Of Malaysian companies and ‘innovation’

It comes as no surprise that Malaysian corporate giants can somehow call years of being dependent on the government's handouts as nothing more than "innovation".

In the last few weeks, the starter of the cynical cycle of mockery was none other than YTL Group's managing director Tan Sri Francis Yeoh. At the recent Business Circle hosted by Malaysia's Performance Management Delivery Unit (Pemandu), Yeoh thought it would be okay to call a stop to corporate cronyism and say on the record that his company did not benefit at all from the "largesse of the government".

Sidenote: Did Francis Yeoh convert, because I thought only us Malays were supposed to forget so easily.

Instead, the inflated YTL chief says that what he did was purely innovation, adding that the company could not compete within the nation and had 85% of its operations overseas because of this.

This is also hilarious since his own statement in YTL Corp Bhd's 2013 annual report mentions that figure only at 75%. Makes you wonder what the other 10% overseas is.

Yeoh is not the only Malaysian to have defined getting directly negotiated contracts from the government since YTL's inception in 1955 as nothing more than "innovative". One might even think if this is truly the sort of innovation being taught by a certain government agency.

I say this because another "innovative" Malaysian seems to have risen out of the crowd, this time in the form of Puncak Niaga's chief Tan Sri Rozali Ismail. According to a PKR politician, Rozali and those close to him are main shareholders in the company which built up 6 Universiti Teknologi Mara campuses, including its Puncak Alam branch which is close to what can only be described as a stretch of swamp worthy of Gollum.

In this case, the company netted 23-year agreements to pay a yearly rental of RM8.6 billion on six UiTM campuses.

I'm currently wondering why UiTM decided that it would rather rent than buy? Perhaps my alma mater's business faculty would like to analyse this decision critically and come up with a nice little forum on whether public universities should lease or buy property.

It would make a more interesting forum compared to how Christians are planning to convert the entire Islamic population in a skit similar to a "Pinky and the Brain" cartoon.

In Rozali's case, it has yet to be made clear whether he got this contract via open tender or direct negotiations. However, it is highlighted that it would have been at least RM6.4 billion cheaper if the government had built it themselves instead of this rent scheme.

Like I said, it is another prime example of Malaysian "innovation".

And in the third case of impressive "innovation" to date, the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (Mosti) now admits that it had actually given a company, NSE Resources Sdn Bhd, RM15 million in grants when the limit was only RM3 million.

Although it is five times more, apparently the government must keep up appearances that it had in fact "innovated" away from the RM100 million allegation by PKR's Rafizi Ramli.

How did this "innovation" happen?

Well apparently Mosti says it did not give out the lump sum to the parent company, but had split it into three grants given out to two subsidiaries, Global Network Technology Sdn Bhd and NSE Pomar Sdn Bhd.

I guess Malaysians should be thankful that Mosti has shown its "innovative" side in not only promoting new technology, but also in creative handing out of funds to companies.

Truth is, all these examples which some may term "innovation" is actually just examples of cronyism and corruption, and it is up to the public to be aware of what is going on.

And I'm guessing this is just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, one publication is also looking into another minister for his "innovative" direct appointment of a college for human capital development in the past weeks.

This government and its prime ministers have pushed Malaysia towards an era of transparency. However, in the truly Malaysian culture of "hangat-hangat tahi ayam" style, this seems to have been left behind in the rush for progress.

With the upcoming budget in October, it is perhaps good that more people push for better transparency through the government's prepared portals as well as NGOs. Because from my point of view, the Malaysian economy cannot sustain this trend of "innovative" spending. – July 1, 2014.

*This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.