Real reforms are worth the gamble

By Gobind Rudra (FMT)

COMMENT So now a football-crazy nation is about to be presented with the “gift” of legalised betting. A gift to whom? To crony capitalism, it seems, back with a multi-billion-ringgit bang. A return to an easy-money culture so soon after the Najib administration loudly promised policy reforms to give Malaysia a world-class competitive edge.

The award of a sports-betting licence to Vincent Tan’s Ascot Sports makes a mockery of those promises. It also makes a mockery of Barisan Nasional leaders’ own honour and morality after they had mocked Zaid Ibrahim’s personal values during the Hulu Selangor by-election in April.

And it makes a mockery of the personal morality of Najib Tun Razak, as finance minister and the one who issues the licence, in putting his stamp of approval on rent-seeking after having promised to end it.

Those with vested interests have been salivating over how Vincent Tan flipped the licence to his sprawling Berjaya group for a cool RM525m. Stock market punters and analysts, with commissions in mind, are already talking up the supposed benefits of a new cash cow in that corporate empire.

But those with a nasty turn of mind will ask what was the real behind-the-scenes deal.

Any way you look at it, the Ascot-Vincent Tan licence decision stinks.

Wealth from pie-in-the-sky

Here’s the government, supposedly acting in the people’s best interests, handing over a lucrative new monopoly licence on the quiet. In effect, it’s to an individual who had already benefited when handed Sports Toto on a platter by Dr Mahathir Mohamad in 1985 and going on to become a Forbes billionaire. That wealth was largely built on the RM1 or RM10 a week flung away by the common man hoping for a slice of the pie in the sky.

Mahathir’s decision in 1985 was questionable, and remains questionable now, even as the Najib administration follows in his footsteps.

The first question is whether lottery and betting licences should be issued, as a matter of public policy. The second is on what terms, and with what conditions to safeguard the common good.

On both counts, past licence decisions stink, and not just for lack of clarity.

Lottery licences, as handed out by three Malaysian governments, are as good as permits to print money. It amounts to the government allowing the rich to tax the common man, and keep the takings, with small share for the government in the form of duties and gaming tax.

That stinks.

Unanswered questions

The Ascot-Vincent Tan licence is a monopoly licence, given, without competition, and on the quiet, to an individual who is already enormously wealthy after another such licence in the past. No terms have been made public. No safeguards in place to protect the public’s larger interests. No one knows what political quid pro quo have been negotiated.

And that stinks.

There is also the question of morality. Not whether it is right to gamble or to allow gambling, but a larger question on the morality of a government which, acting on behalf of all the people, gives away to its friends and allies valuable things that belong to all the people. And of how it leaves the common people short-changed, and tries to make a virtue of it.

On that score, all the Najib, Abdullah and Mahathir decisions stink.

Read more at: http://freemalaysiatoday.com/fmt-english/opinion/comment/6064-real-gambling-reforms