Any Malay, opposition supporter with plans to get Class F (bumiputera) government contracts?
See Ronnie Liu:
Yes, I know this thing is expected.
But is it right?
Don’t be apathetic, and for goodness sake, don’t think it’s just something between Malays.
It’s a rot that is affecting all Malaysians.
Stand up, speak out.
Today, Najib says no toll hikes, despite Samy having just announced another 10% hike this coming year to further squeeze every drop of blood from the rakyat. Samy even has the gall to say:
“We are studying and talking to the concessionaires to find out ways to benefit both sides. We want to find a way in which the people will not feel too much burden.”
What our friend forgot to mention is that when he says ‘both sides’ he means the concessionaires and himself :|
But doesn’t this pattern seem familiar?
Just recently, Petronas talked about further petrol hikes.
Immediately after, Abdullah and Najib ‘come to the rescue’ by declaring “no such thing! (this year)”
So, Petronas and Samy become whipping boys, setting the stage for the inevitable hikes (inevitable after elections, most likely), while setting the stage for our great leaders to swoop in and save the day.
They have to say all the unpopular things, and our top 2 will come up smelling like roses ‘defending’ the rakyat while the hands behind their backs are putting everything in place to increase prices.
All in the pursuit of insatiable greed…
All while our Touch n’Go’s dwindle faster and faster……….. :(
I think only theSun carried this piece about Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk Mohamed Shafie Apdal saying that they’re looking into bringing in Metro AG and (gasp!) Wal-Mart!
I heard so much bad stuff about Wal-Mart when I was in the States.
Lazy bum that I am, behold Wikipedia! Highlights:
With close to two million employees worldwide, Wal-Mart has faced several issues with regards to its employees and workforce. These issues involve low wages, poor working conditions, inadequate health care, as well as issues involving the company’s strong anti-union policies. One of Wal-Mart’s biggest issues is their high turnover rate – approximately 70% of its employees leave within the first year, primarily due to lack of recognition and inadequate pay.[48]
Wages
Wal-Mart employees earn less than those performing similar jobs at other stores. For example, in 2001, the average supermarket employee earned $10.35 per hour, versus an average of $8.23 per hour for stock clerks at Wal-Mart. The company has paid low wages since its inception. Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton once said, “I pay low wages. I can take advantage of that. We’re going to be successful, but the basis is a very low-wage, low-benefit model of employment.”
Working conditions
Wal-Mart has also faced several accusations involving poor working conditions of its employees. For example, a class action lawsuit in Missouri involved approximately 160,000 to 200,000 people who were forced to work off the clock, were denied overtime pay, or were not allowed to take rest and lunch breaks.[55] In 2000, Wal-Mart paid $50 million to settle a class-action suit that asserted that 69,000 current and former Wal-Mart employees in Colorado had been forced to work off-the-clock
Child labor violations
In January 2004, the New York Times reported on an internal Wal-Mart audit conducted in July 2000, which examined one week’s time-clock records for roughly 25,000 employees.[61] According to the Times, the audit, “pointed to extensive violations of child-labor laws and state regulations requiring time for breaks and meals,” including 1,371 instances of minors working too late, during school hours, or for too many hours in a day.[61] There were 60,767 missed breaks and 15,705 lost meal times.
Illegal use of undocumented workers
Wal-Mart has been accused of using undocumented immigrants in many of its stores and work locations…
On October 23, 2003, federal agents raided 61 Wal-Mart stores in 21 states, in a crackdown known as, “Operation Rollback,” resulting in the arrests of 250 nightshift janitors who were undocumented workers.[64] Following the arrests, a grand jury convened to consider charging Wal-Mart executives with labor racketeering crimes for knowingly allowing undocumented workers to work at their stores.[64] The workers themselves were employed by agencies Wal-Mart contracted with for cheap cleaning services.[64] While Wal-Mart executives have tried to lay the blame squarely with the contractors, federal investigators point to wiretapped conversations showing that executives knew the workers were undocumented.
Labor union opposition
Wal-Mart has been criticized for its policies against labor unions. In North America, Wal-Mart has been successful thwarting unionization via anti-union tactics such as managerial surveillance and pre-emptive closures of stores or departments who choose to unionize….
In March 2005, Tom Coughlin was forced to resign from Wal-Mart’s Board of Directors, facing charges of embezzlement.[82] Coughlin claimed that the money was used for an anti-union project involving cash bribes paid to employees of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union in exchange for a list of names of Wal-Mart employees that had signed union cards.[82] He also claimed that the money was unofficially paid to him, by Wal-Mart, as compensation for his anti-union efforts…
I think that’s enough for now. There’s plenty within the original article in W-M’s defence (no prizes for guessing how it got there), but the basic point is, Dtk Shafie shouldn’t be too excited to subjecting Malaysians to these kinds of employers, no matter how low the prices of items.
I was asked by my boss to do a little research into the company that was awarded the contract to build the Taiping-Banting Highway.
Despite previous attempts, I’m no expert in doing corporate research, nor am I an industry insider. So part of the reason I’m posting this is to see whether people have got more insight they can help lend to my teeny ‘investigation.’
Basically, this project was long ago awarded to Konsortium LPB, which is owned in large part by Talam Corp and Kumpulan Europlus.
I’m not 100% clear on the relationship between Talam and Europlus, beyond the fact that they are basically owned by the same people. Their primary mover is one Tan Sri Chan Ah Chye.
Using the power invested in me by Google and craploads of patience (thanks politikus!), I gathered that Talam has an absolutely horrible reputation as a developer - badly developed properties that have self admitted chronic quality problems, unfinished projects, PN 17 listing on Bursa Malaysia, truly immense debts, and possibly having been blacklisted.
There are a number of one forums (see here) where people have really had a lot to say about Talam.
Why give such a big government project to a corporation with such a ridiculously bad reputation?
Europlus isn’t doing any better, having seen some really bad days.
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Then there’s IJM. Not sure if I got a good handle on them, but they seem slightly more like a bootstraps constructions company. An Asiaweek report says that they were unable to secure the political connections necessary to do well in Malaysia, they struck out to make a name for themselves overseas.
Which they appear to have succeeded in quiet well. Apparently however, Malaysia is where the real money is, so they’re reportedly looking to expand their local projects. Where better to start than multi-billion highway project.
The only thing so far that raised my eyebrows was that the chairman of the IJM board of directors is Dato’ Wan Abdul Rahman, ex Director General of the Works Ministry. I’ve blogged about him before - he has the same position in LITRAK, the toll concession company :P The board of directors also includes an Education Ministry ex-DG and a guy who was Sec-Gen for various Ministries.
Also, if I’m not mistaken, Syed Mokhtar al-Bukhary is one of the principal (20%?) owners of IJM.
But I guess even IJM won’t touch Talam directly, deciding instead to buy a 25% stake in Europlus.
However, they appeared to wait until Europlus was truly able to secure the highway project before sealing the deal.
I don’t know what deals TS Chan had to make to ensure all went well, but with the project announced by DS’s Najib and Samy Vellu, all looks set to go, with IJM’s buyover probably solving a huge chunk of, or all, of TS Chan’s problems.
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I guess the core question is again: how can companies with such terrible track records like Talam and Europlus get a multi-billion ringgit government contract??
Anyone have specific explanations? Enlightenment to offer?
Good news: Malaysiakini video speaks a 1000 words! Check it out, it’s far better than my big ass collection of pictures.
So I’ll just add tidbits.
Demo prob started around 4.15pm; then the police started the usual threats and then started spamming their sirens to drown out the speakers. New strategy, apparently, where all the squad cars just blast their sirens, creating quite the disco atmosphere.
Let’s think about this. Why do the cops so badly want to keep the rakyat from hearing what a few people have to say? If we were disturbing the peace, wasn’t that cacophany of sirens even worse?
So from speeches we transitioned to leaflet handing. And then we regrouped for 2nd round of speeches. The cops let Dr. Hatta speak, but as soon as they transitioned to Shaari Sungip, the cops laid on. You can see for yourself how brutal they were in the video, here are a few more pics.
Seriously, why do the cops need to so viciously manhandle a man who offered them no violence? (see video for evidence)
Once they ‘engaged’ him, do you really think anyone would attempt to physically harm the cops? Protestors aren’t stupid. We don’t go out there to pick a fight with cops. Our quarrel is with the government.
Can you think of a single reason why someone like Shaari Sungip would have to be violently grabbed and subdued so forcefully? Want to arrest, just arrestLAH.
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After that, Chan got arrested. He’s a real nice guy, just shooting videos most of the time. He was shoved around violently too. SB flers kept shouting and being all alpha-male about it. Here are the only photos I managed to get:
At this point, I had a little tussle of my own.
Let me introduce two SB friends. Proton Yellow (who you can see above too) and Round Orange.
Round Orange was a real hefty guy who showed me the true agent provocateur nature of our Special Branch.
At one point, when things started to get nasty, (I am perfectly willing to swear that) I witnessed this guy forcefully shove the crowd from behind.
It was so obvious he was trying to escalate the situation into more violence, probably to give the police an excuse to brutalise and get violent with the crowd?
Doesn’t sound like your friendly neighbourhood police?
Well, he’s not (plainclothes). But don’t think for a moment that the police aren’t capable of this sort of thing.
Proton Yellow got violent with me personally.
I was trying to take pictures of Chan getting dragged away violently, when Proton Yellow started yelling at me and at one point the ninny actually shoved my camera.
If they had damaged my favourite graduation gift, I would have been very unhappy.
I was already pretty unhappy and found myself standing there making an unhappy deadpan face at him. It was a bit of a blur, but I think he was still yelling at me. Then some uniformed cop came from behind and have me a little ‘hug’ and insisted (again, quite loudly) that I back off.
I think I was giving him a look too (but offering no forceful resistance of course - that’d be stupid), when a good friend from Suaram, Lih Kang, ‘came to my rescue.’ He (and someone else maybe) pulled me back and things seemed to calm down from then on (thanks Lih Kang!).
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Anyway. I really couldn’t help but have the impression that cops like Proton Yellow and Round Orange were really just itching for a fight. We certainly weren’t willing to give them one, but it seemed so strange.
I mean, do I prefer that people with violent tendencies are working with the cops rather than being gangsters on the streets?
You know, I really don’t know….
Round Orange was particularly vexing. This guy was like a kid! You should have seen this ridiculous grin on his face when things started going down and when he was trying to push everyone around and worsen the situation - from behind, most dishonourably.
I swear, it was like they were all getting hard-ons from their righteous anger :P :(
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Anyway, so they packed away 5 people in their little meat wagons. The protest leaders decided to do a little sit-in inside.
The Star says we disrupted things. In trying to be objective, I do regret any inconvenience caused to shoppers or tournament participants. I would venture to speculate that if the cops had just let us say our piece for one short hour, alllll off that could have been avoided.
The Summit people kept warning parents to keep their kids close :| But check out the videos and everything. Did you see a single protester acting violently? If kids needed to be kept safe, was it from us or from the cops?
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And then at last there was the police station. We waited, chanted, and prayed (in front of the police Light Strike Force) while our friends were inside. Young daughters alternated between screaming for their daddy’s release and playing football in front of the LSF.
(That’s Proton Yellow behind the football match, btw - with his LSF buddies nearby. Round Orange was hanging around too)
Took a heckuva long time, and the cops seemed to enjoy blaring their sirens every now and again. It was so silly - kononnya show of strength, jadinya macam disco :P
And Come On. If so many squad cars (with cops inside) were busy playing dance music for us, who the hell was patrolling the streets?!?! >:( Could this account for the four snatch thefts that have happened to people close to me so recently?
Sigh. But on a lighter note, when we saw a cop with sirens on on the way home, Remy said: ah, belum puas hati ni - hahaha.
Eventually they let them all out :)
(note: the round orange above is not to be mistaken for Round Orange :)
Now, let me ask you this. If taking people in and then releasing them at night is the standard Modus Operandi (and it is, trust me), where the police right in taking them in in the first place??
Are these the people the cops really should be so concerned about? Are we the ones inflicting harm and robbery on normal Malaysians? Just ask your local snatch thief.
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Sigh, what’s with all this repression? What is the government so afraid of? I’m still pondering this over…
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Super duper special thanks to politikus for her most indulgent patience in sticking with me throughout the ordeal! *muacks!* :)
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I’m no expert on acquisition, but TS Khalid, Treasurer for PKR, does seem to raise some cogent and distressing points.
I happen to have an English version of his op-ed, enclosed below.
DS Radzi Sheikh Ahmad on MyKad contest withdrawal:
Asked whether the government was not afraid to be labelled a liar for calling off the lucky draws, Radzi said: “We do not lie. We just ask the public to forget about it.“
o_O ?!?!
He also goes on in the most typically shameful fashion imaginable to place all the blame on his predecessor DS Azmi Khalid.
So why now, all of a sudden? And as The Malaysian (increasingly prolific writer from whom I caught this) asks: exactly which orphanage is getting this Myvi? They giving out driver’s licenses to kids these days?
If it was a silly idea, fine, just don’t ever do it again. This kind of pullout makes it look like you just want the prizes alllllll to yourself - and remember, perception is everything.
Radzi was silent when asked whether the Cabinet was aware of his decision.
So when the Cabinet comes scolding him in light of the public outroar this is likely to follow, is he going to smile sheepishly, giggle and ask them to foged aboud idla…. :P
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Elsewhere, DS Radzi’s Home Ministry is taking over the management of foreign workers. My eyebrows are raised very high. But it’s early yet, more analysis needed.
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Ok, I don’t think readers are going to consider me the most objective authority on this, and I’ll be the first to admit that I’m gagap ekonomi (blur on economic matters).
But c’mon, this is three front pages in a row! (link for third headline on EPF no longer available on stupid NST archives - being a lousy newspaper doesn’t mean you should have a lousy website!)
Seriously. Even if I didn’t think there was something wrong with the economy before, I sure do now. Why else would Umno’s biggest English mouthpiece be so damn concerned about throwing huge figures at me in attempt to dazzle me into awed worship of the almighty government?
There’s been a groundswell of anti-spin activities. While one of the most promising economic blogs is newcomer Elanor (where’s your take on this!? :), other usual suspects are Malaysiakini letter writers, Jeff Ooi, Tony Pua and the like. Go there for detailed analysis.
For me, I just think it’s one of those signs of weaknesses. Like DS Abdullah saying “I’m in charge” or “I will continue to run the country.” A confident leader need not yap these things in public, just as a confident economy need not be highlighted three front pages in a row.
As has been expressed simply before - are you feeling invigorated by the economy? If you aren’t, and such big numbers aren’t completely made up (or the result of ‘creative accounting’), then someone is getting fat from all this ‘economic boom’, but it sure ain’t the rakyat.
ps- in fairness, have a look at what the IHT has to say.
