theSun | MONDAY NOVEMBER 17 2008 TELLING IT AS IT IS 15

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Let them rot in jail

EVERY right-thinking Malaysian
should applaud Tourism Minister
Datuk Seri Azalina Othman.
She has come out in the open
and exposed the wrongdoings
of people under her purview.
She offers no protection for the
wrongdoers. On the contrary,
she has warned of serious
consequences. She has asked the
state-owned Pempena Sdn Bhd
and its subsidiaries to assess their
operations and consider if they
should continue.
The minister’s outburst is
understandable. Some of these
companies operated as if there
were no norms or rules to govern
them. Some of the people running
them considered the companies
to be their own fiefdoms and their
private bank, drawing monies
through dubious means.
They ventured in businesses
and deals that were sure losers
from the start. Why in the world
would a government-owned
company get involved in
businesses in which it neither has
the expertise nor the experience?
Were feasibility studies done
before millions of taxpayers’
money was pumped in? Did those
who made the decisions ask
themselves: Why do we want to
get into such businesses when
our core business is promoting
tourism? Azalina was quoted by
the NST as saying: “If they have
cheated the government in any
way, they will be severely dealt
with.” This can be no further
than the truth. Two audit reports
– one done internally and another
by PriceWaterhouseCoopers
– have revealed the intrigues,
the manipulation of funds,
fraud, deception and above all,
a lack of common sense which
a reasonable person is expected
to do when he is entrusted with
public money.
Instead of acting as people
with business acumen, they
acted as godfathers and Santa
Clauses, dishing out money from
a bottomless pit. There were no
due diligence tests with supposed
partners; there were no checks
on current market rates, but what
is more damning is their failure
to take action to recover monies
which is rightfully theirs.
For example, Pempena
advanced RM300,000 to one Umi
Hafilda (does the name ring a
bell?) for a Amir Diab Live in
Kuala Lumpur concert. The
report says that “Pempena did not
even sight the contract between
the parties before issuing the
cheque” and as expected, the
concert did not take place.
The first question to ask is:
Why is Pempena paying show
promoters? The second question
is: How does a concert help
promote tourism? Perhaps,
they took a leaf out of the Sport
Ministry which paid RM17 million
for the Champions Youth Cup
tournament to “promote tourism”
last year. We’ll leave
that to rest, at least for
the moment.
Back to Umi
Hafilda. When the CitizenNades market but in this
concert did not by R. Nadeswaran
materialise, she issued
three cheques to
Pempena – all of them bounced
– there was no money in her
account. What did Pempena do?
Sat with arms folded because
those in the know were aware
that she was an undischarged
bankrupt, one of the report states.
But that’s not all. As Azalina
points out, RM11 million went
into the taxi business and she also
asks: “We need to find out where
all the money that was invested
went to. The company has failed
to pay the hire purchase loan for
the taxi instalments.”
Absolutely right! For that
kind of money, working at a
conservative cost of RM100,000,
there should be 111 taxis – bought
outright without a loan, but
records show that all of them
were bought via hire purchase.
So, where did the money go?
What stands in an empty lot
somewhere in the Klang Valley
are taxis – repossessed by the
bank for not servicing the loan
– ready to be auctioned. It’s a
standing monument of shame
that has been brought on by the
companies’ own doing. In the
first place, why should it go into
the taxi business and compete
with commercial people’s money carried by a few
operators? It can be officials using tourism as a front.
understandable if It outlines the methodologies
it created a niche used to fraudulently siphon
public money into the pockets of
case, it was competing individuals. Besides, it highlights
with individuals and payment of monies to people
companies who had without going through the proper
both the know-how and the checks. The sad part is that
experience. some of these monies cannot be
That’s not all. The report states re-couped – some of the recipients
that Pempena bought one million are either bankrupt or have been
shares at RM1 each in a company blacklisted by Bank Negara.
called SD Corp Sdn Bhd, which No one will disagree with
had forecast a turnover of RM8 Azalina. She is doing the right
million and a profit of RM100,000 thing by exposing the scam
for the first year. But the company committed by people entrusted
ran up a loss of RM2 million. To with public money. They should
add insult to injury, Pempena paid go to jail for cheating the people.
RM2.1 million for the shares but But the inevitable question is:
the share certificates had yet to be Will the law be allowed to take
delivered as of July 31. its course? For that to happen,
But more shocking are the an official complaint must be
claims that minutes of meetings made to the police, not the Anti-
of the board of directors of Corruption Agency because there
Pempena had been changed by are no elements of graft – they
hidden hands. The internal audit are simple cases of fraud. But
confirms this by saying: “The even if a police report is made,
amendments of the minutes are will action be taken or will these
a serious offence as it involves perpetrators and cheats have
the appointment of contractors some “godfathers” protecting
without going through the proper them.
process. No action was taken
against those responsible for
changing the minutes although it R. Nadeswaran believes that
was brought to the attention of the there’s nothing for thieves of
management.” public money to mitigate. They
These are some of the startling should end up in the slammer for
revelations made by the auditors. perpetrating fraud on the people
The report is a catalogue of shame of Malaysia. He can be reached at:
and it exposes the looting of citizen-nades@thesundaily.com