Wahid: Policy paper misleading, erroneous
KUALA LUMPUR: Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB) group chairman Tan Sri Abdul Wahid Omar has lambasted a recently published policy paper by the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas) as “misleading” and “erroneous”.
The paper Wahid was referring to was titled “GovernmentLinked Companies: Impact on the Malaysian Economy” by Dr Jayant Menon, in which the latter explored impacts of government-linked companies (GLCs) on the Malaysian economy from four perspectives, namely Impact on Private Investment, Impact on Governance, Impact on Inequality and Impact on Government Revenues.
The article, which was originally published on Dec 18, showed a negative picture of GLCs, arguing that GLCs negatively impact the Malaysian economy along all four perspectives.
“Many of the conclusions made by the policy paper were not just misleading, but also erroneous,” said Wahid at the PNB’s 2017 financial year results announcement.
“Overall, I would say that GLCs, supported by government-linked investment companies (GLICs), have been doing well.”
Wahid said he stood together with sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional Bhd’s statement, also in response to the paper that was issued on Thursday.
“The evidence put forth by this policy paper is weak and, often missing altogether, thereby lending itself to misleading conclusions.
“Moreover, the paper fails to provide adequate contextualisation to its arguments, leading to unbalanced perspectives,” Khazanah said.
Wahid in conclusion of his rebuttal said: “GLCs play their social economic development roles in terms of providing equitable opportunities for employment, in terms of Bumiputeras and business opportunities for Bumiputeras.”
Before becoming PNB group chairman and before his threeyear ministerial position at the Economic Planning Unit, Wahid headed United Engineers (Malaysia) Bhd, Telekom Malaysia Bhd and Malayan Banking Bhd between 2001 and 2013.