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The 21 years of mismanagement that brought MAS to its knees

by Ram Anand
The Malaysian Insider
27 May 2015

Beginning September, Malaysia Airline System Bhd, the company Malaysians know as the national carrier since 1972, will cease to exist.

It would instead be replaced by a new company, Malaysia Airlines Bhd, to be fully owned by Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional before a planned re-listing in Bursa Malaysia by 2019.

This, however, is not the first time MAS has been subjected to a turnaround plan or a bid to save the airline. It has happened several times over the course of 22 years, beginning in 1994.

This is the most comprehensive restructuring plan that MAS has been subjected to though. One that will involve a rigorous cutting down of its air travel routes and its workforce, likely to reduce it to a regional airline.

But this will only work if the government and those helming this restructuring plan heed the lessons of the past. Continue reading “The 21 years of mismanagement that brought MAS to its knees”

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Call for immediate halt to the parliamentary debate on the 11Malaysia Plan for Najib to make a ministerial statement on his role in the 1MDB scandal followed by a two-day debate tantamount to whether Najib still enjoy confidence of Parliament

1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB)’s president and group executive director Arul Kanda Kandasamy was supposed to be overseas on an assignment making it impossible for him to attend the scheduled Public Accounts Committee (PAC) hearing on the 1MDB scandal yesterday.

However, in the last two days, Arul had been unusually productive and accessible, making three media responses raising the question whether he is really overseas.

The first was 1MDB media statement on Monday in immediate response to the media conference by the PAC Chairman, Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed that in place of the testimony by Arul and the former 1MDB CEO Shahrol Halmi, the PAC would move on to question the three firms that audited 1MDB.

In the statement, Arul reiterated that 1MDB will “extend its full co-operation” to the PAC and that both he and Shahrol “look forward to appearing before the committee and having the opportunity to clarify 1MDB’s position”.

The second was Arul’s statement yesterday refuting reports that 1MDB had only informed the PAC of the 1MDB duo’s no-show at the eleventh hour despite the notice to attend the hearing two weeks ago.

Arul said it was only on May 21 that 1MDB received a letter from the Ministry of Finance, appending the invitation sent by the PAC, raising the question why and who in the Finance Ministry who sat on the PAC requisition on May 6 summoning the 1MDB duo to the PAC hearing yesterday – and whether the Finance Ministry official concerned would be disciplined.

But it was Arul’s third media statement last evening which “cooked the goose” so to say. Continue reading “Call for immediate halt to the parliamentary debate on the 11Malaysia Plan for Najib to make a ministerial statement on his role in the 1MDB scandal followed by a two-day debate tantamount to whether Najib still enjoy confidence of Parliament”