SABAHANS SUFFER BECAUSE OF MAS

SABAHANS made to suffer because of gross mismanagement of Malaysian Airlines System. This is evident by the recent announcement by MAS of a historic loss of RM2.52 Billion for the financial year end 2011.

This GLC company is now in crisis. To add salt into injury, our neighbor national airlines Singapore Airlines managed to report a profit for a similar year 2011 of more than RM300 Million despite profit down by 53%. PKR Sabah Secretary, Dr Roland Chia disclosed today.

For the mismanagement of MAS, early this year MAS has decided to suspend the routes servicing the eastern hub i.e. cancellation of 4 International flights to Sabah which adversely affected Sabah and the tourism industry. Sabah tourism is set to make a loss of RM72 Million as a result of this route suspension.

Sabah hoteliers are crying over drastic drops in hotel occupancies across the board. This was disclosed recently by the Sabah Hoteliers Association (SHA). The loss also does not include the economic spin offs to the lower income group who relied on higher purchasing powers of high end tourists on their services and local products.

For the record, MAS never recovered after having a turbulent past decade after the government bought back the airline from former corporate high-flyer Tan Sri Tajudin Ramli at RM8 per share or about double the market price at the time.

To add woes to this , there is a out-of-court legal suits concerning a RM589 million debt incurred by the latter for his purchase of MAS shares. The authorities cannot ignore that there have been a series of police and MACC reports made against the former corporate figure.

There is clearly a breach of fiduciary duties by Tajuddin Ramli He has been accused of masterminding various fraudulent transactions that constitute a serious breach of fiduciary and statutory duties that had partly contributed to MAS’ disadvantaged financial performance ever since his tenure at the national airlines.

In particular, two police reports dated 4th January 2002 (Dang Wangi Report 347/02) and 4th May 2005 (Dang Wangi Report 12532/05) had been lodged by MAS to press for his accountability for the fraudulent transactions.

It is a known fact that MAS was a pride of the nation with RM600 million cash reserve when he took over in 1994, but ended up with accumulated losses of RM8 billion when he left in 2001. The financial burden inherited from the accumulated losses during his time continues to cash a shadow over MAS’ financial performance in spite of successive business turnaround plans implemented since his departure.

Partly as a result of the accumulated losses suffered, MAS had to enter the Comprehensive Collaboration Framework (CCF) with AirAsia that is deemed to be against the interest of the majority of the workers and other stakeholders in MAS. Dr Roland Chia lamented.