Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Musa Hitam: Chartered private jet and RM1 million travel bill

When Zahid Md Arip of Perkasa described Musa as having "sindrom sayangkan kedudukan", there may be some pinch of truth.

Sime Darby was once not only a blue chip company but a blue blood company. It was an organisation that had evolved a corporate culture that is aristocratic and at an early bureucratic stage.

Chairmanship and Board membership came with fee and perks befitting of heavily titled retired top civil servants, politicians and corporate man.

It was also a place for Musa to maintain a lifestyle he yearns as someone almost making it as #1 man in the country.

In Sime Darby, the culture is such that no one offend each other or cross each other. It is in such an organisation that spending abuse is ever occuring and accountability is never practise.

Aging Company

Back during the time this blogger was doing his MBA, we were recommended to read Ichak Adzes's Corporate Lifecycle. It was about how and why corporations grow and die. There were mentioned some remedial actions recomended.

In our class discussion, we identified Sime Darby as an organisation that has passed its prime and were showing aging signs.

Unless the organisation get out of its aristocratic and bureaucratic tendencies, the organisation was dying. The CEO then was aristocrat, Tunku Ahmad Yahya of Kedah royal family and it was building bureucrasy only second to the Government.

After a bad foray into banking and finance, Sime was supposed to reorganise and reenergise itself into a "young" growing company. It never did so, but accelarated itself into a potential pathological death with a mega tri-merger.

Sime Darby was emulating the culture in Governmental organisation where form supercede functionality and organisational ritual is important.

Abuse

Such organisation fits Tun Musa Hitam like a glove. It enables him to dream he is in a position he almost yearn but could not attain i.e. to be the #1 man.

At Sime Darby, Musa has been acting like the "Prime Minister" of an organisation and irregularly exercising his position as Chairman of Sime Darby.

According to Bigdogdotcom, Musa "is known to have ‘enjoyed’ himself lavishly in the position.

We quote from Bigdogdotcom: He has been known to have had Sime Darby chartered private jets for his use on company’s trips against using commercial flights. The urgency for him to arrive and leave the destination that it warrants for expensive hire of business jets since he is not an executive is still baffling.

Probably, some people think that he needed to travel in style now that Sime Darby is a RM 30 billion plus turnover MNC conglomerate and the largest plantations MNC in the world.

Sometime, these luxuries can be abused.

Recently, Musa demanded Sime Darby to charter and pay for the travel bills of Maldives President on business jet to attend the World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) held in Kuala Lumpur.



President Mohamad Nasheed’s bills came to slightly over RM one million and it is thought that Tun Musa did this because the former is the latter’s personal friend.

This is highly irregular since the travel is deemed to be wrongful use of company’s expense and Sime Darby is just a sponsor and not an organiser of WIEF.

Unaccountability

Sime Darby has just realised a major loss of RM1.3 billion from the irrecoverable losses incurred by Bakun, Qatar Project and Maersk Oil Qatar. Read Bigdogdotcom's February 2009 exposure here.

After a 13 hour marathon meeting on May 2010, none of the Board of Directors had the integrity to be accountable.

The original Sime Darby had cheated the public into believing the mega tri-merger would see an increase in shareholders value. But instead it is slowly becoming a facade to cover for worms already eating into the apple.

The original member of the pre-Synergy Drive Board of Directors should be responsible and if not liable for misleading the public.

Among the current BOD who were part of pre-Synergy Drive Sime Darby Bhd BOD, Tun Ahmad Sarji Abdul Hamid, Tan Sri Ahmad Tajudin Ali and Dato’ Mohamad Sulaiman should resign or be ‘retired early’.

Former Chief Secretary to the Government and later became PNB Chairman Tun Ahmad Sarji has been in pre-Synergy Drive Sime Darby Bhd. BOD since the 1990s, is the most longest serving member.

Tan Sri Tajudin was part BOD of the pre-Synergy Drive Sime Darby since 2002. He gave the ‘thumbs up’ for Bakun.

Inside sources calimed he was also the BOD member who explored the energy business and spearhead the Qatar Project (QP) and Maersk Oil Qatar (BOQ) projects.

Tajuddin was a former BOD of Sime Darby Engineering, which undertook the much gloated QP and MOQ projects.

Dato’ Seri Mohamad Sulaiman was a veteran member of Sime Darby management. His last job was Managing Director of Consolidated Plantations Bhd and he was Managing Sime UEP Bhd. from 1985-90.

Mohamad was very familiar within the Sime Darby systems, reporting, controls and values and philosophy.

12 comments:

paktam said...

Sime Darby

Few things that do not add up in the SD organisation

1-Chairman and BOD are basically responsible for strategic direction, culture and implementing its vision and values, besides approving major investment proposal.

2-Based on your write up then Tajuddin seems to be responsible for Energy sector. He is the person in the know as far as energy is concern. So there should not be a plead of not understanding what is going on. Chairman and BOD can always get clarification from their BOD collegues.

3-It is a requirement that BOD has meeting quarterly or where about and things discussed should include progress, problems and future directions.

4-It is a requirement that there is a directors audit commetee, and stated numbers of meeting should be conducted.

5-Therefore, it is not acceptable that chairman and BOD to claim that they were not aware of problems in these three 'energy' ventures.

6-Corporate cycle is only a theory discovered in corporation that do not adjust according to time. It is not acceptable to blame to corporate cycle for SD failures.

7-Tajuddin is the first to go followed by members of audit commetee. Then the 'CEO' of the energy sectors. Chairman should go because he is definitely 'ineffective', and did not carry out his 'moral' obligations.

8-As far as the rest of the board members are concern each should have expertise in a certain field. A person who is familiar with government is also required since this is a GLC.

As I see it.

Non-partisan said...

I remember when he was DPM cum Minister of Home Affairs making a visit to the Orang Asli settlement in Gombak.

Amongst other things, he firmly said "We shouldn't patronise them too much. Otherwise they will become too dependent on the government."

Ironically from your latest posting I seriously wonder who is now being heavily 'patronised'.

Unknown said...

Weird that those names especially Musa and Tajudin was mentioned, as these people always claimed to be of the only one with full honesty in both their intention and action..a finesse group of people.

They also have the same sworn enemy in Tun M…whom for them is the mother of the entire wrong things happening in Malaysia, albeit in their personal life.

If what you said is true then are definitely finesse in their action.

Vladmir Venganza said...

Like the fall of the Roman Empire ,it was one long party time for retirees without responsibilty and finally the roof collapsed. Rugi tapa gaya mahu.

Anonymous said...

Bro, you may want to go to YB Wee's blog on some financial figures provided today. See if you can make sense of the "hidden" losses ...

http://weechookeong.wordpress.com/2010/06/23/parliament-questions-time-23-june-2010/

Anonymous said...

Dalam banyak-banyak nama pembesar sime darby tu, saya paling benci dengan nama Ahmad Sarji.

Ahmad Sarji dengan otak geliganya telah memperkenalkan SSB dalam perkhidmatan awam selama 10 tahun. Kerosakan akibat SSB diperkenalkan itu masih terasa sampai sekarang.

Mereka yang tidak mendapat apa-apa faedah daripada skim karut itu akan "mengingati" si sarji tu sampai bila-bila.

SSB telah berjaya mendedahkan satu perkara,iaitu dalam perkhidmatan awam kita terdapat ramai boss/ketua jabatan yang jahat dan tak ada iman di dada. Mereka salah gunakan kuasa diberi seboleh-bolehnya. Ramai pula di kalangan boss ini terdapat di sekolah, GB atau pengetua lah katakan!

Saya tetap mengatakan si sarji ini telah berjaya merosakkan perkhidmatan awam negara ini, dan kesannya hanya boleh lupus sehingga generasi SSB bersara kelak. Sementara itu kesan SSB akan terus berlaku dalam perkhidamtan awam kita.

Anonymous said...

Musa Hitam and Andrew Sheng are advisory councils of IRDA.

Anonymous said...

you see musa did it again. claiming he has no power in sime darby when people from johor asked him for some favour - jobs or work a sime darby and he said he has no power . bloody musa most hypocrite yet he can spent i million on private jet.musa you go to hell

gram.kong said...

Is Musa chairman of the board or executive chairman?

If he is only chairman of the board than he has no rights to be involve in the day-to-day running of the company.

The CEO is equally responsible and should be taken to task for giving in to his demand.The buck stops at him.

Most GLCs are run like this, unprofessionally by so-called professionals and abuse of fiduciary duties some with serious consequence, as in the case of Sime.

I believe a thorough investigative audit of the accounts would reveal more serious abuses of company's funds and facilities.

The whole board including Musa Hitam refusal to resign should be viewed with suspicion.

Anonymous said...

What can we expect when you have a Musa(ng) in-charge of the Hen HOuse? The ans: Yummy! yummy! yummy! He's always been known to just luv the good life. It's just like the proverbial "food being served on a Silver platter"!

Anonymous said...

Fuck-off , Malaysians..u bursteds has vanished our flag carier (Air Maldives) and now trying to do the samething for our international airport too..

Anonymous said...

Its sad that people don't understands the value of our foreign guest. Malaysia has always welcomed our guest with open arms, today we have shown how valuable our brotherly gusts are.
And mister who ever u r, sorry that u lost ur flag carrier, if it wasn't for ur govt's irresponsible management it would never happen, its ur corrupt gov. who have to take the responsibility. may our brothers join hands and forget the expense, may we always be as 1, Insha Allah

My Say