go to The Edge for front-paging this story - but even The Edge failed to some obvious questions and to look at the broader supervision of the financial system. Instead, its feature focused on the rehabilitation exercise.

Some crucial questions that are begging for answers: Who were these borrowers who defaulted on the loans? Why are most of us in the dark as to their identities? Why are they not being prosecuted? Why was the collateral given so insufficient?

Here's another excerpt:

So, how did the loss of RM23 billion come about?

According to Datuk Zukri Samat, the managing director of Danaharta, the losses to the government in restructuring the banking system was about RM12.6 billion or less. This comprises RM11 billion that could not be recovered from the loans Sime Bank and BBMB were saddled with, RM1 billion for operating Danaharta (including its financing cost) and RM600 million from Danamodal (see table on banking restructuring cost to the government).

"The losses are probably less because the government did get some shares when they merged BBMB with Bank of Commerce. So, the cost at the end of the day is probably less than RM12.6 billion," he said in an interview last week.

But there are more unanswered questions: How did Bank Negara allow such colossal amounts to be lent out without ensuring the quality of the collateral was adequate? Was there any political involvement in allowing such bad loans to be given out to these dodgy borrowers? Why should the government (that's us, the public) foot the bill for bad loans in Sime Bank and BBMB?

We need these answers. But it looks like we will never know. Those responsible for these colossal losses are being allowed to get away scot free.

The BIG RM23 billion question is this: why are the other mainstream media not asking these questions and relentlessly pursuing those responsible for this debacle or, at least, highlighting this issue?

Perhaps it's not in their interests to do anything to undermine the cosy political-corporate nexus. By definition, as corporate media that derive much of their income from advertising, they would much rather keep the public in the dark than give them a revealing insight into the ugly underbelly of the corporate world.

Oh Noh, the Truth is bared eventually!

So the official truth is out: Deputy Internal Security Minister Noh Omar did make the arrogant remark that “foreigners and visitors should go home if they thought the Malaysian police were cruel”. And this was after an apparently desperate attempt by Putrajaya to initially conceal this embarrassing episode from the public eye and from the global community.

But information and communications technology, being what it is today, only hastened the process of information dissemination. The evening editions of certain Chinese language newspapers in Malaysia, for example, had already reported Noh’s remarks. The BBC too had covered it. Malaysiakini, the online newspaper, published it. Jeff Ooi’s blog had it, and, not to be outdone, Merdekareview.com even carried a recording of the Noh Omar’s infamous comments on its website.

And so yesterday’s Star, for instance, carried a frontpage story of Prime Minister and Internal Security Minister Abdullah reprimanding his deputy for the latter’s “highly inappropriate” remarks. To quote Abdullah further: “His statement is totally against the government’s policy and stand on foreign visitors and tourists, where we welcome all of them whether to holiday, study, seek medical treatment or to do business.”

Even the prime minister’s remarks are disturbing for he gave the impression that the government’s concern for the welfare of those in police custody stems from its concern for tourism, business or the impact on the economy. Surely the concern should go beyond pecuniary obsession. What about the value of human rights, the sacredness of human dignity? Does that not count highly for a Malaysia that attempts to project a so-called moderate image of Islam to the world?

Stripped to its bare essentials, Malaysia may just be the laughing stock of the world, and that ain't funny or attractive – not even to tourists.

Media downplay another lucrative privatisation deal

Another privatisation contract has been dished out and most Malaysians are none the wiser - thanks to the media, which have marginalised the news. The lucrative job of supervising medical checks on drivers of commercial vehicles has gone to one company - Syarikat Pantai Supreme Sdn Bhd.

The Star on 9 December parroted the official reason for this i.e. to curb corruption:

Deputy Transport Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Azlan Sultan Abu Bakar said the appointment of one company was to curb fraud. He was replying to a question from Datuk Badruddin Amiruldin (BN – Jerai) who asked why the company was given the monopoly to handle the health checks.

It appears that only The Edge raised the alarm - and that too in a small snippet on page 82 of its 12 December 2005 edition.

The business weekly quite rightly asked in its Frankly Speaking column:

Now, how does awarding a contract to one company, which essentially gives it monopolistic powers, be able to achieve that? What one should be asking is, on what basis was the company given the job. Why only one company? What happened to open tender and transparency? Why not open it up to all clinics that are able to carry out medical checks?

It complained that the government was merely creating "another Fomema" - that other "lucky" monopolistic company supervising the medical checks of foreign workers. Interestingly enough, Fomema comes under the umbrella of Pantai Holdings Bhd.

The Edge added:

What's disturbing about the whole episode is we are creating another middleman when the government has time and again called for their role to be eradicated.

What's also disturbing is the media have on the whole not given this privatisation deal the prominence and coverage it deserves - to express public concern over the whole privatisation saga. It should be pressing for more information such as the basis on which this deal was awarded to Syarikat Pantai Supreme Sdn Bhd. It should also disclose the company's shareholders/owners and directors as well as try and identify the politicians responsible for this latest "brainwave".