Old Dogs and Fat Cats Corporate Shenanigans

A Kadir Jasin

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيم

PREAMBLE: Views expressed herein are entirely mine. I am writing in my personal capacity as a blogger. It has nothing to do with whatever position I may hold.

PM asked profitable companies to pay their employees better

OLD habits die hard and old dogs are said to be unable to learn new tricks.

Some dog owners are themselves unwilling or unable to learn new tricks that can be taught to their younger dogs and puppies.

So even thought the Barisan Nasional (BN) government had been ousted and replaced by the Pakatan Harapan (PH) more than 10 months ago, old bad habits are still very much alive.

Reforms and new ways of doing things seem not to have the desired effects on everybody.

 

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So we still hear stories of chief executive officer of a government linked company (GLC) nonchalantly said he could not remember his remuneration package when asked by the Council of Eminent Persons (CEP).

It turns out that he was paid something like quarter a million ringgit a month and his annual package was in excess RM7 million.

He had since left the company and a new man was appointed to the post apparently with a more modest remuneration package but still unimaginably generous.

More recently the chairman of another GLC has had his contract cut short and his peers on the board recommended that he be paid compensation in excess of RM4 million.

This is in spite of him having amassed shares worth nearly RM140 million in companies belonging to the group he chaired, presumably through share option and other reward schemes.

His remuneration last year was in excess of RM5 million.

It is not at all surprising because almost all the board members are his peers. They have been on the board together like forever. One of them had been a board member for nearly 30 years.

So I don’t know if the government should or would agree with the board’s proposal to offer this person such a generous compensation.

Corporate Incest

Sometime before the fall of the kleptocratic government of Datuk Seri I Mappadulung Daeng Mattimung Karaeng Sandrobone Sultan Abdul Jalil Mohd Najib Abdul Razak, I wrote about the incestuous relationship involving several GLCs implicated in the 1MDB, FGV and Tabung Haji scandals.

That was during the Tabung Haji-TRX land deals controversy.

I noticed that these companies shared board members and were seen to be doing Najib’s bidding in concert.

Many of them had since been removed and some are even facing criminal and civil actions. Those who remain should also be terminated in due course.

It would appear that during the kleptocratic “Cash is King” days, many GLC heads and board members joined their political masters in a get-rich-quick scheme of sorts.

They happily rewarded themselves with huge salaries and fat performance bonuses when their companies are actually monopolies and oligopolies, and are not actually doing that well.

Recently, a middle-ranking officer of a large GLC bank complained to me that while the big bosses rewarded themselves with fat bonuses, the middle and lower management and ordinary staff were given pittance.

At the Invest Malaysia Capital Market Forum in Kuala Lumpur on March 19 last, the Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, urged profitable companies to pay their workers better.

The government has no direct control on private sector companies but it has a wide say in the GLCs. As such the proposal for a better and more equitable remuneration package should start with the GLCs.

Additionally, in line with government’s commitment to raise governance, integrity and anti-corruption bar, action must be taken against GLC executives and board members – past and present - who are involved in corporate legal breaches like money laundering, insider trading, non-disclosure of mandated information and failure to perform fiduciary duties.

Generous rewards must be accompanied by harsh punishments for wrongdoing.

Wallahuaklam.