I will like to start off by referring to a posting on the Internet in the newsgroup, Jaring (General) last week, which stated:
“There is an interesting report in the Star today that the to-be-appointed head of
the Majlis Perbandaran Subang Jaya (formerly known as Majlis Daerah Petaling)
will be given a RM1.4 million house to stay with a Mercedes Benz thrown in.
“I agree that such heads be given accommodation and transport befitting their
official position but a RM1.4 million house in USJ Subang Jaya?
“They cannot even come up with the RM2.0 million contribution to build a second exit for Subang Jaya and here they dump in RM1.4 million for a house for a Town Council president? Something is very wrong.”
I fully agree with the expression of outrage in this posting, which highlights the need for a strong Opposition whether at national, state or local level to check government abuses and misuses of power as well as to demand greater accountability and transparency of government actions and decisions.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamed visited Perwaja in Kemamam and said that the decision to revive Perwaja Steel Sdn. Bhd is not only to recoup the government’s hefty investment in the project but also to safeguard the country’s dignity as the pride of the country was at stake.
In November last year, I had called for a Royal Commission of Inquiry to investigate the losses by Perwaja, which I had then mentioned as amounting to RM2 billion to RM3 billion.
At that time, the Prime Minister denied that Perwaja could suffer such huge losses.
However, subsequently in Parliament in May this year, during the debate on the Seventh Malaysia Plan, the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim admitted that Perwaja had chalked up RM2.9 billion in accumulated losses and RM6.9 billion in liabilities, making it the biggest financial scandal in the history of Malaysia.
In November last year, when rejecting my proposal for the establishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry, Mahathir said the government was considering selling off Perwaja as there were “a lot of people” interested in Perwaja.
In Parliament in May this year, Anwar said that four private companies were interested in taking over Perwaja, namely Lion Group, Renong Bhd., Maju Holding Bhd and Wing Tiek, Holding Bhd.
In June, the government announced its “bail-out” plan for Perwaja by a consortium, with Maju Holdings Sdn Bhd holding 51% of the equity, Lion Group 30% and the government through Khazanah Nasional Bhd. 19% and a “golden share”.
Lion Group has however backed out of the rescue consortium, ending up with the government holding 49% of the rescue consortium, raising the question as to whether the government may be forced to absorb a large chunk of Perwaja’s losses and liabilities - which must be regarded as a major seback for the government’s bail-out plan for Perwaja.
I call on Mahathir to make public the four privatisation proposals on Perwaja which had been submitted by the four companies for the people to evaluate as to whether the government has chosen the best proposal which would involve minimum losses to the taxpayers.
This is particularly pertinent as Maju’s appointment to lead the Perwaja rescue consortium had been questioned by some bankers and steel industry analysts as the modest-sized company clearly lacks the financial resources and technical expertise to spearhead such a complex job.
It is also most disappointing that up to date, the government has taken no action against those responsible for the biggest financial scandal in Malaysian history. Yesterday, Mahathir said the government admitted that the various problems brought about the failure of the project but nothing could be achieved by blaming anybody.
This seems to confirm what I had warned earlier, that the Perwaja scandal would end up like the RM2.5 billion Bumiputra Malaysia Finance scandal in the eighties - a “heinous crime without a criminal”.
This is most unacceptable and I call on the Government to make public the full report of the Price Waterhouse investigations into the Perwaja financial scandal, as audits into Perwaja had detailed numerous management irregularities during the tenure of Perwaja’s former managing director, Tan Sri Eric Chia.
Recently, there was a report that Universiti Sains Malaysia might have to be closed down as there were not enough students taking science courses. Although this report was subsequently denied and corrected, there is no doubt that Universiti Sains Malaysia is a misnomer for USM, which is more fitting to be called Universiti Sastera Malaysia as it is still producing more arts graduates than science graduates.
Although the Ministry of Education has recently given more emphasis to science and mathematics, the orientation of the mind-set of the Education Ministry in this direction is still slow and not far-seeing enough, as illustrated by the failure of Malaysia to participate in the Third International Mathematics and Science Survey (TIMSS) conducted by the Dutch-based International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IAE) and the International Assessment of Educational Progress (IAEP).
The IAE and IAEP had conducted two previous international surveys on science and mathematics achievements on cross-national attainments of different educational systems, the first one in 1964 and the second one in the 1980s.
TIMSS is the third international survey, which involes 45 countries, more than 15,000 participating schools and more than half a million students.
In the first major report on TIMSS released only last month, Singapore was the top-performing country in both science and mathematics at both the seventh and eight grades. For science, the five top-performing countries included Japan and Korea; while for mathematics, the five top-performing countries included Japan, Korea and Hong Kong.
However, Malaysia is conspicuously absent from this international survey. How can Malaysia talk about wanting to build a world-class educational system, turning Malaysia into an international centre of educational excellence, when we are not prepared to take part in such an international educational survey?
My parliamentary office had written to the IEA in Amsterdam, the Netherlands to inquire as to how a country could take part in its international educational survey, and this is the reply from the IEA Co-ordinator for Professional Studies, Dr. Barbara Malak-Minkiewicz:
“I also would like to inform you that every country can participate in the IEA surveys (even a country that is not an IEA member). The research institute interested in this should however have a strong research tradition, working relationship with national policy makers and access to funds: study participants should be able to cover national costs of the study and to contribute to the costs of international co-ordination”.
As the countries which participated in TIMSS include Thailand, Romania, Iran, Kuwait, Colombia and South Africa, there is no reason why Malaysia is incapable of taking part in the international educational survey, which would give us an excellent opportunity to compare the attainments of our students in these two subjects with students in the rest of the world.
The Education Minister, Datuk Najib Tun Razak should explain why Malaysia had not participated in TIMSS, which would have been an excellent opportunity to project Malaysia’s ambition to become an international centre of educational excellence as well as to give the proper emphasis to science and mathematics in our educational system.
(13/12/96)