KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 20): The New Economic Policy (NEP), Malaysia's bumiputera affirmative action scheme, has been abused by Malays and Chinese seeking easy leverage, billionaire Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Albukhary claims in a recently published biography.
"Many Malays are to blame and so are many Chinese. Instead of retaining what was allocated to them as bumiputras, they cashed out or became brokers.
"They were enticed by the Chinese, who offered all kinds of inducements," Syed Mokthar said in recounting his experiences as a young entrepreneur in the early 1960s.
"In my opinion, bumiputra allocations should not be sold since they were awarded to us to achieve the NEP's 30% corporate equity target", he added.
In the biography, Syed Mohktar points out that Malaysia's richest men somehow trace their wealth back to political patronage and the NEP, which was launched in 1971 to grow bumiputra participation in the economy.
By the billionaire's own admission, he was a poor Kedah-born kampung boy who seized opportunities presented by the NEP and post-Independence Malaysia's move toward an industrialised economy.
"The NEM is about distributing the nation's wealth more fairly. The sensitive part of it is the 30% allocation of corporate wealth to bumiputra who make up about 60% of the population.
"But there is still the larger 70% that is available to the Chinese, Indians and foreigners," the low profile 60-year-old tells author Premilla Mohanlall.
The biography, published by pVm Communications, paints a picture of a simple man who still drives around in his old Proton Perdana despite being ranked by Forbes as the seventh richest man in Malaysia with a net worth of US$3.3 billion.
Friends in high places
From his early days dabbling in transportation and rice trading, Syed Mokthar's business empire swiftly expanded to shoe and garment manufacturing, shipping, property development and agriculture.
But it was in his rice trading days that Syed Mokthar made friends who would eventually take on influential positions. They include deputy prime minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and former Perlis mentri besar Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim.
In the 1990s, Syed Mokhtar became an active corporate investor buying into public listed companies and acquiring state-owned enterprises from the government's privatisation policy.
By 30, Syed Mokthar became a millionaire.
Though he was well connected to government officials, Syed Mokthar only met the then prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad for the first time in 1997.
He described the encounter as the "most unnerving 70 minutes of my life" as he had to explain all his business interests to Mahathir.
This came amid incessant rumblings that Syed Mokthar's success was due to his friendship with Muhyiddin, who was then the menteri besar of Johor.
Eventually, Syed Mokthar won over Mahathir and the two men began what the biography described as a "mentor-mentee" relationship that would extend beyond Mahathir's days in office.
But Syed Mokthar found himself distanced from the leadership when Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi succeeded Mahathir as prime minister, prompting Syed Mokthar to venture to the Middle East for opportunities.
Syed Mokthar's journey was certainly not smooth-sailing. He was badly hit by the Asian financial crisis in 1997 which wiped out RM2.4 billion in value from his assets to about RM600 million.
After the crisis, Syed Mokthar bounced back and entered the big league with his acquisition of Malaysia Mining Corp Bhd (now MMC Corp Bhd), Perbadanan Nasional Bhd or PERNAS (now Tradewinds Corp Bhd) and DRB-Hicom Bhd in the 2000s.
In recent times, Syed Mokthar has been criticised for controlling too many strategic sectors including several ports, postal operator Pos Malaysia Bhd, national carmaker Proton Holdings Bhd and rice trading firm Padiberas Nasional Berhad (BERNAS).
No Ali Baba deals
The third of seven children, Syed Mokhtar's first taste of business was helping out in his father's cattle trading business until the venture fell on hard times.
Syed Mokhtar dropped out of school just months away from completing Form Five.
He started a lorry transportation company called Syarikat Kenderaan Sentosa in 1972, which was awarded four lorry licenses under the bumiputra quota.
Syed Mokthar claims that he turned down offers by Chinese businessmen to enter into a "Ali Baba" arrangement, where a Malay takes up bumiputra equity allocated to them but trades it off to a Chinese to run the business.
Later in life, Syed Mokthar would come to realise that there were politicians and decision-makers who were happy to be "pawns" in Ali Baba arrangements, overlooking qualified bumiputra businessmen.
"Even though I had the experience and the money, people in power deliberately chose to ignore this. They did not want to give me or other bumiputra businessmen the opportunity to prove ourselves.
"Instead, they decided that there were no qualified bumiputeras and recommended non bumiputeras to take over government entities established to realise NEP targets. This was sad and disappointing," Syed Mokthar said.
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