December 1, 2018 - Protasco Bhd, a public road maintenance company which relied all the contract and income from the Malaysia government namely JKR, becomes the center of morality questions among bankers when the board and senior managment raised their own salaries and perks to unrealistic level during the last 4 years. On the other side, performance is disastrous, with missing profit margin, increase of third party contractor margin, sharp rise in debt, plunge of cash or cash equivalent, and a highly bloated senior management cost. A highest pay reward to the worst performance management shall ring a bell.

The long awaited government agencies probe into ill-gotten salaries and perks, corruption and dubious contractor arrangements recovery plans will soon kicks in to regularise and craw back what belongs to the people of Malaysia.

The Protasco Bhd board which is controlled by Executive Director Dato Seri Chong Ket Pen had fabricated corruptive excuses in the board to pay over RM10 million a year for few top management, and Chong Ket Pen alone was drawing RM4.2 million a year. Chong was taking RM600k a year when Protasco Bhd was delivering RM40 million profit a year under Protasco old controlling shareholders' governance. Today, Protasco is suffering 3 quarters of net losses yet the maim cost is the senior management fees sucking out of Protasco's already poor cash flow. These money are mark ups into bills sent to JKR, which is actually taking money from the people of Malaysia.

With the new Pakatan harapan (PH) government focusing on house keeping and slim sizing, more probe into the government contract racking companies are unavoidable. EPF has shown their anger by voting no in AGM to Protasco Bhd’s director fees. However EPF has no access to Protasco's suspected fradulent misrepresented accounts, corruption, and dubious business dealings, and PH government agencies probe might just be the right time to stop the menance in Protasco Bhd looting frenzy.

PH's leader Dr M had specifically pin pointed civil services being bloated is a clear signal their move to go after the bad apples in the system. When you drive home today on the public road, reminded that your tax money goes to pay the fat cats in Protasco for doing nothing but looting the poor. The lead culprit named Chong Ket Pen is taking most of the cream from your pocket when you pay expensive tolls. Cast your vote wisely and let your voice be heard if PH government does not recover your money from these parasites.

Finance Microscope Report

Refers to: Pak Lah and Najib left us a bloated civil service, says Dr M

 

PUTRAJAYA: Dr Mahathir Mohamad is largely credited for building Putrajaya, a sprawling city carved out of a sleepy town to house spacious government offices which moved out of their cramped buildings in Kuala Lumpur.

But the prime minister was never a fan of a larger civil service, and is a strong believer in not raising salaries frequently.

In an exclusive interview with FMT at his office in Putrajaya, Mahathir many times argued against an increase in salary, saying it is a factor in rising living costs.

“You increase salaries, (the) private sector also will follow you. And the cost of everything will go up. So that is not the way to run any organisation,” he said.

Mahathir, who resigned in 2003 after 22 years in power, is not happy that his philosophy was not followed by his successors during his 15-year absence from government.

“What they did was, they increased the number of workers, from one million at the time when I stepped down, to 1.6 million,” he said.

He added that the burden was now passed to the Pakatan Harapan government.

“600,000 extra salaries to pay, and they increase salaries sometimes twice a year. 10% and then 10% again.”

Malaysia’s “bloated” civil service has been a long-standing concern, with operational expenditure forming the bulk of the national budget every year.

In 2003, the year Mahathir ended his long stint as the fourth prime minister, the government spent RM22 billion on salaries for civil servants.

In 2016, this figure had more than doubled to RM74 billion.

Similarly, civil servant pensions cost the government RM19 billion in 2016, from just RM5.9 billion in 2003.

Mahathir said Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who took over from him in 2003, and Najib Razak who became prime minister in 2009, had only aggravated the burden by increasing the salaries of civil servants in a bid to “buy their loyalty”.

 

“What they did was to buy the loyalty of the civil servants by increasing their pay, sometimes by 25%.

“Where do you get the money? You get the money by cutting down on development.”

He added that the civil service had not become more efficient despite its size ballooning by 60%.

“The productivity is the same, it’s not any better.”

Days before the May 9 general election, Barisan Nasional promised civil servants a pay hike in July that would have cost the government about RM1.46 billion.

This, of course, was not implemented following the coalition’s defeat.

“We cannot because we don’t have the money,” said Mahathir.

https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2018/12/01/pak-lah-and-najib-left-us-a-bloated-civil-service-says-dr-m/