Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times by Barry Wain (fantasy novels to read .TXT) 📕

as Faber Merlin, was brought into the Renong fold. It had been left out earlier because of its heavy debts, which had since been cleared through a huge cash injection by Fleet Holdings.[79]

Capitalized at RM6 billion to RM7 billion, Renong in its new form was one of the top three companies on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange.[80] By one estimate, the total value of UMNO's shares, including those held by nominees at party headquarters and at state branches, was RM4 billion. By that calculation, about half, RM2 billion worth, were listed shares, comprising 2 per cent of the Malaysian stock market's overall capitalization. In addition, UMNO's property holdings were believed to total billions of ringgit.[81]

Yet UMNO continued to adopt the formal position that the party was no longer in business. The official line was that all of UMNO's assets had been surrendered to the Official Assignee, and with their sale the party had effectively exited the corporate arena. That was the stand Dr. Mahathir took in Parliament. Daim went so far as to boast that his greatest achievement as UMNO treasurer was to get the party "out of business".[82] But the failure to disclose which assets had been held by the Official Assignee, by what process they were sold, and to whom and for how much, undermined UMNO's credibility. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, the blockbuster deal was regarded as merely "a new face on old practices".[83]

Actually, UMNO still owned a majority stake in Utusan Melayu Press, the now-listed Malay-language newspaper publisher, while the party's cooperative, Koperasi Usaha Bersatu, retained a huge interest in Sime Bank Bhd.[84] These investments, however, were exceptions in the new order in which UMNO withdrew from direct party ownership of companies. Instead, control of party assets was transferred to private individuals, who were accountable only to a few senior party leaders.[85] By this legal technicality, UMNO sought to deflect growing criticism of the party for doling out contracts to its holding companies, as well as avoiding the risk of being financially ruined again.

If, as Daim later claimed, UMNO received a "very good" price for the companies the Official Assignee supposedly sold to their previous managers,[86] the party should have been not only debt-free but flush with cash. As it was, UMNO remained in financial difficulty. In mid-1994, the High Court ordered that all the assets and liabilities of the old UMNO be turned over to Dr. Mahathir's New UMNO, which of course did not include the corporate empire. The court order reinstated UMNO's legal title to the party's headquarters, on which the party still owed about RM500 million, and to its many branch and divisional offices throughout the country.[87] Public corporate and legal documents indicated the party's remaining assets totalled about RM1.5 billion, while its total retained debt was more than RM1 billion. One of UMNO's lawyers estimated that the party's assets, minus its bank debt and other liabilities, amounted to about RM348 million.[88]

There was no doubt, however, that UMNO leaders continued to control the party's dispersed assets; Daim's boys got most of them. Apart from Halim Saad's taking over most of Fleet Holdings' investments, Tajudin Ramli and Samsudin Abu Hassan obtained control of the listed companies in the Waspavest group, as Halimtan was renamed.[89] While a few Chinese businessmen with close ties to the ruling party ended up with companies once directly owned by UMNO, they appeared to be assigned the task of bailing out well-connected Malays.[90]

The Renong-linked companies were required to contribute monthly to UMNO's operational expenses. Payments, in the form of cheques signed by two of the four UMNO trustees authorized to act on behalf of Hatibudi Nominees, were for varying amounts specified each month by Daim. At general election time, Daim simply told each company how much was needed, and the companies had to "figure out how to get it".[91]

With Halim Saad as its executive chairman and controlling shareholder, Renong lost none of the exalted status it enjoyed earlier as a declared UMNO company, being awarded eight of the government's 13 large national projects in the 1990s.[92] United Engineers agreed to build a national sports centre for the government, in time for the Commonwealth Games in 1998, in exchange for prime property in the capital. A subsidiary of United Engineers, the single largest beneficiary of Malaysia's accelerated privatization programme, took over the operation of the Penang toll bridge. Renong group companies were involved in the design and construction of a passenger terminal for the futuristic Kuala Lumpur International Airport, and a Renong subsidiary held the rights to develop more than 100 square kilometres of valuable land in Johore. The company also had the only national fibre optic network, and won the contract to build one of the light rail systems in Kuala Lumpur.

But there were clear limits to Halim's independence, mirroring the power plays in Malay politics and the aspirations of particular UMNO leaders. For example, in 1993 he had to relinquish Renong's interest in two major media companies, TV3 and New Straits Times Press, to businessmen aligned with Anwar Ibrahim.[93] To aid his bid for the deputy presidency of UMNO, Anwar wanted control of the country's only private TV network and the publisher of English-, Malay- and Chinese-language papers. Halim also responded to Malaysian government overtures to perform "national service" by taking over the Philippine government's ailing National Steel Corporation, after President Fidel Ramos sought help from Dr. Mahathir. The cost: US$800 million, no questions asked.[94]

The Malay political leadership did not hesitate to intervene when Halim's embarrassing marital troubles threatened to fracture the company in 1995. His wife responded to his divorce petition with a claim for RM500 million "compensation" in cash and 50 per cent of his assets, which she estimated at RM5 billion to RM7 billion. The sharia court drama, involving custody and visiting rights for their three children, was studded with allegations of intimidation, detention, wiretapping, adultery and black magic.[95] The police arrested and banished to internal exile without trial a part-time bomoh, a