From Tan Sri Mohd Sherrif Kassim:
I beg to disagree with Tun that Malays have the characteristics of natural losers, b'cos they are lazy and cannot be trusted to pay back their loans.
Any race, when spoon-fed by the govt, will do like what the Malays did under the NEP
Banks know this. They are reluctant to lend to Malays not b'cos of their race. B'cos many of them are politically linked and take for granted that the banks owe Malays a living.
Banks are scared of d moral hazard in lending to such Malays - they worry about the political risks to their business if they take the Malay debtors to court. It's now standard guideline in Standard Chartered and foreign banks not to lend to politically connected persons - whatever their race - jangan cari sakit.
When banks suffered in the 1997/98 financial crisis, it's those banks who lent heavily to Malay corporates and GLCs. The old Bank Bumiputera suffered the most.
How do I know? B'cos we in Khazanah had to sell it off - it became CIMB with Khazanah becoming a minority / holder. RHB also had to b rescued by Khazanah. I sat on RHB board as Khazanah owned part of it
Who brought RHB down ? The Malay borrowers were too political to be sued.
The Chinese and foreign banks were not so badly hit, as they had very few loans to political Malays.
Today, UMNO is complaining banks are not lending or not lending enough to Malays. Tun M should tell the Malays why.
FYI, I was chairing the Entrepeneur Rehabilitation Fund set up by BNM in 1988 for 12 yrs to save the Malay businesses who were being sued by banks for defaulting on their loans. If they were Chinese, the banks would hv declared them bankrupt. But as they were Malays, we had to save them b'cos of d political repercussions.
As a civil servant, I did my duty. But I could see why banks got their fingers burnt lending to the politically connected.
Sheriff Kassim
Comments :
Anon: I agree with Tan Sri Sheriff. Sometimes the Banks can be put in a difficult and precarious position in handling the pressure of supporting politically linked companies owned by Bumiputra. I remember when I was in Exim Bank, the Management had to withstand tremendous political pressure when we insisted on a personal guarantee by the majority shareholder ( a very reputable Malay-Mr.MOU) of a well-known company for the financing of a hotel in Sandton, South Africa. We took the stand that he had overextended his creditworthiness. It cost me my position two years later, but we were vindicated coz the personal guarantee saved us in the end.
Anon: I disagree with certain parts.
Sheriff was a pure Govt Servant put on board to keep an eye on govt interests.
He has no corporate qualification, or experience nor is he street-wise in business.
Same as Mahathir who has some Govt experience but is overshadowed by politics and power.
Sheriff should tone down his opinion to that of a Govt servant...and let some real corporate & and banking persons...opine.
Anon: The truth but the truth.
We were Auditors.
And some of the compromised loans were to well-known political figures...
An RM600k loan., settled for RM60k...
It's not banking.
It's a handout to selected cronies
Tan Sri, I agree with your arguments! It is a pity that Tun Abd Razak passed away so prematurely but had he been around for a few more years, he would not have extended the NEP beyond the 20 years; but Tun M and others that followed found politically convenient to extend it in various reincarnations and, as you mentioned, made the Malays totally dependent on the various handouts that were thrown their way and eventually entitled without having to work for it. The NEP was a great objective but its execution poor because there was no strategy for guiding or training those left on the lower rungs of the economy for those who were denied access to financing by tho…
🤣🤣🤣For saying yourself as a CIVIL servant (paid by taxpayers)😊 and accepting TAN SRIship for "protecting" abang-adek and on top of your name Sheriff (USA English)...no different from Apa Malu Bossku...🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳
anon,i agree.