MAHATHIR & VINCENT TAN BUSINESS TIES : PRIVATIZING KLANG RIVER , SPORTS TOTO , 500 GAMBLING SLOT MACHINES LICENSES – EVEN OUR WASTEWATER & RIVERS WERE PRIVATIZED BY MAHATHIR TO VINCENT TAN
· 4D license
· Sports Toto license
· renting 70 acres of DBKL land at Kiara for 70 years for annual quit-rent and rental of RM291,000 per year.
· renting out the Desa waterpark land for 30 years
· allowed to build his Bukit Tinggi resort on 16,000 acres of land
· Giving him 500 slot machine licenses
· Awarding him a 20 years monopoly on sports betting for a bargain price without tender or approval
· Selling Pantai Hospitals to his son, Mokzaini.
· Vincent Tan’s brother selling Diperdana Corp to Mirzan
· Mahathir also privatized the KL Monorail to Vincent Tan then bailed it out when failed.
· Mahathir also privatized our sewerage system to Vincent Tan using Indah Water and then bailed it out when failed.
· In fact, Mahathir actually privatized our Klang River to Vincent Tan and his partner David Chew for 99 years to build the 10 million square feet KL Linear City. Yes, our shit water and rivers were privatized by Mahathir to Vincent Tan.
· Later on Mahathir and David Chew formed a 50-50 JV company which brought out all the rights and production of an Italian light-aircraft company to form Euroala Industries.
· At present time, Mahathir is still the 50% shareholder and Chairman of an aircraft manufacturing company which owns the technology and sells the Jet Fox plane.
· So, on top of being a minority shareholder and director of a private jet leasing company with Country Height’s Lee Kim Yew, Mahathir also owns an airplane manufacturing company.
· At present time, Mahathir is also recorded still recorded as a shareholder of the Palace of the Golden Horses 5-star hotel.
· Not bad, even though conflict of interests are all over the place and Mahathir essentially tried to privatize almost everything to his close friends.
· Currently, there is now a list of 488 companies in Malaysia which Mahathir’s family (him, his 3 sons and his daughter) has interests in being spread around on social media. That’s one long list.
PRIVATIZING KLANG RIVER:
From the same people who brought Malaysia its controversial national sewerage project, here comes another audacious plan.
Working quietly over two years, tycoon Tan Sri Vincent Tan Chee Yioun and a peripatetic idea man named David Chew Keat Soon sold Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and the Malaysian government a 10-billion-ringgit (US$4.01 billion) proposal to privatize the main river flowing through Kuala Lumpur and build office towers, condominiums and shopping malls along it and atop it.
The centerpiece of the bold project — called KL LinearCity — is what the promoters claim will be the world’s longest building: a 10-story, tube-like structure snaking along for two kilometers above the Kelang River. Known as Giga World, the building is envisioned as offering a kaleidoscope of attractions, including an artificial rain forest populated with rubberized robotic dinosaurs, an in-line skating arena and an indoor canal running through the seventh floor.
LEASING STATE LAND
Tan Sri Tan aimed to wrap up the deal with the Malaysian government to begin construction of its first component — a 2.4-billion-ringgit, eight-kilometer-long monorail system through the heart of Kuala Lumpur. The plan is for a Tan-affiliated company called KL PRT Sdn. Bhd. to build and operate the monorail, known as the People-Mover Rapid Transit system, under a 30-year concession.
A related concern, KL Linear City Sdn. Bhd., would complete the project by building office towers, apartments, hotels, a toll road, a 10,000-car parking garage and segments of the modular Giga World structure over 24 years. All the construction would be on state land allocated to the developers under a 99-year lease.
OPAQUE DECISION MAKING
Linear City joins the growing list of megaprojects that are a source of pride to Dr. Mahathir, but dismay some Malaysians, who worry about the financial and environmental impact of the country’s freewheeling privatization strategy. (Malaysia defines “privatization” as any allocation or sale of government-owned assets or resources to private investors.)
How the venture was promoted reflects 44-year-old Tan Sri Tan’s close rapport with Dr. Mahathir, a long time admirer of the hard-charging entrepreneur. It also illustrates the opaque, top-down nature of Malaysian decision making that can spring a previously unknown project on the Malaysian public as a fait accompli.
For example, a team of 40 technicians worked all night to shift a massive scale model of the Linear City project to Dr. Mahathir’s office compound and to reassemble it for his personal inspection during briefings by Tan Sri Tan and Mr. Chew. The developers also put together a stylish multimedia presentation for the then prime minister.
STUNNED ENVIRONMENTALISTS
Environmentalists, stunned by the gargantuan dimensions of the Linear City plan, were worried about the impact on such things as flood control and traffic congestion, which they fear would grow if Linear City’s 10 million square feet of commercial space is built. Parliamentary opposition leader Lim Kit Siang has also criticized the plan, alleging it violates government guidelines on riverfront development and underscoring that Kuala Lumpur awarded the project without calling for competitive bidding.
“Does Kuala Lumpur need hanging gardens?” asks N. Nithiyananthan, treasurer of Malaysia’s Environmental Protection Society, a public-interest group. “That’s a question which the Malaysian public haven’t been given the opportunity to address. While a grandiose monument will be created and millions of ringgit made in the process, there’s insufficient proof that the river (environment) or the public will benefit.”
STILT-LIKE PILLARS
Gurmit Singh, an engineer and environmental activist, contends that the project is “totally unnecessary” and worries about the design of Linear City’s over-the-river structures, which he says have never been built anywhere. In particular, Mr. Gurmit wonders about heights and weights of the structures, which, according to Linear City documents, will be supported by stilt-like pillars on either bank of the river.
Proponents of the plan reject such views as short-sighted and ill-informed.
Executives involved in the plan promise a cleaner, safer river corridor. They argue that the monorail system will ultimately reduce the traffic volume in the city centre.
An environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the project commissioned by Linear City warned that the plan, among other things, could exacerbate air and water pollution and traffic problems during the project’s construction.
AMBITIOUS REPRISE
Linear City represents an even more ambitious reprise of the approach Tan Sri Tan and Mr. Chew used in 1991 to win Dr. Mahathir’s endorsement for the 6.3-billion-ringgit national sewerage privatization. Mr. Chew, an engineer trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, conceived that plan and took it to Tan Sri Tan, who successfully pitched the privatization idea to Dr. Mahathir and the government.
A joint-venture company called Indah Water Konsortium Sdn. Bhd., was awarded a 28-year sewerage concession and promised to overhaul and modernize Malaysia’s sewage-disposal system.
But the project hasn’t gone smoothly. In recent months, Malaysian consumers, businesses, politicians and even state governments have complained bitterly over Indah Water’s pricing and billing policies and customer service. More than 500,000 Malaysians have signed a petition of the Federation of Malaysian Consumer Associations, which criticizes the company.
Among critics’ charges against Indah Water: sloppy, poorly supervised installation of sewerage works, billing for nonexistent services, a baffling system for computing charges and a generally lackadaisical attitude toward customer complaints.
Indah Water’s executive chairman, Datuk Ghazi Hasbullah Ramli, resigned after disagreements with Tan Sri Tan and other investors. The resignation followed a cabinet order to Indah Water to review its pricing and service policies. Tan Sri Tan, whose Berjaya Group holds a dominant 21% stake in Prime Utilities Bhd., the company that controls Indah Water.
Source - https://thecoverage.my/even-our-shit-water-rivers-were-privatized-by-mahathir-to-vincent-tan/
AFTER SO MANY FAILURES, WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO KL LINEAR CITY TODAY? ANOTHER FAILED PROJECT DUE TO THE GREED OF AN OLD POLITICIAN AND HIS CRONY BUSINESSMAN. MANY KL RESIDENTS WERE RELOCATED BY THE GOVERNMENT TO SUPPORT THIS PROJECT BUT AT THE END IT ALL CAME TO NOTHING. AT THE END GOVERNMENT HAD TO RELY ON TAX PAYERS MONEY TO RELOCATE MOST OF THE DISPLACED RESIDENTS.
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