Musa Hitam: Chartered private jet and RM1 million travel bill

When Zahid Md Arip of Perkasa described Musa as having "sindrom sayangkan kedudukan", there may be some pinch of truth.

Sime Darby was once not only a blue chip company but a blue blood company. It was an organisation that had evolved a corporate culture that is aristocratic and at an early bureucratic stage.

Chairmanship and Board membership came with fee and perks befitting of heavily titled retired top civil servants, politicians and corporate man.

It was also a place for Musa to maintain a lifestyle he yearns as someone almost making it as #1 man in the country.

In Sime Darby, the culture is such that no one offend each other or cross each other. It is in such an organisation that spending abuse is ever occuring and accountability is never practise.

Aging Company

Back during the time this blogger was doing his MBA, we were recommended to read Ichak Adzes's Corporate Lifecycle. It was about how and why corporations grow and die. There were mentioned some remedial actions recomended.

In our class discussion, we identified Sime Darby as an organisation that has passed its prime and were showing aging signs.

Unless the organisation get out of its aristocratic and bureaucratic tendencies, the organisation was dying. The CEO then was aristocrat, Tunku Ahmad Yahya of Kedah royal family and it was building bureucrasy only second to the Government.

After a bad foray into banking and finance, Sime was supposed to reorganise and reenergise itself into a "young" growing company. It never did so, but accelarated itself into a potential pathological death with a mega tri-merger.

Sime Darby was emulating the culture in Governmental organisation where form supercede functionality and organisational ritual is important.

Abuse

Such organisation fits Tun Musa Hitam like a glove. It enables him to dream he is in a position he almost yearn but could not attain i.e. to be the #1 man.

At Sime Darby, Musa has been acting like the "Prime Minister" of an organisation and irregularly exercising his position as Chairman of Sime Darby.

According to Bigdogdotcom, Musa "is known to have ‘enjoyed’ himself lavishly in the position.

We quote from Bigdogdotcom: He has been known to have had Sime Darby chartered private jets for his use on company’s trips against using commercial flights. The urgency for him to arrive and leave the destination that it warrants for expensive hire of business jets since he is not an executive is still baffling.

Probably, some people think that he needed to travel in style now that Sime Darby is a RM 30 billion plus turnover MNC conglomerate and the largest plantations MNC in the world.

Sometime, these luxuries can be abused.

Recently, Musa demanded Sime Darby to charter and pay for the travel bills of Maldives President on business jet to attend the World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) held in Kuala Lumpur.



President Mohamad Nasheed’s bills came to slightly over RM one million and it is thought that Tun Musa did this because the former is the latter’s personal friend.

This is highly irregular since the travel is deemed to be wrongful use of company’s expense and Sime Darby is just a sponsor and not an organiser of WIEF.

Unaccountability

Sime Darby has just realised a major loss of RM1.3 billion from the irrecoverable losses incurred by Bakun, Qatar Project and Maersk Oil Qatar. Read Bigdogdotcom's February 2009 exposure here.

After a 13 hour marathon meeting on May 2010, none of the Board of Directors had the integrity to be accountable.

The original Sime Darby had cheated the public into believing the mega tri-merger would see an increase in shareholders value. But instead it is slowly becoming a facade to cover for worms already eating into the apple.

The original member of the pre-Synergy Drive Board of Directors should be responsible and if not liable for misleading the public.

Among the current BOD who were part of pre-Synergy Drive Sime Darby Bhd BOD, Tun Ahmad Sarji Abdul Hamid, Tan Sri Ahmad Tajudin Ali and Dato’ Mohamad Sulaiman should resign or be ‘retired early’.

Former Chief Secretary to the Government and later became PNB Chairman Tun Ahmad Sarji has been in pre-Synergy Drive Sime Darby Bhd. BOD since the 1990s, is the most longest serving member.

Tan Sri Tajudin was part BOD of the pre-Synergy Drive Sime Darby since 2002. He gave the ‘thumbs up’ for Bakun.

Inside sources calimed he was also the BOD member who explored the energy business and spearhead the Qatar Project (QP) and Maersk Oil Qatar (BOQ) projects.

Tajuddin was a former BOD of Sime Darby Engineering, which undertook the much gloated QP and MOQ projects.

Dato’ Seri Mohamad Sulaiman was a veteran member of Sime Darby management. His last job was Managing Director of Consolidated Plantations Bhd and he was Managing Sime UEP Bhd. from 1985-90.

Mohamad was very familiar within the Sime Darby systems, reporting, controls and values and philosophy.