At a dialogue in July 1996 in London with Malaysian students, you, as the Finance Minister, said the losses in Perwaja Steel were due not only to irregularities, but also because there were management actions that did not follow regulations - such as purchases and payments that did not adhere to spending regulations.
Then in July 1999, it was reported that you lodged a police report on Perwaja group, claiming the group suffered losses of RM2,985 million up to December 1995.
According to a photostated copy of the report that was distributed to reporters at the court, you wanted detailed investigations to be carried out because the losses from the mega project were massive and the people had the right to ascertain the truth based on the investigations by the auditors Price Waterhouse in June 1996, which found Perwaja to be in a critical state and needed substantial capital injection from the government.
You also cited that this has to be done because attempts to get detailed information from the Perwaja management then had not been fruitful.
Since you are now the Prime Minister and leading the country, the ordinary rakyat wants to know the truth regarding the Malaysia Airlines debacle.
The travails and debt situation in Malaysia Airlines dominated public headlines in early 2000 and beyond until it was delisted from Bursa Malaysia.
In a news report on 27 August 2014 by the Independent UK with the headline "MH370: Malaysia Airlines 'burning £1.3 million in cash reserves' each day", it quoted Oliver McGee, a professor at Howard University and analyst, who in a blog post wrote that Malaysia Airline is burning its cash reserves at nearly US$2.16 million each day, while operations are losing about US$1.6 million per day and its share prices reveal a business deeply in the red for the past several years.
Khazanah has since taken the airline private in 2014 and promised a “complete overhaul” of the airline’s operation, which could include a name change and major job cuts.
It was worthy to note that prior to the privatization, the airline was already lurching from one restructuring plan to another, all sanctioned by Khazanah, as it faced fierce competition from regional budget carriers and the cost of maintaining unprofitable long-haul routes.
In August 2014, Khazanah even publicly revealed a 12-point MAS Recovery Plan, aimed to sustain profitability and revive Malaysia’s national flag-carrier.
Sadly, none of the turnaround plans implemented succeeded.
Including the turnaround plan that involved the hiring of few top-level foreign professional managers to lead the company. All of them left abruptly before even completing their contracts.
In a report in Nov 2020, it quoted the then Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz as saying that a total of RM28 billion had been injected into Malaysia Airlines by Khazanah to date.
In another report dated 22 Feb 2020, Khazanah Nasional Bhd, the sole shareholder of Malaysia Airlines Bhd, was quoted to have committed to inject RM3.6 billion in new capital into the national carrier's holding company Malaysia Aviation Group Bhd (MAG) to fund the group's business until 2025.
The commitment was issued following Malaysia Airlines’ RM16 billion debt restructuring plan that was given the green light by the UK High Court in Feb 2021.
It was rumored that in the opening round of negotiations, Khazanah apparently told creditors in the above debt restructuring plans that if they didn’t provide debt relief, the government of Malaysia would simply allow the airline to go bankrupt.
You said the ordinary rakyat had the right to ascertain the truth on the almost RM3 billion losses suffered by Perwaja back in 1996. For Malaysia Airlines, the total losses it suffered to date are at least 12 times more than the total losses suffered by Perwaja in 1996.
Don’t you agree that the ordinary rakyat deserves to know the truth too in this matter? Or it will be conveniently sweep under the carpet?
Now that you are leading the country with access to information that was denied to you by Perwaja’s management as claimed by you in 1999 in the police report, are you going to seek access to the information from Khazanah?
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