Forbes Malaysia's 50 Richest: Apa Lagi Cina Mahu ?

Hantu Laut

We all can play the devil's advocate. 

Are the Chinese really second class citizens in this country? Marginalised, sidelined, unrecognised and unappreciated?

So, if that is true, how come there are so many rich Chinese in this country?

Of course, the Chinese will say they work hard, harder than the Malays, which is true, no one will dispute that. Not only they work harder, they are also very frugal with money. They spent money to make more money. They not only take, they also give back to society when they become very rich. 

The question is if the Chinese were so discriminated against by the government how was it possible that their enterprising nature were allowed to bloom freely making many of them filthy rich?

Aren't liberal government policies part of the reasons the Chinese had it easy to conduct their business in the country?

The words discrimination and sidelined have been used very freely by some Chinese leaders in the opposition.

Forbes just released the list of Malaysia's 50 Richest.

In the Top 10, there is 1 Malay and 1 Indian, the rest Chinese.

In the Top 50 there are only 9 Malays, 2 or 3 Indians, the rest Chinese. 

The combined wealth of the Chinese in the Top 10 is $40 billion compared to the Malay chicken feed $2.7 billion of one lone ranger.

I need not give the total wealth in the Top 50. It can reach the stars.

Hahaha! Should I say (pun intended)....... apa lagi Cina mahu?

Maybe, the Malays should work harder for their money...........not just waiting for windfall from government projects without sweats.



Net WorthAge1

Robert Kuok

$12,500 M892

Ananda Krishnan

$11,700 M753

Lim Kok Thay & family

$6,600 M614

Teh Hong Piow

$5,600 M835

Quek Leng Chan

$4,800 M696

Lee Shin Cheng

$4,500 M747

Yeoh Tiong Lay

$2,800 M838

Syed Mokhtar AlBukhary

$2,750 M619

Tiong Hiew King

$1,800 M7810

Vincent Tan

$1,300 M6111

Tan Heng Chew & family

$1,200 M6712

Shahril & Shahriman Shamsuddin

$1,050 M-13

Chen Lip Keong

$1,010 M6614

Lee Oi Hian & Lee Hau Hian

$1,000 M6215

Mokhzani Mahathir

$980 M5216

Desmond Lim Siew Choon

$870 M5317

Azman Hashim

$810 M7418

Surin Upatkoon

$805 M6419

Goh Peng Ooi

$740 M5820

Kamarudin Meranun

$635 M5221

Anthony Fernandes

$625 M4922

Ninian Mogan Lourdenadin

$615 M5923

Danny Tan Chee Sing

$520 M5824

Lau Cho Kun

$505 M7925

Vijay Eswaran

$500 M5226

Jeffrey Cheah

$480 M6827

G. Gnanalingam

$475 M6828

Loh Kian Chong

$450 M3729

Lim Wee Chai

$385 M5530

Chia Song Kun & family

$375 M6331

William H.J. Cheng

$345 M7032

Ahmayuddin bin Ahmad

$315 M5633

Chan Fong Ann

$300 M8334

Yaw Teck Seng & Yaw Chee Ming

$295 M7635

Chong Chook Yew

$280 M9036

Khoo Kay Peng

$275 M7437

Ong Leong Huat

$255 M6938

Liew Kee Sin

$230 M5439

Gooi Seong Lim

$215 M6340

A.K. Nathan

$210 M5741

Eleena Azlan Shah

$200 M5342

David Law Tien Seng

$175 M6043

Abdul Hamed Sepawi

$167 M6444

Chong Hin Loon

$165 M6645

Lin Yun Ling

$162 M5946

Kua Sian Kooi

$160 M6047

Tang Quee Huang

$155 M-48

Leaw Seng Hai

$150 M5149

Nazir Razak

$147 M4650

Hamdan Mohamad

$145 M57

Post-Election Payback Time in Malaysia

Mahathir backs moves to punish minorities and reward pro-government voters, companies

Last week, the Malaysian government announced its allocation of public university seats for the upcoming academic year. Only 19 percent of Chinese students got places, along with 4 percent of Indians despite the fact that the two together make up about 30 percent of the student population. Last year, Chinese students got 23 percent, in line with their proportion of the overall population.

That was the first tangible fallout from the 13th general election held on May 5, in which the Barisan Nasional, the ruling national coalition, won 133 of the 222 seats in the Dewan Rakyat, or Parliament, preserving its majority despite the fact that it only received 47.38 percent of the popular vote against 50.87 for the opposition Pakatan Rakyat coalition headed by Anwar Ibrahim.

The second came yesterday with the revelation of the award of a RM1 billion (US$314 million) commuter railway project in the massive government-backed Iskandar development in the southern state of Johor to Malaysian Steel Works Sdn Bhd through direct negotiations rather than open tender, in contravention of competitive bid regulations supposedly implemented by Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak as a part of his three year old Economic Transformation Program to loosen the state's reins on the economy.

Masteel, as the company is known, is 40 percent owned through its investment in KUB Bhd by the United Malays National Organization, the dominant political party in Malaysia and one known for its cornucopia of rent-seeking businesses that steer money to the party. In addition, Masteel gets a RMB700 million government soft loan to develop the project. According to an official with the company quoted in local media, Masteel will receive a 37-year build-own-transfer arrangement on the project despite the fact that it is slated to break even in 12 years.

The common denominator appears to be the return of Mahathir Mohamad, the 88-year-old former prime minister, and his close friend and ally, former Finance Minister Daim Zainuddin, at the top of the power structure in UMNO, politically emasculating the current Prime Minister, Najib Tun Razak. Despite the loss of the popular vote, the majority of the rank and file inside UMNO believe it was Mahathir's strident racial politics that preserved the Barisan's - and particularly UMNO's - place at the top of Malaysian politics, and that it was Najib's attempt to reach out to the other races that cost them.

Ethnic Malays make up 60.3 percent of Malaysia's population, Chinese 22.9 percent and Indians 7.1 percent, according to the latest census. Malays and Indians dramatically abandoned the Barisan Nasional in the May election, with the Malaysian Chinese Association hit so hard that the party, once the second-biggest in the coalition, refused all cabinet positions. The Malaysian Indian Congress fared somewhat better, but not much.

"Najib was a good prime minister. But instead of strengthening his hand the Chinese and non-Malays and non-Muslims weakened him. But UMNO is strong. So Najib is out of steam," said a lawyer with close contacts to the Mahathir wing of the party. "Najib has lost energy, lost his mandate, lost respect. Mahathir, Tun Daim and the UMNO grassroots are in charge," Read more.

Najib, Please Bring TPPA To Parliament

Hantu Laut

I read with great consternation the statement made by MITI here that Malaysia stands to gain from the TPPA and not actually giving cogent information how the country going to benefit from a trade pact shrouded in secrecy.

Is the U.S the culprit to keep the negotiations under wrap because they are going to be the biggest beneficiary of this highly lopsided agreement that may cause other participating governments to fall if full details of the terms and conditions of the agreement is made known to the public?


Why the need to make the negotiations cloaked in secrecy if such association is good for everyone? 

How could the US, the mother of the free world allow such negotiations to be completely under wrap and no information made available to the general public when it can effect the lives of hundreds of million of people in the participating countries, particularly, smaller ones that could end up helplessly trapped in a lopsided deal?

The government has not been opened about the terms and conditions of the agreement other than saying it is good for the country. 

If the TPPA is so bloody good why other Pacific Rim countries like Mexico, China, South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines are not interested in the pact? Are they stupid or smarter?

In all likelihood the biggest beneficiary to this trade pact would be the U.S as it has the the largest number of intellectual properties and copyrights and would demand strict adherence to the terms and conditions of the trade treaty in all participating countries. The trade pact also called for the breaking down of trade barriers, removal of tariffs and unhindered cross-border investments by transnational corporations. 

Is Malaysia ready for comparative advantage or play the level playing field?

The Malaysian government is well known for monopoly, disenfranchising and cronyism. Can they pass the scrutiny of the TPPA and not caught with their pants down?

Corporations or individual can sue government not in compliance, in a tribunal outside the country's jurisdiction. 

The biggest hostility toward the TPPA in some countries is the fear of possible blockage of access to cheap generic medicines that could drastically increase the cost of medicines and health care.

Live saving drugs are affordable to the ordinary people because of the availability of cheap generic drugs. It will be of no surprise if big pharmaceutical companies in the  U.S demand the ban of generic drugs in member countries.

New Zealanders have been most vocal on this particular issue and have mounted an aggressive campaigns with their elected representatives to not join the TPPA. Close to 77% of health care in New Zealand is subsidised by the government.

If New Zealand,  a much more advanced country with much higher per capita income is fearful of TPPA, I wonder what is Malaysia trying to prove by joining the trade pact, which will only benefit higher income countries like the U.S, Japan, Australia and Singapore.



Why is Malaysia so eager to join this trade pact that is likely to injure the country in the long run. Read here what to expect from the TPPA and how it can ruin our economy more than it can benefit us.

The people at MITI should be more discerning when giving examples. They should look at the pound not the penny. Here, they gave the textile industry as one industry that will benefit with proposed elimination or reduction of duties in TPPA. 

The textile industry is chicken feed contributing less than 2% of total export making it one of the most negligible contributors and come hell or high water would never be able to compete with other textile and apparel manufacturing countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Cambodia and many others with much cheaper labour cost. 

Textiles and apparel manufacturing has long been a sunset industry in Malaysia due to competition from less developed economies in the region.

Not many Malaysians are aware of the TPPA and I am surprise that Pakatan Rakyat's leaders and people like Ambiga of Bersih have not come out strongly against the TPPA, which can effect the lives of millions of Malaysians and the future generations.

There may be something good coming out of the TPPA, but we don't know as dearth of information had made it difficult for Malaysians to assess the viability of the TPPA as far as Malaysia is concerned.

The people in MITI are not competent to handle matters of such magnitude and have probably advised the Prime Minister wrongly.

There should be open debate in Parliament on such important and far-reaching issue that will have long lasting effect on the country's future and the future of all Malaysians. 

Members of parliament from both side of the political divide should demand Prime Minister Najib to bring the TPPA to Parliament and let the house put it to the votes.

Najib, if he is truly a prime minster for the people as he so claimed, he must show he cares for the people and country and should bring the matter to parliament.

I believe the TPPA is predatory to countries with smaller economies and will open themselves to economic colonisation by the bigger economic powers.

Also read: Halal "Bak Kut Teh" Do They Exist ?

VOICES OF MALAYA: The Ethnocentric British

Hantu Laut

The film best describe Malaya then. Watch with caution and open mind. Some may not like the racial connotations. 

SYNOPSIS

Film showing Malaya before, during and after the war.

The film shows: how people from many races have settled here; the way that the Malays live; the Chinese and their way of life; the role of the Europeans, the 'white' man, in bringing civilisation to this area; the Indians and the way that they helped to build up Singapore; the way that money was spent - on hospitals, law and government, for example - to turn Malaya into a prosperous and contented country; 1941, when the Japanese overran the country and undid the work of more than a century; the building up of a secret resistance movement; the Japanese surrender; the desolation that faced people as they came back either from hiding or the army; cleaning up the mess that the Japanese had left before real productive work can proceed; disease, and the fact that the Japanese had refused to give medical treatment and many people were a long way from hospital and beyond the reach of ambulances; the shortage of food, which eventually led to stealing; the newspapers that were being produced; more easily available advice, and the idea that now, 'Malaya has changed. New ways grow side by side with the old. In no country is the struggle between traditional ways and the modern world more intense'.

Notes

Production: 'The Crown Film Unit wishes to express its grateful appreciation to the men and women of Malaya and to those organisations - both in Malaya and in Britain - whose whole-hearted cooperation made this film possible. Amongst them are: His Highness Sir Abdul Aziz the Sultan of Perak, the Malayan Film Unit, Malay 

Opera Company, Chinese Opera Company, Malay Tribune, Geographical and Survey Museum, London

CONTEXT

Although released in Britain in 1948, production on Voices of Malayaactually dates back to September 1945, when a detachment of the Crown Film Unit went ashore with the first wave of troops into Malaya. Cameraman Denny Densham explained how the Unit came to be there; ‘We had been standing by with a small flotilla of minesweepers in Southern India awaiting the start of an operation known locally as “Zipper” the invasion of Singapore’. On hearing that the British would take over the occupation of Penang Island on 3 September ‘Ralph Elton and I bribed the skipper of an M.L. to take us ashore, rather against orders, and we were set up on the jetty with our camera ready and waiting for the first official landing party’. Densham explained that after a couple of days, they explored the mainland, cleared themselves with the Japanese military headquarters in Taiping, and then drove south to interview the Sultan of Perak. ‘It was’, Densham added, ‘a great opportunity to put on record the history of a country as it unfolded before our camera; a chance almost unique in documentary film history to make a picture that lived with newsreel realism, yet had a heart so much deeper. We made a request to London for permission to go ahead on the story of a country’s post-war construction, and it was granted’ (Colonial Cinema, June 1948, 38-43).

Ralph Elton, who headed the Unit with a nucleus of four Englishmen and nine Malayans, returned to England with Densham in October 1946 (The Straits Times, 7 October 1946, 3). The crew had shot 250,000 feet of film, and the film was then left to a team in Britain, headed by Terry Trench, to edit. Densham referred to the ‘jungle of tin cans’ found in the cutting rooms and noted the enormity of the task facing the assembly unit back in London (Colonial Cinema, June 1948, 43). Trench and his team were responsible for ‘moulding the film’, developing a narrative and formulating the idea of the ‘Five Voices’, although this in itself is derivative of Alexander Shaw’s 1938 film for the Malayan Government, Five Faces.

It was difficult to complete the film because of the rapidly changing political situation within Malaya. Ralph Elton noted in 1946 that ‘script writing was very difficult. We would anticipate history and find that next week we were hopelessly out of date… it’s all very amusing to read our first rough script’ (The Straits Times, 4 August 1946, 4). Densham also noted that ‘owing to constant political changes in the Far East, it was impossible to shoot to a script… we shot most of the film off director Ralph Elton’s cuff’ (Colonial Cinema, June 1948, 39). The constant changes forced Crown to abandon their initial plans for two separate films – Speed the Parting and Reconstruction in Penang– as Speed the Parting was deemed out of date before completion, so both films merged into Voices of Malaya (INF 6/397).

By the time the film was finally released in 1948, the political shifts were even more pronounced. The Malayan Union, established in April 1946 and the subject of much Malay opposition (as noted by a banner within the film) had been replaced by the Federation Agreement on 1 February 1948, while the Emergency was declared on 18 June 1948. The COI file for the film noted that ‘the end was altered in accordance with the request of the Malayan Government before the film was released’ (INF 6/397). Mary Heathcote explained that the commentary originally hinted that Malaya still faced ‘internal problems’ but the government, claiming that ‘everything in the Garden’s lovely’, was unhappy with this and the commentary was changed. Heathcote suggested that the ending was now likely to be changed back again ‘to be in keeping with current events’ (The Straits Times, 1 August 1948, 9). The version viewed here concluded that ‘Malaya has a long tradition of peace. The goodwill with which all communities have accepted the new Constitution gives confidence that her problems will be solved as the four races build up a common loyalty to Malaya’. However, the script held with the COI file offers a different final line, without direct reference to ‘her problems’: ‘Progress is seldom simple, but Malaya is a naturally rich country with a long tradition of peace. The chances are in her favour. If the four races can build up a common loyalty to Malaya’ (INF 6/397).

Footage from the expedition was also used elsewhere. Densham noted that the filming served ‘mainly for record purposes, while quite a bit of footage was taken and used by the newsreels’. In addition, their material was used in a number of Crown and COI films including This was Japan, Pop Goes the Weasel, The World is Rich and Burma Victory, while subsidiary films were made from the footage includingThis is Malaya, Malay Village, People of Malaya, and Products of Malaya (Colonial Cinema, June 1948, 38, INF 6/397).

Read more and watch film here.http://colonialfilm.org.uk/node/2541