Mahathir’s unseen hands in TNB

By MT Webmaster Last updated Jul 25, 2016

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

A week ago on 12th July 2016, Malaysia Today published the article ‘Mahathir’s new battleground: TNB’. Even after seven days Azman Mohd, the President and Chief Executive Officer of TNB (Tenaga Nasional Berhad), has maintained a deafening silence.

Syed Mokhtar Shah Syed Nor Al-Bukhary, however, told certain people ‘high up’ that YTL has paid Malaysia Today to write that article. He did not deny that article. He just said Malaysia Today had been paid to write it. In a way Syed Mokhtar is admitting that what the article said is true.

If anyone writes something against you, that can only mean he or she was paid to do so. But if they write something in support of you, then he or she was not paid. He or she is doing it for God, King and Country.

Well, Malaysia Today has also whacked YTL, Vincent Tan, Tatparanandam Ananda Krishnan, and many other Malaysian tycoons, some who are pro-government and some who are pro-opposition (and some who hedge their bets by supporting both the government and the opposition at the same time). What do you have to say about that?

Everybody who has ever served or has had dealings with TNB knows that Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad decides what happens in TNB. For those not familiar with the issue or are too young to remember, on 1st September 1990, the then Prime Minister Mahathir officially proclaimed TNB as the heir and successor to NEB. TNB became a private company wholly-owned by the government. On that same day, Ani Arope was appointed TNB’s Chairman.

This created an uproar. Never before has an ‘outsider’ who has absolutely no background in power generation been appointed the head of NEB-TNB. There were protests and effigy-burning and Shahidan Kassim, the then Chairman of Parliament’s BBC (Backbenchers’ Club), went to meet newly-minted Finance Minister Anwar Ibrahim to complain.

Anwars’s reply was simple. TNB was a ‘cash cow’ and Mahathir wants control of TNB. So shut up because Mahathir has already decided. And once Mahathir decides nothing can change his mind. That is that.

In April 2015, a certain Chinese businessman went to meet Leo Moggie, the TNB Chairman. This Chinaman made the mistake of mentioning Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s name — but not in a critical sense, though.

Leo Moggie quickly hushed that Chinaman and cautioned him about ‘using’ Najib’s name. ‘Najib’ is a ‘dirty word’ in TNB, explained Leo Moggie. Mahathir controls TNB and decides what happens. If you are seen as aligned to Najib then you are a dead man walking.

So nothing has changed in 26 years although Mahathir retired 13 years ago. TNB is still Mahathir’s domain and will remain his cash cow.

Anyway, as Malaysia Today said in the previous article, ‘Mahathir’s new battleground: TNB’, TNB wants to assassinate YTL. Of course, they are saying that YTL is owned by Chinese Born Again Christians. So why make these Chinese rich when we can make Malay-Muslims rich instead?

They play the race and religion card to justify killing off YTL. That would mean Umno would support killing off YTL since you are eliminating Chinese Born Again Christians in favour of fellow Malay-Muslims such as Syed Mokhtar.

But that is not the reason they want to kill YTL and give everything to Syed Mokhtar. The real reason is Syed Mokhtar is Mahathir’s proxy. So by giving everything to Syed Mokhtar they are affectively giving everything to Mahathir.

Mahathir already has an estimated RM100-200 billion of Umno’s investments, assets and cash which he has parked under nominees and proxies (Syed Mokhtar being one of them). And at his age why does he still need more?

Well, this is not just about money. This is about building a war chest so that he can dominate Malaysian politics and control both the ruling party as well as the opposition and decide who goes up and who goes down and who gets to become Malaysia’s future Prime Minister.

And all it takes is money, plenty of money. So you need the money to flow like water from a busted dam so that you have so much money it can drown you. And to drown that many people in an unlimited flow of money you need an unlimited supply of money. Even a schoolchild can tell you that.

Another reason, as explained in the previous article, is because YTL refuses to contribute to the RM3 billion ANC (Anti-Najib Campaign) fund while Syed Mokhtar is spending like there is no tomorrow.

The long and short of it is Syed Mokhtar’s companies will take over all the TNB business from YTL. So that will more or less indirectly make Syed Mokhtar the ‘owner’ of TNB. Che Khalib Mohamad Noh is meeting Syed Mokhtar and Azman Mohd almost every day to plan their moves. Mahathir told them to keep quiet and not respond to what Malaysia Today wrote a week ago but just more fast to seal the deal before TNB gets cold feet due to the adverse publicity.

Forbes has listed Syed Mokhtar as the richest Malay and the eighth richest Malaysian, all thanks to Mahathir, of course. Syed Mokhtar’s three major investment vehicles are Malaysian Mining Corporation Berhad (MMC), DRB-Hicom Berhad and Tradewinds Group.

Last year, Malakoff Corporation Berhad, a subsidiary of MMC, recorded a profit of RM453.2 million against a revenue of RM5.3 billion. The increase in profit was due to a higher contribution from its TNB business.

Malakoff’s Chairman, Syed Anwar Jamalullail said, “Moving forward, the Company aims to increase its effective power generation capacity to 10,000 MW and water production capacity to 667,200 m3/day by 2020.” And this means gaining a monopoly of the TNB business is very crucial for this to happen.

The successful commissioning of Malakoff Corp Bhd’s 1,000MW coal-fired Tanjung Bin Energy Power Plant (TBE) marks another significant milestone for Malakoff, increasing its multi-fuel portfolio net generating capacity in Peninsular Malaysia from 5,346MW to 6,346MW or from about 24% to 29% market share, respectively.

“It further reaffirms Malakoff’s position as the leading Independent Power Producer in Malaysia,” Malakoff said in a statement in March 2016.

READ: Malakoff’s Tanjung Bin Energy Power Plant achieves COD