PKFZ’s RM12 Billion Scandal – Where’re the Sharks?
PKFZ (Port Klang Free Zone) scandal is perhaps the biggest scandal the country ever had so far from the legacy of former premier Mahathir Mohamad since the BMF scandal, that’s if you ignore the Central Bank’s losses from the foreign exchange speculation.
BMF (Bumiputra Malaysia Finance Ltd) scandal involved losses of about RM2.5 billion (that’s huge amount of money back in early 80s mind you) thanks to dubious loans to Hong Kong Carrian Group which collapsed in 1983 after the property crash. Carrian Group chairman George Tan (a Malaysian/Singaporean businessman), BMF chairman Lorraine Esme Osman (a longtime Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah associate) and BBMB (Bank Bumiputra Malaysia Berhad) executive director Mohd Mashim Shamsuddin were figures linked to the scandal.
Like it or not PKFZ is yet another shameful scandal although government-controlled news tried to play down the issue by using “weak project management” by PKA (Port Klang Authority) instead. Of course if the word “scandal” is used then many heads need to roll but a “weak project management” means people who were responsible for multi-billion of dollars of losses can be forgiven. Just like BMF scandal the Malaysian government was trying to cover-up the PKFZ scandal but the losses just got too huge to be swept under the carpet. And if not for the huge losses in peoples’ confidence in the current BN government as can be witnessed from the Mar 2008 general election, you must be mad to think that Najib’s administration would reveal the findings of PKFZ scandal by PricewaterhouseCoopers to the public.
