Thursday, August 03, 2006

Petronas Hidden Agenda

Petronas is currenetly riding on a wave of
unprecedented financial success not of its making but
by a stroke of good fortune that seem to bless all oil
producing country.The profits generated from this
corporation which belongs to the govt of Malaysia and
by extension belongs to its citizen.
Since its inception it has not been transparent
in its financial reports and its actual financial
profile is only privy to a few top govt leaders.As a
citizen, may we ask the govt why are they perpetuating
such secrecy in their financial and managerial
performance.The govt is merely a custodian of our
nations resources and every citizen is surely entitled
to gauge and evaluate the performance of an entity
that generate so much wealth for the nation.
When an entity remains a recluse and its
financial record is hidden from public view, the only
conclusion we can surmise is that it has a hidden
agenda. And what may that secret hidden agenda be?
Petronas is first and foremost guilty of
discriminatory practice in its distribution of the
nation's wealth.100% of all petrol station are given
to malays to operate.Petronas offshore contracts are
selectively phased to bumiputra company with strong
political connections.Petronas employs 20,000 personel
and non-malays constitute only 1% of its
workforce.Even its Petronas university is not exempted
from discrimination with hardly a 10% non malay
enrolment being given places.
What about govt bailouts?The bailouts of Bank
Bumiputra,Bank Rakyat,BMF,and the Mahathir's son
Perkapalan sold to MISC and a host of others were all
malay business interests that were rescued with
Petronas funds.
All the above reasons clearly provides us with a
clear notion why the govt wish to keep Petronas record
a secret.It would have a hard time explaining to its
citizens why Petronas policies was so discriminatory
and skewed towards only one community.

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