When civic-conscious citizens turn criminal

My community is turning “gated”. It started with simple security patrols many years ago, expanded to closures of certain roads with crude barricades earlier this year, and now, proper boom-gates and guard-posts are being constructed. All thanks to dedicated community leaders and supportive residents.

I watch with mixed feelings. On one hand, I certainly feel much safer with the enhanced security scheme, which I have supported from Day 1 of its humble beginnings. On the other hand, I am conscious that we are erecting barriers on public roads, which is a crime.

True, the residents’ association is closing roads with only the bests interests of the community in mind. And the authorities have adopted a hands-off attitude.

But where do we draw the line? Today we barricade a public road with the best of intentions. What next tomorrow? Who decides which intentions are noble enough for the law to be broken? Remember the political party which took over a playground to build a “service centre”? It claimed “good intentions”.

There are two big-picture issues here. One is the failure of the Barisan Nasional government to protect our communities. Crime used to be something that happened to someone else. Now, I personally know people who have been robbed, burgled and mugged. I am sure I am not atypical of the average city-dweller. Our police force needs to be far more effective.

The second issue is rising lawlessness. Laws are necessary for society to function. Laws must be enforced and people must be convinced that justice is even-handed for society to work. At this point, normally law-abiding citizens are now teaching their children that some laws can be ignored if our “intentions are good”. This fear of crime has forced civic-conscious Malaysians to turn criminals themselves, blockading public roads to protect the safety of themselves and their families. What next?

PKFZ scandal – how the cost rose from RM1.9bn to RM7.5bn, and counting

My Maxis is still Max-sick. 8 days after the problems began, one whole week after my first report, Max-sick engineers are “still working on it”. What a clueless bunch. On the other hand, thanks DiGi! Your broadband service has been fast and reliable.

Back to the main subject of this posting, Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ). Last week, I summarized the story and gave a big picture view of how the cost grew and grew. This week, we shall delve into how those costs actually got added in, and who the beneficiaries were.

Let’s start with just the cost for land purchase and development works. These were originally estimated at RM1.957bn in 2001. As at 31 Dec 2008, that had ballooned by RM1.565bn or 80% to RM3.522bn.

How did that additional RM1.565bn cost happen? First, purchasing the land cost RM646m more than it should have. Port Klang Authority (PKA) paid private company Kuala Dimensi Sdn Bhd (KDSB) RM1,088m for the land via a negotiated direct purchase. It could have compulsorily acquired it, as originally directed by the Ministry of Finance, for RM442m.

That leaves another RM919m to explain (RM1,565m–RM646m=RM919m). That’s mainly due to additional development works and accelerating construction so that the project was completed in just 2 years instead of phasing it in in such a way that it could be self-financing as approved by the Cabinet. PKA was in such a hurry that it signed development agreements based on estimated amounts and without detailed building plans. Effectively, PKA told KDSB, we have money to spend, just build whatever you want and we’ll take it!

So, land and construction costs alone became RM3.522bn. On top of that, because PKA committed to paying KDSB more than it could afford from current cash flows, it agreed to deferred payment terms and had to resort to soft loans from the government. The interest cost of all those deferred payments and soft loans now totals RM3.931bn. Add that to the construction cost and you get the RM7,453bn total as of now.

The deferred payment terms to KDSB are another issue. PKA has to pay 7.5% pa interest to KDSB. Being a statutory body, PKA could have itself raised government-guaranteed debt at 4% pa and paid KDSB cash, saving 3.5% pa of interest payments. On the RM3.522bn development cost, 3.5% is equivalent to RM123m per year of additional payments. The beneficiary? KDSB!

So, who’s behind KDSB? KDSB is wholly-owned by Wijaya Baru Holdings Sdn Bhd (WBHSB). The major shareholder of WBHSB with a 70% stake is Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing, Barisan Nasional MP for Bintulu. Tiong, by the way, is also the chairman of the Barisan Nasional Backbenchers’ Club – the club for BN MPs. I don’t know who owns the other 30% in WBHSB.

KDSB did not keep all the profits itself. Its main contractor was Wijaya Baru Sdn Bhd (WBSB). WBSB is 45%-owned by Wijaya Baru Global Berhad, which in turn is 32%-owned by Tiong. I don’t have the details of the other shareholders. Wijaya Baru Global’s chairman is Datuk Seri Abdul Azim Zabidi, former UMNO treasurer. Azim is also a board member of KDSB. Wijaya Baru Global’s deputy CEO is UMNO Kapar deputy division chief Datuk Faisal Abdullah.

So there you have it. The cost over-runs and some of the beneficiaries. The police and MACC have been awfully quiet about any investigations so far. Perhaps they are too busy watching Men in Black.

Maxis is guilty of fraud

I was going to give you more on the PKFZ scandal, but had to waste countless hours since Saturday dealing with Max-sick and its clueless “technical support” personnel.

Yup, my Max-sick broadband is on the blink again. The problems started Friday, but I was still able to get a steady, albeit slow connection via EDGE technology. On Saturday, the line kept dropping. By Monday evening, Max-sick was dead. Cue countless calls to Max-sick's “customer service” and a home visit by an unskilled vendor who insisted it was a modem problem when I was 1000% sure it wasn't. True enough, he changed the modem and still there's no service.

Finally, yesterday (Tuesday) evening, someone called and said Max-sick had “escalated my problem up to the engineering team”. What? I had complained on Saturday!!! It takes them THREE days to “escalate” the problem? Whatever happened to service integrity? Internet connection is a necessity nowadays. I rely on it to work and earn income. No internet = pissed off customers and lost opportunities. Yet when I asked Max-sick if they are at least going to waive my monthly fee, they said “they have to close the file first”, whatever that means.

Maxis is guilty of fraud. It is charging for a service (broadband) which it is not delivering. It's like a travel agent selling you a 5-star holiday package including accommodation at the Shangri-la, but dumping you into Rumah Tumpangan Ah Fatt instead. Actually it's worse than that. Maxis is not delivering ANY service at all. So, Maxis charges us for 5-star hotels but leaves us sleeping in the streets. In the meantime, it has the gall to continue aggressively selling Broadband packages. I know because I was accosted yesterday evening by yet another Maxis vendor! Needless to say, I gave him a piece of my mind, telling him he was selling a non-existent service.

But we consumers are powerless. There is no choice. Streamyx is equally bad, and I doubt that Celcom Broadband can outperform its sister company. In a situation like this, it is the regulator that has to protect the consumer against rapacious large companies.

So, where is our regulator? Incompetent like much of the Barisan Nasional government. Sigh. Next elections are so far away. In the meantime, we are stuck with a government that the majority of peninsular Malaysians did not vote for. Please, fellow citizens in Sabah and Sarawak – next elections help us kick out this useless administration.

And in case you're wondering, I had to drive out, incurring petrol and parking expense and spending unnecessary time, to find a place with wi-fi so I could upload this.

Cost of PKFZ scandal – RM500 for every single Malaysian, and counting

I spent the morning at the Port Klang Authority with the DAP team, scrutinising the appendices to the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) report that was made public yesterday. The experience was slightly better than when we checked out the toll concession agreements earlier this year. Nicely-printed main reports are available. The appendices though, are available for review for only 2 weeks, and restrictions apply – they cannot be photocopied or photographed. But we can take notes on our computers, which is a relief for people like me with scrawly hand-writing.

It is a mound of dirt, so I'm sure there'll be plenty of coverage by Kit Siang, Tony, et al. I'll just help with the background for starters:

The players are:
1) Port Klang Authority (PKA), a statutory body under the Ministry of Transport.
2) PKA decided to set up Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ), an integrated 1,000 acre zone offering facilities for international cargo distribution.
3) To design, construct and finance PKFZ, private company Kumpulan Dimensi Sdn Bhd (KDSB) was appointed as the turnkey developer.

There are all sorts of conflict of interest and performance issues surrounding KDSB and its appointment which I shall leave to others to highlight. Moving on the the billions of ringgit that were lost and stand to be lost:

1) The cost originally estimated in 2001 was RM1.957bn for land and development works.
2) This had escalated to RM4.947bn as at 31 Dec 2008. (The cost for land and development works alone had jumped to RM3.522bn. In addition, because PKFZ had to borrow to fund the development, there was RM1.425bn of interest costs).
3) The Ministry of Finance (MoF) extended a soft loan of RM4.632bn to PKA to help fund PKFZ.
4) Even though the MoF loan is soft (on friendly terms), some interest still has to be paid. This works out to RM2.506bn, taking the total project cost to RM7.453bn.

So, as of 31 Dec 2008, the tax-payer was already down by over RM7bn! It gets worse:

1) Based on its own assumptions, Port Klang Authority will be in cumulative cash flow deficit for the next 42 years, until 2041. Put another way, PKA starts making money only in 2042.
2) PKA's assumptions, needless to say, appear overly-optimistic (email me if you want details).
3) The Reporting Accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) say PKA will not be able to repay the Ministry of Finance the soft loans as scheduled, based on PKA's own (optimistic) assumptions. These loans will have to be restructured, leading to an additional RM5bn of interest costs.
4) So, ultimately, the total project will cost RM12.453bn. That’s RM500 for each and every one of us.
5) Bear in mind, the RM12.453bn estimate is based on PKA's optimistic assumptions.
6) If we make more realistic assumptions, the total cost will be much higher. I'm guess-timating RM20bn+!

So, where do we go from here? Speaking from a logical angle, the RM7.453bn total cost so far is gone and burnt. We must look forward. And looking forward, we're talking about a further loss of at least RM8.5bn, based on PKA's own optimistic assumptions. This is based on RM5bn just for project-financing (point 4 above) and, in addition, PKFZ is expected to burn another RM3.5bn of cash to finance its operating cash flow over 2008-2041.

Can the government walk away? Should the government walk away and save at least RM8.5bn? By the way, that RM8.5bn will go a long way to privatising PLUS!

How TIA can make a lasting impact

Here’s my prediction: By 2012, three years after the launch of the Terengganu Investment Authority (TIA), the average Terengganu citizen will be pretty much unaffected by the billions of ringgit spent. Ultimately, when the projects are completed, when the land-flippers and contractors have collected their millions and hundreds of thousands or ringgit, the rakyat will be left with only poorly-constructed, under-utilised buildings which start falling apart very quickly.

TIA is perpetuating the myth that all it takes to develop a nation is infrastructure. Just build fancy new buildings and we’ll achieve developed status! It’s not that simple. It has already been proven in Malaysia – building first-world infrastructure WILL NOT take us to first-world status. Developed status is also about the soft issues – education, culture, civil society ….

Putrajaya, KLIA and the KLCC Twin Towers are the best case studies. These were supposed to be icons of a developed Malaysia. Now, after barely ten years, Putrajaya is already crumbling and KLIA is beset with the same taxi touts and illegal parking problems that plagued Subang. The KLCC Twin Towers area, in an ironic way, has turned out to symbolize Malaysia. Within KLCC itself, swanky stores cater to rich tourists and the professional Malaysians engendered by the NEP, but just 50 metres outside, rogue taxi drivers over-charge with impunity and across the road along Jalan Ampang, poor itinerant traders set up shop in the evenings, cooking on make-shift stoves.

But perhaps I am wrong, and TIA will not just be a mega-project play. Let’s say TIA does attract serious oil and gas specialists to set up shop in Terengganu, spending billions on capital investment. How many Terengganu folk are actually qualified to work in those specialized, highly-technical fields? Households in Terengganu are the second-poorest in Malaysia. It will look a lot like the British days, when foreigners held the senior positions and locals had to be content with the low-level jobs.

TIA would make a much more meaningful and lasting impact on Terengganu if it starts from the ground up. Let’s start with education. Use the money to fund the best teachers and offer good facilities. Build the proficiency of Terengganu children in English, Math and Science. Educate the next generation of Terengganu. Only then, seek the high-value, highly-specialised industries, when Terengganu people themselves can take full advantage of the employment opportunities

More to come. I’m off now to Port Klang to view the report on the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) debacle with your hard-working DAP MPs. This time, I hope I’m not again forced to go back to pen-and-paper.

TIA shaping up to be another mega-project ploy

The Terengganu Investment Authority (TIA) was well-covered by the weekend press, including the Star and the Edge Weekly. “Well-covered” in the sense of plenty of news pages being devoted to this RM11bn fund, which, by the way, is equivalent to ladening RM11,000 of debt on every single one of the 1million Terengganu folk!

Not surprisingly, hard, penetrating questions were rare. Like, “How exactly will the average Terengganu citizen benefit from all this?”

Based on the reported comments by CEO Sharol Azral Ibrahim Halmi and executive director of business development Casey Tan, TIA will be yet another launch pad for huge construction mega-projects that will benefit a few cronies, a few hundred Class-F contractors (want to bet they’ll mainly be UMNO-related?) and a few thousand, mainly foreign, construction workers.

Consider just two examples:
1) CEO Sharol said TIA is “taking a masterplan approach to build a resort with private villas and other amenities as well as retirement homes”. TIA will invest US$1.8bn and expects a foreign investor to match this sum. That works out to nearly RM13bn, which coincidentally is about the same sum reportedly frittered away in the Port Klang Free Zone debacle;

2) An even worse idea comes from Tang: “It will be a tourism play. The land will be acquired from the state and sold at a higher price to the master developer.” Hello? Land-flipping was a major issue at PKFZ. Influential private parties acquired land cheaply from the state and subsequently resold it at far higher prices. What the private party gains, the state loses – why can’t the state sell it at the higher price in the first place, and use the proceeds to fund state development. Why is TIA, a sovereign fund which aspires to best-practices, even considering this approach?

Coming full circle to my original question, after the land is bought and sold, after the spanking new buildings are constructed … how will the average Terengganu resident be better off?

More to come …

Terengganu’s ‘Sovereign Wealth Fund’ is anything but

“The country’s first state-established sovereign wealth fund, Terengganu Investment Authority (TIA), with an initial fund of RM11bil, has identified several high-impact investment projects in the tourism, energy and agriculture sectors in the state and around the country,” reports the Star today, Tuesday May 19.

Unfortunately, as with most financial-related topics associated with the Barisan Nasional (BN) government, there are far more questions than answers. Here are just three big ones, to start off with:

1) First, funding. TIA will reportedly raise RM5bn in bonds backed by a federal government guarantee. PM Najib reportedly said “There’s no money involved” (The Edge Daily, May 19). Hello? Has he been keeping up to-date on the multi-billion ringgit Klang Port scandal which involved dubiously granted government guarantees?

The bigger question though, is why TIA needs a government guarantee in the first place. TIA will also reportedly have RM6bn ‘raised through the assignment to TIA of some of the future oil royalties due to the state.” RM6bn is already a huge some of money to start off with. Why the rush to add RM5bn of federal government-guaranteed debt on top of that?

2) Second, objectives. TIA chief executive officer and former executive partner at Accenture, Shahrol Halmi said, “The key objectives of TIA’s investment strategy are … ensure the development of long-term sustainable economic and social programmes for the state.”

Elsewhere in the world, the whole point of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) is to invest windfall gains from high resource prices wisely, OUTSIDE the home country. SWFs came about because resource-rich countries found that their own economies were too small to effectively deploy all the income coming in from their trade surpluses. Rather than have too much money chasing to few goods, leading to unproductive investments and domestic property price inflation, countries such as Norway chose to set up SWFs in order to effectively invest the money overseas for a rainy day.

Over here, TIA is proposing to invest within Terengganu. Yes, a major political issue is the people of oil-rich Terengganu do not appear to have reaped any benefits from record-high oil prices. But, that’s an issue with the BN federal and state government delivery mechanism. How does TIA fit in with the local government? In fact, the presence of TIA could actually deter investment by private investors, as it could be perceived that TIA will be given undue advantages. SWFs should have no business in their home countries!

3) Third, accountability. Media reports say TIA will have a “triple-tier check and balance system comprising the board of directors, a board of advisers and a senior management team.” I say a system is only as good as its people. Note that the board of advisers will include the Prime Minister or the Finance Minister, in his stead. Far better if politicians stay out completely and leave it to professionals.

Also, the best accountability is via public disclosure. Dare we hope that TIA will adopt best practices as per the Government Pension Fund of Norway? (Contrary to its name, this fund is entirely funded by surplus wealth from Norwegian petroleum income – no government guarantees! – and is professionally managed). I invite you to check their website. Information including ALL the shares held by the fund are available for quick and easy download!

I have other issues, including the so-called “experienced personnel” involved in running the fund. Right now, the list is very narrow and, by accident or design, seems to consist primarily of one ethnic group only. I know for a fact, having worked for MNCs, that financial services talent encompasses the entire globe from Caucasians to sub-continent Indians to mainland Chinese. If TIA truly intends to be world-class, its hiring policies need to be world-class too.