‘Why hasn’t GLC reform taken place?’

Corporations have been shifted to other ministries instead, says academic

KUALA LUMPUR: An academic has questioned why the reform of government-linked corporations (GLCs) has not taken place fully.

Instead, Prof Dr Edmund Terence Gomez said he observed that the GLCs are shifted to different ministries and controlled by ex-Umno, ex-Umno-linked and current Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) leaders.

Dr Gomez, who is a senior fellow with the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs, said that in the run-up to the May general election, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had said that the government has created a monster – the GLCs – which were responsible for political financing and he had promised that if he came to power, he would reform the GLCs.

GLCs had been responsible for the practice of politics of political patronage, leakages and possible corruption, said Gomez.

Instead, Malaysians are seeing GLCs being moved to other ministries under ex-Umno and ex-Umno-linked leaders and current Bersatu members, he said.

“Why are they not discussing reforms of the GLCs?” he said during the Youth Economic Forum 2018 yesterday.

In his talk “Government in Business: Changes under PH”, Gomez, who jokingly said that he needed to put a question mark to his topic, asked whether the issue of government running business in the country had changed.

Gomez pointed out that under the previous administration, there were a large number of ministries that owned GLCs, which were controlled by Cabinet ministers.

Among the big four ministries were the Prime Minister’s Department and the Finance Ministry previously held by Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, the Rural and Regional Development Ministry previously held by Umno vice-president Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal (now Sabah Chief Minister) and then given to Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob after a fall out between Shafie and Najib.

The Environment, Science and Technology Ministry was then held by former minister Wilfred Madius Tangau, from Upko (now deputy Sabah Chief Minister), he said.

He said the Rural and Regional Development Minister post was now held by Bersatu’s Rina Harun.

Gomez said that before the run-up to the GE14, many people had made it clear that the Finance Minister must not be the Prime Minister as this was unacceptable.

“The first thing Dr Mahathir was expected to do was cut down on the number of ministries but instead, he created a new ministry called Economic Affairs Ministry and took many of the GLCs under the Finance Ministry and transferred them to that ministry.

“Since the Prime Minister could not be the Finance Minister, he took Khazanah Nasional out of the Finance Ministry and put it under the PM’s Department,” he said.

Gomez pointed out that the Pakatan Harapan manifesto also stated that politicians could not be directors of GLCs but the new chairman of Khazanah was the PM, Dr Mahathir.

Meanwhile, Malaysian Industrial Development Finance Bhd group managing director Datuk Charon Wardini Mokhzani said temptation was great when people were dealing with a lot of money, and this applied to the private sector too.

He said that it was not how much the state were involved in business but whether the leakages and other concerns were addressed.