20 years too late

Yes, as Ani Arope alleges, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was very much behind the push to create these IPPs and privatise the generation of power. But then Anwar Ibrahim and Samy Vellu, plus Ani Arope himself, were very much in the mafia — the gang which Shahidan Kassim disgustingly called ‘Empat Budak Keling’.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Ani Arope on how TNB got a raw deal from the IPPs

(Malaysiakini) – In his book published by the Fulbright Alumni Association of Malaysia, former Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) executive chairperson, Ani Arope, reveals how, after the landmark blackout in Peninsular Malaysia in 1992, TNB was forced to surrender the land it had acquired in Paka (Terengganu) and Pasir Gudang (Johor) to a third party for power plants.

This started the era of the independent power producers (IPPs) and the first was YTL Power Generation Sdn Bhd. This was followed by a slew of other IPPs – Powertek Bhd, Genting Sanyan Power Sdn Bhd, Segeri Energy Ventures Sdn Bhd, Malakoff Bhd, Tanjung plc, EPE Power Sabah Energy Corp, Alpha Intercount’l Bhd, Sutera Bhd, Cergas Unggul Sdn Bhd and Ekran Corp.

Although Ani, who is Malaysia’s first Fulbright scholar, had felt that the power purchase agreements with YTL for a period of 21 years – from 1994 to 2015 – were “too darn generous”, he was pressured to ink the deal, which had been drafted by the Economic Planning Unit (EPU).

Then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was the man who “engineered” the rise of IPPs.

“There was no negotiation; absolutely none. Instead of talking directly with the IPPs, TNB was sitting down with the EPU. And we were harassed, humiliated and talked down every time we went there.”

“After that, my team was disappointed. The EPU just gave us the terms and asked us to agree. I said no way I would,” Ani reveals in his recently released memoirs.

Ani, who was under a lot of pressure to sign the agreements, felt the deal was morally wrong and lopsided. “If it is legal and not fair, I will not do it. If it is fair and illegal, I still won’t do it. It has to be legal and fair,” he says.

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The above revelation is certainly most interesting indeed. What is interesting is not the revelation itself but the fact that it took 20 years for Ani Arope to finally come clean and confess his sin.

You see we already knew more than 20 years ago that the so-called nationwide blackout was engineered. It was no accident. It was purposely done. And the reason it was done was so that they could justify privatising the generation of electricity through the IPPs.

We received information from insiders in TNB about what happened. At that time about 60 or so of the senior TNB engineers and station managers were Old Boys of the MCKK so it was not difficult to get information through what was called the MCOBA Mafia.

We raised this matter with Shahidan Kassim, the BBC Chairman, who then went to meet Anwar Ibrahim. We thought Anwar could do something about this but apparently either he could not or did not want to do anything.

This plan was actually mooted long before 1992, the late 1980s to be exact. But they had one problem. Leo Moggie, the Minister for Energy, Telecommunication and Post, refused to play ball. So Samy Vellu and Leo Moggie were asked to switch jobs. Leo Moggie was appointed the Minister of Works while Samy Vellu became the Minister for Energy, Telecommunication and Post.

Samy Vellu was not as scared as Leo Moggie and would do what they wanted him to do.

Then they sabotaged the power station so that there would be a nationwide blackout and then privatised the generation of electricity on grounds that TNB was not capable of meeting the demand for electricity.

Yes, as Ani Arope alleges, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was very much behind the push to create these IPPs and privatise the generation of power. But then Anwar Ibrahim and Samy Vellu, plus Ani Arope himself, were very much in the mafia — the gang which Shahidan Kassim disgustingly called ‘Empat Budak Keling’.

Shahidan, of course, was being very racist and was referring to the Indian ‘blood’ of Dr Mahathir, Ani Arope, Anwar Ibrahim and Samy Vellu.

Anyway, as I said, this revelation is 20 years too late. Around 20 years ago we already expressed outrage at what we considered one of the biggest rip-offs in Malaysian history, although not the only one.

But why did Ani Arope defend this 20 years ago, as did Samy Vellu and Anwar Ibrahim? They knew what was going on. They knew that what we alleged 20 years ago was true. But when we protested they whacked us and called us lackeys of Semangat 46 and Tengku Razaeligh Hamzah and alleged that our motive is merely to embarrass the government.

This reminds me of the Kidex issue, which now appears to be taking Selangor by storm.

Even as Kidex was still on the drawing board and at planning stage, Malaysia Today revealed what they were planning. We even named the personalities behind Kidex. It had not quite happened yet but would happen if we kept quiet.

But no one cared. Some may have read our report on Kidex but even those that did remained silent. And now, finally, Kidex is upon us. And now Selangorians are making so much noise.

It is a bit too late now, is it not? Why did you all not protest while it was still being planned and before it happened? Why moan and groan now that it is a fait accompli? Silly, is it not?

So, what next? 20 years from now someone is going to write a book about what happened in 2014 that Malaysia Today had earlier already said is going to happen?

And you people have the gall to ask why Malaysia Today no longer bothers to reveal abuses of power in the government. Yeah, right, then what? If we do, are you all going to bother about it?

Bloody losers!