Pos Malaysia : worth the fuss to privatise?
By Lee Wee Tak
When Pos Malaysia was listed as a public limited company, it baffled me. Why bother privatising a monopoly? Remove the profit element and instill healthy working culture, and Malaysians can be spared the profiteering increase of postage from RM0.30 to RM0.70.
If privatisation is to provide more efficient service then the excellent article below spelt out the less than ideal situation beneath the exciting images portrayed by Pos Malaysia for the past few years.
In addition to the crippling Transmile Group scandal which whacked RM200-RM300 million off the profits of Pos Malaysia, the article also highlighted that its chairman and managing director had resigned over irregularities in land sales and award of contracts.
The fact that the chairman and managing director (bumiputras, no less) could only resign* in protest suggested that there were higher powers at work that frustrated & probably prevented capable and honest professionals from taking the necessary corrective action.
This kind of working environment will deter high calibre overseas based Malaysians from coming back. This is more important than the 15% income tax abruptly announced by Najib of which the details have yet to be worked out.
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*foot note:
Very recently, the chairman took Pos Malaysia and Khazanah to court for breach of chairmanship contract.
http://www.sun2surf.com/article.cfm?id=60169
In the first suit, Adam is suing the Minister of Finance, the government and Pos Malaysia Bhd. In the second suit, which was filed separately, he named Khazanah Nasional Berhad managing director Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar as the defendant.
Adam told Bernama that his suit against Pos Malaysia had been settled amicably after he withdrew his legal action against it about three months ago.
– perhaps Pos Malaysia has to make peace knowing court action may not be advisable for them?
In the suit against Azman filed on Nov 4 last year, Adam alleged that due to unlawful interference by Azman, the government decided to terminate his contract through two letters signed by the Minister of Finance dated May 23 and May 26, 2008 whereas his appointment was supposed to end only on Feb 28, 2009.
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Yeah sure those are old stories dated 2008 but let’s look at the audited accounts for 2010:
Pos Malaysia invested RM7.6 million into 3 associated companies, of which are all wiped out as useless investment, worth RM0. Of the 3, Elpos Print Sdn Bhd earned a revenue of RM12.5 million, but as its liabilities greater than its assets and even whole year’s revenue, something is wrong. (Imagine you owe loans and debts which exceed your whole year salary…that is terrifying or down right stupid financial management)
Read more at: http://wangsamajuformalaysia.blogspot.com/2011/04/pos-malaysia-worth-fuss-to-privatise.html
