Asas Serba; the Forum on Rationalisation of Subsidies
It was a full house today at the forum on the rationalization of subsidies. The speakers had some interesting things to say. What was most interesting was talk of toll rates.
There was talk of takeovers, but it wasn’t about Asas Serba. Instead it was about the Malaysian government taking over the toll concessions, a suggestion made by none other than Opposition MP Tony Pua. His suggestion was that the government take over all the toll concessions, keep the toll rates steady, and within a few short years the government could recoup all of the money it spent. And they all live happily ever after.
Sharing the stage with Pua was Azman Mokhtar of Khazanah, who poo-pooed Tony Pua’s suggestion, saying the toll companies are doing just fine right now. Of course he used PLUS as an example. He didn’t mention any of the others, some of which aren’t doing quite so well. But it’s understandable that he would refer to PLUS, a champion of the Khazanah stable.
There were lots of big numbers thrown around today. It seems nationalising all of Malaysia’s highways and abolishing the tolls would cost a whopping RM383.3 billion, including an initial takeover cost of RM45.2 billion. Those are some big numbers. And it would take 30 years to do it. Much longer, in fact, if taxes aren’t raised to ridiculously high levels.
RM383.3 Billion Vs. RM50 billion?
It sounds bad. But nationalisation of the tolls still sounds better than Asas Serba’s proposal, according to a number of commentators. It’s like this: Asas Serba wants to take over the tolls for an initial price that’s roughly in the same ballpark as the RM45.2 billion mentioned above. Except most of this money would come from the government. Then Asas Serba would have all 22 toll concessions. A MONOPOLY. Among those 22 concessions would be some highways that have been doing well and turning a profit. Come on, they’d have PLUS. A sure winner. But they would also end up with some money-losers that would drag the rest down (that’s probably why PLUS is reluctant to buy them out now — why haul down its per-kilometre profit?). And as if it wouldn’t be bad enough that the profitable concessions would be dragged down by the less-profitable ones, they would also be dragged down by the fact that they themselves would be less profitable. Asas Serba wants to reduce the toll rates by 20%, remember? So the money-making concessions would instantly become less profitable; the ones that aren’t making enough money now would be even WORSE; this would further impact the profitable ones…it’s a vicious cycle.
And when all this finally drags Asas Serba down, guess what? The government will have to bail them out. So the government will spend billions upon billions on a bailout and then will be left with all the toll concessions. Then it will either run the tolls as they are to try to get the money back or even raise the toll rates, or it will nationalise the tolls, which means more billions upon billions. Where do all those billions come from? Probably from the taxpayers. What would our tax rates be like if it came to that?
The ONE reason people like Asas Serba’s proposal is that they’re promising to lower the toll rates by 20%. Today the big screens at that forum said the toll rates are going to go up very soon. If they go up 20%, and then Asas Serba takes over and lowers them 20%, guess what? We’ll be paying exactly what we currently pay to use our tolled roads. So the 20% reduction would actually be no reduction at all.
We’re not suckers, are we?
June 1, 2010 at 11:45 am
After the first privatisation failed, how is it possible that a second privatisation, by parties who were involved in that first privatisation, is even being considered by the government? Hasn’t the government learnt its lesson? Or are we about to witness another Great Highway Robbery about to take place? ALL at the expense of the Malaysian taxpayer and tollpayer.
Ibrahim Bidin was instrumental in helping Halim to rob Plus – on behalf of Daim Zainuddin, Mahathir and UMNO – it must be said, and to cover up that robbery as well.
Even if Halim really isn’t involved this time, what about Daim Zainuddin on behalf of Najib? This is not mere speculation, as Sarawak Headhunter will make clear below. Halim was in any event nothing more than a highly-paid glorified nominee for Daim Zainuddin. The pertinent question now is who is Ibrahim Bidin going to be a highly-paid glorified nominee for?
With the kind of cashflow that Plus has, they can very well afford to cut the toll rates, but we better believe that they are not going to do anyone any favours by doing this, palatable though it may sound – it is just a trick.
They will undoubtedly get much more back from the extension of the concession period, but then again we must not be so naive as to believe that they will wait for the extension period to commence the robbery.
The robbery will commence immediately and will go into full gear when they can leverage the future earnings from the toll collections over the extended concession period. This was partly how it was done earlier. The same modus operandi will probably be used again.
How else would Najib maintain his power and position in UMNO? And how else would Najib and UMNO be able to steal the next General Elections from Pakatan Rakyat?
The vast amounts of money (tens of billions) which Daim Zainuddin siphoned off from Plus and other corporate vehicles – which were supposed to be UMNO’s but became only UMNO-linked through nominees like Halim Saad after the deliberate demise of the old UMNO (masterfully engineered by Zaki Tun Azmi) – was what kept Mahathir and UMNO in power for so long.
Now Najib out of desperation is trying to steal a page from this old book so that both he and UMNO can stay in power.
How much Daim Zainuddin used for this purpose and how much he kept for himself is another story. As far as Sarawak Headhunter is concerned, Daim Zainuddin is Malaysian Public Enemy no. 1 (Mahathir is only no. 2 and Taib Mahmud no. 3).
The tens of billions which they intend to rob through this and other piratisation schemes will be used to bribe the whole hierarchy of UMNO to maintain the status quo during each UMNO party elections and also the Malaysian voters as a whole during general elections.
Moves are right now being put into motion for Najib’s men to take over all the money-making apparatus of the Government, especially Khazanah and PETRONAS.
According to the executives, however, it could form part of a new plan where the government would divest some of the assets of government-linked companies like United Engineers and Slime Darby to private hands.
Don’t say we were not warned or we were not aware of what they planned to do. They have already done it under Mahathir’s regime and they will continue to do it under Najib’s regime.
This 2nd Great Highway Robbery will be done in broad daylight, in full view of the Malaysian public and will be executed by these executive nominees like Ibrahim Bidin with the connivance of a compliant administration and lawyers, accountants, merchant bankers, stock brokers and supposed government regulators as co-conspirators.
All will be done in the name of “Malay” interests and anyone who denounces it will be counter-denounced as a “traitor” to the Malay race.
This is “kacang” as they say, after all don’t they also control the banks and other government investment agencies who would be more than willing to fund it, since they can justify – at least on paper – its viability? Paper losses will be taken care of later of course – the theory being that since they will still control Parliament and thus the Federal Government, this will also be “kacang”.
Peanuts to them, hundreds of billions to the rest of the Malaysian people.
Will enough number of Malaysian voters continue to be fooled or bribed into giving these crooks – who hide behind the name of the Malays and Islam – yet another mandate in the coming Sarawak State Elections or in the next General Elections?
Take note of this key word – “leveraged”. The mastermind behind all this was not Halim but Daim Zainuddin.
The amount of Renong’s losses was close to RM25 billion. How could a conglomerate with assets of over RM40 billion rack up debts or rather losses of close to RM25 billion? This was the amount that was siphoned off by Daim Zainuddin, less maybe a couple of billion for mismanagement expenses.
When the government finally took over UEM, it wasn’t a simple matter of losing patience, the government nationalisation was the cover-up. Hasn’t anyone wondered why with the government taking over, the tolls still kept on increasing, the reason always being given that otherwise the government would would have to compensate the toll operator?
If the government now owns the toll operator, why would it have to compensate itself?
The answer is that they are still covering up, now using government money – the people’s money – of course, the latest “compensation” recoverable as at 30th June this year being RM2.18 billion, according to this report in the Star.
Only in Malaysia could the ruling elites have engineered such a perfect crime and get away with it and still lay claim to the gratitude of the Malays in whose name it was committed but who have benefited only marginally.
But sooner or later they will have to answer for all that they have done. Judgment Day will come and they may find themselves on the Highway to Hell. The toll will be their souls.
The latest heard of Halim is that he has teamed up with another former Daim Zainuddin nominee, Samsuddin Abu Hassan. Is Daim still pulling their strings and also that of Ibrahim Bidin?
Keep a watch out Malaysia, be very very careful and ever vigilant!
June 22, 2010 at 3:32 am
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