PKFZ Port Klang Free Zone to have new image from tremendous growth in trades worldwide

TODAY nine men will sit around an oval-shaped oak table in the boardroom of the Port Klang Authority (PKA) to study and adopt yet another report – the fourth in three months – on matters related to the Port Klang Fee Zone (PKFZ) scandal. To answer questions from these nine men will be a team of lawyers headed by Vinayak Pradhan, which was assigned the task of digging into the wrongdoings and to recover monies which had been disbursed to various parties. The first instalment of this was delivered last week and today, hopefully, will be the last and final episode of this shameful chapter in the annals of our country’s history.

Elsewhere, perhaps 40-50km away, yet another sideshow may be taking place. Someone may be organising a press conference announcing or questioning yet another decision. The importance of the board meeting and its decisions may be side-lined and reduced to insignificance because yet another bombshell – unsubstantiated though – will be dropped to distract from more important issues. The principle is that two wrongs don’t make a right. However, some do not seem to accept this. First, it was political donations, then private jets followed by an illegal appointment. What’s next? Will it be a juicy sex scandal taken out from some B-grade X-rated movie or a tear-jerker from the studios of Bollywood or a “whodunit” thriller? We wait with bated breath.

Back to the boardroom and the facts and figures before the directors will be the involvement and the culpability of directors and senior management personnel of the PKA and PKFZ. The report will itemise their supposed wrongdoings and the specific clauses in the various legislation which had been breached. This report, needless to say, will be the basis of yet another police report and perhaps, yet another visit by its chairman, Datuk Lee Hwa Beng, to the offices of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, and yet another photo opportunity for news photographers and camera crews.

Right now, some directors and senior management staff, both present and past, would have consulted their lawyers on their status. As a pre-emptive measure, some serving staff, after having read the report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, jointly sent a letter to the prime minister stating that they had signed and certified certain documents on being directed and were at times “under duress”. There may be some truth in it and could certainly be a mitigating factor, though it will not absolve them of the blame for the mess the authority is in.

But the most important question repeatedly asked is: What is going to happen? Four reports, whose cost could run into several hundred thousand ringgit each; reports to the MACC, reports to the police and even a statement in Parliament has taken us nowhere since the precarious financial status of the PKA first made the headlines in this newspaper more than four years ago.

Many fell for the rosy reports of the “success of the PKFZ” while the impending warnings of a financial catastrophe by the auditor-general were ignored. So, were the observations by the project manager – Jebel Ali Free Trade Zone (Jafza) – when it decided to pull out.

The auditor-general had remarked on the rocky road ahead for the PKA in his 2003 report which was published the following year:

“… the authority does not have sufficient financial resources to meet this obligation. The PKA’s income before tax was between RM500,000 and RM21.19 million, whilst income after tax was between a deficit of RM1.52 million to a surplus of RM16.31 million. Based on PKA’s financial position, we are of the view that the KPA needs to look for sources of financing to meet the capital obligation of RM2.90 billion from 2007 to 2017.”

Two years later, in August 2006, Jafza international senior vice-president Chuck Heath’s letter to then Transport Minister Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy said it all:

“There has been a total lack of government planning … which has seen the most fundamental issues being considered and resolved only after the event rather than before.

The lack of transparency from the start had also hampered the development of the free trade zone, with Jafza not having access to relevant details of the main development contract. The board of directors’ structure has not provided any fundamental support and in fact has drawn us into political issues that have a negative impact on the development. The Malaysian political and economic landscape has too many vested interests seeking involvement and control in this project. Unfortunately, without radical surgery in cutting out the above obstacles, we feel this project is doomed to failure.”

Prophetic words by these two gentlemen who spoke the truth and flagged the future problems.

Since then, the costs have ballooned and so have the problems. So, the nine wise men who sit today, you will have to decide how you are going to go about making those responsible to be accountable for the mess they created by their indiscretion.

You have to collectively tell yourselves: “These reports were ignored deliberately. No one paid heed to anything – even Treasury regulations. They chose to do it their way with total disregard for rules and regulations and even common sense. Neither did they carry out their roles as ‘ordinary men of business’ tasked with managing people’s money running into billions. They breached the General Orders, they breached provisions in the Penal Code and other pieces of legislation. No one is above the law and that the law must take it course.”

Among you, there are one or two who feel that they are obligated to certain parties (for reasons better known to yourselves) and hence may want to pull your punches. There is no place for these sentiments because stealing public money or causing it to be stolen is inexcusable. Do not be distracted by the sideshows and the antics; you owe a duty to the taxpayers and if you abdicate from these responsibilities, we can only come to the conclusion that we have put foxes in charge of the chicken coop.