KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 11 — As chief of Malaysia’s sole Fortune 500 company which accounts for nearly a quarter of the country’s revenue, Petronas chief Tan Sri Shamsul Azhar Abas has drawn his fair share of critics, though none appear as focused and vehement as the Malay Economic Action Council (MTEM).
In an interview this week, MTEM chief executive explained that the Malay business lobby group was no racial hardliner that had a personal vendetta against Shamsul’s merit-driven leadership, but was merely frustrated with the oil-and-gas giant’s seeming indifference to criticism, especially from the country’s Malay-Bumiputera stakeholders.
“For us, Petronas is not a (Bumiputera) issue, it’s a Malaysian development issue,” Nizam Mahshar told The Malay Mail Online.
“Firstly, because Petronas has been contributing to the country, including a lot of contributions to the Malaysian economy. Secondly, Petronas is seen as a leading player in the global oil and gas industry. There’s a lot of hope (to see) that Petronas is being managed effectively, transparently.”
However, MTEM’s long drawn-out campaign against Shamsul has cast the group in an unflattering light; more so after its expletive-ridden rant against the president and CEO of the state oil firm in a well-covered news conference on Thursday.
Nizam said that as a Malay lobby group, MTEM is tasked to monitor government-linked agencies (GLCs), and highlight those it believed to have failed to raise Malay businesses to par with those run by Malaysia’s other ethnicities.
Petronas currently tops MTEM’s list of corporations following the change in its top leadership that purportedly led to a policy-switch, he said.
“The role of Petronas is to build the capacity of local industries, the local oil and gas industries,” Nizam said.
He added: “So we can play a bigger role in the future, to be a champion in the region, in the global market.”
The businessman claimed that under Shamsul’s stewardship, Petronas had deviated from this policy.
MTEM has been at the forefront of a campaign against company that ranked 75th on Fortune Global’s list of 500 largest companies worldwide last year, dropping six spots from its 68th position in 2012.
The Malay lobby group has accused Petronas of sidelining Malay vendors at every level of its businesses and favouring hiring foreign professionals over Malaysians.
Following a series of contracts awarded to Bumiputera firms and personalities, the lobby group also accused Petronas of mounting an expensive media campaign to criticism towards it.
MTEM has previously alleged that senior Petronas executives have abused their power for personal gain even though the state-owned and public-listed company has to be fully accountable to the government and shareholders.
The proverbial last straw for the group was the alleged high-handed action against Petronas adviser Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad within 24 hours of the former prime minister tendering his resignation in December 2013.
Incensed by what MTEM representatives believed to be disrespect of the statesman, the group’s oil-and-gas cluster chief, Tengku Putra Tengku Ahmad, went on a tirade on January 9, where he used a derogatory word on Shamsul, besides accusing Petronas of stonewalling its detractors by ignoring their criticism and complaints.
It claimed Petronas’ change in direction that prompted the 88-year-old Dr Mahathir to resign, rather than health reasons alone.
Nizam described the GLCs targeted by MTEM as “leaking holes”, which have partly led to dismal results from various government programmes to uplift the financial status of Malay entrepreneurs.
Despite million of ringgit poured into them and hundreds of agencies created to that end, the participation of Malay businesses has remained low over the decades, said Nizam.
“We need to assess what’s the problem ... Is it ineffective programmes? Is the problem wastages? Is the problem corruption? We need to plug the holes rather than creating more programmes and agencies,” Nizam said in a remark that was aimed at the federal government.
Despite the “Malay” in its name, MTEM insisted that the 53-group strong umbrella body has its eyes set on economic and business affairs of the ethnic community without any political or discriminatory overtone.
“Our focus is on the Malay entrepreneurship, but it doesn’t stop us from looking at bigger economic issues,” Nizam said.
Despite being formed in 2011 to address the widening gap between Malay and non-Malay businessmen, Nizam admitted the public has been largely sceptical and cynical of the group’s work and conceded that redressing its public image remains MTEM’s biggest challenges.
Nizam said he found it regretful that MTEM was persistently compared to certain Malay groups seen as extremist, due to its niche business focus.
“It’s just that there is also this Malayphobia among the communities. The country is so divided... Because of that, people see just because we’re a Malay organisation, then we’re just talking about the Malays,” Nizam added.
He pointed out that MTEM was just like Chinese and Indian-centric business lobby groups, and added that each has a role to play within its respective racial community, which ultimately contributed to the good of the whole Malaysian society.
Nizam said MTEM has already broadened its scope towards national issues rather than communal.
However, he rejected the possibility of the group leaving its Malay agenda behind in the near future.
“We saw there is a problem in Malay entrepreneurship, and we need to address that. Because if we don’t address that, and if the Malays continue to be marginalised from the economy, then we will have a problem affecting the stability of the country,” Nizam said.
MTEM’s sentiment echoes Malay rights group such as Perkasa, which claimed a need for a “corrective measure” to ensure that the Malays and Bumiputera, who form the ethnic majority in Malaysia, achieve economic parity with other races.
Perkasa had previously claimed that it is a “national agenda” to empower the ethnic group, since the Bumiputera would not be happy otherwise and might affect the nation’s security.
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