Khazanah must explain, Hishamuddin said.

Umno Youth wants explanation on the rational why Malaysians, in particular, Malays, are deemed not qualified to lead Malaysian Airline System (MAS), the national carrier.

UMNO Youth President Datuk Hishamuddin said the proposed appointment of a foreigner to lead the national carrier by Khazanah could be likened to allowing the country to be recolonised, albeit in a new manner.

“Don’t look at it from the commercial aspect but (we) should look at the bigger agenda, that is the Malay Agenda,” Hishamuddin said.

It was reported that Khazanah Nasional Bhd, the airline’s main equity holder and a wholly-owned corporation of the Malaysian government, are considering to appoint a foreigner to lead Malaysia Airlines after its Managing Director, Datuk Ahmad Fuaad Dahlan had resigned last week, impliedly due to the poor financial results.

So, what is the issue? What is the problem of employing a foreigner to spearhead a turnaround of a loss-making corporation? Is it that when a foreign expert is employed to head a Malaysian company that it would mean Malaysia would be colonised? What type of reasoning is it, especially one that comes from the mouth of our education minister? Are we becoming nuts or oxymorons?

Even the Japanese who are extremely proud of their own capability and are the second largest economy in the world, were willing to get Carlos Ghosn to lead Nissan, and here, the Malaysian minister is crying foul. Hishamuddin said such act is tantamount to betraying the Malay Agenda, and likened to allowing Malaysia to be recolonised. Oh, what shit philosophy is it? Are we having recalcitrants as ministers? Or is he suggesting that MAS would be better off being bankrupted for it to be headed by a Malay rather than having a foreigner who may turnaround the corporation and generate billions in profit?

I am not saying that Malaysians are incapable and morons. What we should have is rational thinking with emphasis of commercial senses since MAS is a commercial entity.

Over the historical years, MAS had been headed by various Malaysians and the corporation had suffered billions in losses. In 2002, MAS was revamped by the government through a financial reorganization plan referred to as Widespread Asset Unbundling (WAU) exercise. The restructuring plan involved the transfer of RM7 billion liabilities out of the books and include the sales of 73 aircrafts to Pernebangan Malaysia Bhd (PMB) which was a newly set up wholly-owned entity of the Ministry of Finance Inc (MoF), and later was transferred to Khazanah Nasional Bhd. Included in the scheme was the subsidisation of the loss-making domestic operations.

For your information, the restructuring scheme was crafted by BinaFikir Sdn Bhd which was then headed by Datuk Azman Mokhtar who is now the CEO of Khazanah.

Three years later, that's today, MAS is straight back in the red, suffering RM280 million losses for the first quarter of 2005. The reasons cited is rising fuel prices.

Ironically, tho' AirAsia is also affected by rising fuel prices, they had recently announced profits of more than RM110 million although they failed to meet their projected profit forecast of RM159 million as stated in it's IPO prospectus of October 2004. Why the results are at opposite end? Shouldn't Hishamuddin suggest that Fernandes, the CEO of AirAsia be appointed to head MAS, or alternatively, MAS should be sold to AirAsia?

In an interview with BizWeek, MAS Chairman Datuk Dr Munir Majid admits that the airline's position today is largely due to a lack of follow through of the WAU plan. According to Munir, the restructuring scheme envisaged that there would be an organizational restructuring and transformation. The WAU scheme was suppose to be a financial exercise to deliver a strong balance sheet to MAS to afford it with the platform from which it could deliver strong operating performance.

"The problem is we have been doing so many things in a certain way for so long such that there are certain habits and cultures that had been in play for so many years and all of a sudden, we have to rip everything off and start anew. We now cannot continue to exist on the false security that WAU has indeed given us. Now we have to do the organizational restructuring," Munir asserts.

According to Munir, the plan now is to focus on a long overdue operational revamp and that the restructuring plan which consist of a 5-year change programme is aimed at improving profitability by up to RM1 billion.

Would Munir be given the absolute mandate to turnaround MAS with his 5-year plan? Would UMNO Youth constantly come and prick him and shove him so as to derive some benefits for the oligarch? In the words of Munir, "We have a mountain to climb" and it is a long process.

I think it is more than a mountain to climb. Maybe, the best solution is to appoint Pak Lah's son-in-law to head MAS so that we have less problem with Malay Agenda and the Keris wielding act. Good luck to Munir and Khairy.