Syndromatic Musa rely on Najib to defend Bakke's appointment

Tun Musa Hitam continued to come under fire from Perkasa, which was one of the earliest organisation to demand his and the full Board of Directors (BOD) resignation.

Mohd Zahid Md Arip, a member of the Perkasa high council, questioned the BOD appointment of Dato Mohd Bakke Salleh as CEO. During his tenure as CEO of Felda Global Venture (FGV), Zahid revealed he lost RM250 million investment in the US and Saudi Arabia. He viewed the appointment as hasty and questioned the selection criteria.

Tunku Aziz, former Group Director of Sime Darby and present Deputy Chairman of DAP, criticised Musa's logic for staying on and suggested Zubir "take the Board" to the cleaners. The prospect of taking the whole issue to court will not be good. It will reveal that Musa have been meddling in areas he knows nuts. Remember IJN?

After losing out in his bid for IJN, and Nilai LCCT, it is only his ego that is giving Musa that bold front face. Pressure is piling on Musa and no blog is seen to defend him.

In a clear reference to Musa's infamous word, "sindrom bisu", Zahid claimed Musa is beseiged with "sindrom sayangkan kedudukan".

It does neither his cause nor his ego any good to have the PM make statement to support him. In a matter of time, he will be down 0-3 and the whistle is blown. His lifelong reputation lost down the tube. Musa should have "jaga Sime Darby baik-baik", to pun another of Musa's famous quote.

Dato Seri Najib Tun Abdul Razak said the BOD had selected from several names short listed by professional head hunter.

But with due respect sir, Syed Akbar revealed the other undisclosed names in his blog here. It is suspiciously a Sir Humphrey Appleby-like conjuring act for the BOD to have no other choice but to reject the rest and select Bakke. Only Bakke come close to managing a conglomorate organisation!

One wonder if it is Musa doing the head hunting himself. Do read your Pekan blogger's comment on Bakke's credential here.

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Mohd Zahid Mat Arip statement for Perkasa as reported by Utusan Malaysia dated Jun 19th:

Pelantikan Mohd. Bakke dipersoal

KUALA LUMPUR 18 Jun – Ahli Dewan Tertinggi Pertubuhan Pribumi Perkasa Malaysia (Perkasa), Mohd. Zahid Md. Arip mempersoalkan pelantikan Datuk Mohd. Bakke Salleh sebagai Presiden dan Ketua Eksekutif Kumpulan (GCE) Sime Darby Berhad (Sime Darby) yang baru.

Beliau musykil pelantikan Mohd. Bakke yang didakwanya dibuat secara tergesa-gesa seolah-olah bertujuan untuk menutup kelemahan pihak yang bertanggungjawab menyebabkan kerugian konglomerat tersebut.

Apatah lagi, dakwanya, Mohd. Bakke pernah dikaitkan dengan kerugian pelaburan Felda Global Ventures (FGV) di Amerika Syarikat dan Arab Saudi yang dikatakan berjumlah hampir RM250 juta.

“Standard apa yang diguna pakai oleh Ahli Lembaga Pengarah Sime Darby dalam pemilihan Mohd. Bakke. Yang peliknya kenapa pelantikan ini dibuat secara tergopoh-gapah tanpa perlu menunggu keputusan forensik audit terlebih dahulu,” katanya dalam satu kenyataan kepada Utusan Malaysia di sini hari ini.

Beliau mengulas pelantikan Mohd. Bakke sebagai GCE Sime Darby bagi menggantikan Datuk Seri Ahmad Zubir Murshid yang kontraknya tidak disambung selepas diarahkan bercuti ekoran kerugian yang dialami konglomerat itu.

Dalam pada, Mohd. Zahid mendakwa Mohd. Bakke tidak layak untuk menjadi presiden dan GCE konglomerat itu kerana selain orang luar, beliau merupakan individu yang dikatakan bertanggungjawab kepada kerugian pelaburan FGV.

“Kenapa perlu lantik orang yang dikaitkan menyebabkan kerugian kepada FGV untuk memulihkan sebuah syarikat milik kerajaan (GLC) yang sedang mengalami kerugian besar. Apa pula kurangnya empat lagi calon yang disenarai pendek untuk jawatan ini.

“Malah saya difahamkan Suruhanjaya Pencegahan Rasuah Malaysia (SPRM) juga sudah membuka kertas siasatan bagi menyiasat kerugian FGV. Jika benar maklumat ini, di mana nilai integriti dan ketelusan ahli lembaga pengarah Sime Darby,” katanya.

Mengenai keengganan Pengerusi Sime Darby, Tun Musa Hitam untuk tunduk kepada desakan supaya melepaskan jawatan di Sime Darby, Mohd. Zahid berkata, ia bukti jelas menunjukkan bekas Timbalan Perdana Menteri itu dilanda sindrom sayangkan kedudukan.

Katanya, disebabkan sindrom tersebut, kerugian Sime Darby akan menjadi satu lipatan sejarah serta simbol kegagalan terbaru Musa di dalam melaksanakan urus tadbir sesebuah GLC.

Pada 13 Mei lalu, Sime Darby mengumumkan kerugian lebih RM1.63 bilion dan serentak dengan itu Ahmad Zubir diarahkan bercuti.

Sementara itu, usaha Utusan Malaysia untuk mendapatkan komen Musa gagal kerana beliau sedang menghadiri mesyuarat di luar negara.

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Tunku Aziz suggested Zubir to sue Sime Darby below:

SIME DARBY: A Conglomerate Gone Awry

By Tunku Abdul Aziz

There is a place for conglomerates in the business world. However, as with everything else, some are good, but mostly they invariably become unwieldy and difficult to manage effectively. Many come unstuck, leaving behind a trail of miserable examples of management failures, human greed and frailties. As always, there is a lot of cleaning up to do after the party is over. The sad truth is that we do not as yet have what it takes to run a complex business successfully, and a conglomerate is hellishly difficult to keep on a straight course because the temptation to wander off into the unfamiliar is often irresistible, and most conglomerates find themselves up a creek.

There have been many instances of major failures in the Sime stables. There was the case of the insurance business in the UK in the eighties, a member of Lloyds, which was in such a bad shape because of mismanagement that it had to be bundled with a very profitable money broking company into an attractive package and sold for a song. Sime Darby naturally had to be responsible for all the liabilities resulting from claims on policies transacted up to the time of the sale of the company. For the next several years after the sale of the company to the new owners, Sime Darby continued to send out to the UK enormous sums of money to cover the claims.

Then there was the Sime Bank debacle. Banking was a business in which it had no expertise and had to rely on the management that came along with the bank when it was acquired. The integrity of the many of the top executives running Sime Bank was questionable. What happened to the bank should have been a lesson to the board of Sime Darby about sticking to what it was good at. I well remember in Windsor, England, saying jocularly to Tunku Tan Sri Ahmad Yahaya, then Group Chief Executive, when he told me Sime Darby had acquired a bank that he would be better off getting a casino licence. Later he admitted that I was right.

I also recall the factory ship fiasco in the early eighties. The Sime Darby-owned vessel operating in the North Atlantic off the coast of Africa found itself in rough seas financially. Sime Darby decided to sack its two British employees claiming that they had got into this business with the approval of the board in Kuala Lumpur. This was patently untrue. The Brits would not be bullied into submission, and they sued Sime Darby and its Chairman, then Tun Tan Siew Sin, for wrongful dismissal, and won a very substantial sum of money in an out of court settlement. Zubir, the dismissed Group Chief Executive should not have allowed the board of Sime Darby to treat him so shabbily.

I personally believe that with a loss of this scale of magnitude, an honourable board would have resigned because obviously it has failed to discharge its fiduciary and other related responsibilities of stewardship. Zubir has been used as a scapegoat in the Anglo-Malaysian corporate tradition. If Sime Darby had been an American company, the chair would have accepted responsibility and resigned or been forced to go without ceremony. I find Musa’s logic for staying put, saying that he would resign if required to do so by the shareholders, disingenuous and self-serving to say the least. He must know he has failed as chairman, and based on the principle of collective responsibility, his board must exit with him. This is the honourable thing expected of a responsible board, and this is what I expect the much trumpeted Sime tagline, ‘Developing Sustainable Futures’ to be all about. My advice to Zubir is to consider taking Musa and his board to the cleaners. Sue them. We need in this country boards that are principled, and we can also do with a little honour and integrity in our business leadership.

Sime Darby in the meantime must take a good, hard look at itself to see if operating on the present model is sustainable. It is obvious that Sime Darby has become largely unwieldy, unmanageable, and unsustainable. It is showing all the signs of having become a conglomerate in the worst possible sense. The worst is not over yet.

(The writer is a former Group Director of Sime Darby, 1979-1985)

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Prime Minister's statement to rescue bold front Musa below:

Mohd Bakke's Appoinment Not Hasty, Said Najib

KUALA LUMPUR, June 19 (Bernama) — Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the appointment of Datuk Mohd Bakke Salleh as the new president and chief executive of the Sime Darby Bhd group was not made hastily.

The Prime Minister said the selection had undergone an internal evaluation process as well as a third party evaluation.

He said that based on his experience and past record, Mohd Bakke was capable of turning Sime Darby around.

"So, I deny that it was made hastily and I hope everyone would give Mohd Bakke a chance to carry out his task because it is not easy to resolve the problems in Sime Darby,” he told reporters when asked about the allegation that the appointment was made hastily.

Earlier, Najib opened the 57th general meeting of the People”s Progressive Party (PPP) at the Putra World Trade Centre, here today.

Najib said the selection was done through the Sime Darby board of directors who had engaged the services of headhunters to ensure the desired professional requirement was met.

"There were several names short listed and the board of directors felt that his name was on top of the list to helm Sime Darby,” he said.

"We can”t allow the post to be vacant for too long. Otherwise, people will say the board of directors is not decisive, but if we fill it too early, they turn around and say it”s a hasty decision. Actually, it was not a hasty decision,” Najib said.

Mohd Bakke, 56, had served in several government-linked companies and investment companies previously.