the relish dish

I LOVE MY COUNTRY. I LOVE PETRONAS.

I guess a lot of Malaysians caught PETRONAS’ Chief Tan Sri Hassan Marican on RTM1 last night, doing his bit to help explain where the national oil company fits in the complex jigsaw puzzle that led to the steep rise in global crude oil and fuel prices.

All in all, it was quite a good effort. A lot of things were explained and made quite clear -- its role and responsibility, its contributions to the Government as part of this responsibility and its commitment not only towards its own growth and sustainability, but also towards the future of the industry so that PETRONAS and the industry could continue to generate optimized income for the country. If you happened to watch Bernama TV's Helo Malaysia immediately after the show, the two panel members – the ex-KLSE chief and the FOMCA Sec-Gen –- who discussed the same issue made good arguments for PETRONAS.

Now that we know that PETRONAS had contributed RM336 billion of its accumulated profit to the Government over the past 33 years, logically we should now be questioning how this money was spent and allocated by the Government. I mean, this is a huge sum by any standard. PETRONAS says the amount is 65% of its accumulated profit. That means, for every RM1 profit that PETRONAS made, it gave back 65 sen to the Government. How this money is spent by the Government is not PETRONAS' responsibility.

What touched me the most was Tan Sri Hassan’s last word on the show, where he conveyed the message from his 30,000 or so employees who don’t understand why they are being attacked left, right, front and centre, when they work so hard for the country. I feel sorry for PETRONAS’ staff because I know they work their behinds off for the company, especially in the current scenario where all oil companies are competing for access to oil reserves that are increasingly limited and harder to find.

As for their personal performance, I was told that each of the PETRONAS’ employees has to sign an individual performance contract at the beginning of the company’s financial cycle stating his or her performance target for the year and what he or she has to deliver. If by the end of the year he or she doesn’t deliver, there’ll be no salary increase or bonus.

I would think this is rather stressful. On top of that, they are required to cut operational costs in their own areas of responsibility by at least 30% a year. I guess this is one of the reasons why when other oil companies record minimal rise in profits, PETRONAS continue to perform excellently, because staff helped keep operational cost down while the costs for equipment, drilling etc rose exponentially.

Now that PETRONAS has explained, I guess it’s the Government’s turn now to do its bit. It has been doing a poor job at trying to educate the public on why fuel subsidies have to be reduced so much and so drastically. But judging from what I have read and heard, I’m not sure how many of our so-called elected leaders (both from the BN and Opposition camps) understand enough about the industry to accurately explain the situation to their constituents.

The past few days, we also heard and read allegations made by the Penang Chief Minister YAB Lim Guan Eng about PETRONAS. Personally, I feel most of these allegations are incitement or “hasutan” in nature. He claims that PETRONAS has private jets and helicopters, and PETRONAS’ officials live lavishly like kings in huge mansions.

I don’t know which PETRONAS’ officials he is talking about. A lot of people know that Tan Sri Hassan and his family stay in a modest house in a not-so-posh area in Ampang. Even some taxi drivers who have had to drive staff to his house expressed their disbelief that he actually lives there.

Yes, he does travel for business by a leased jet. But I guess I wouldn’t expect him to fly commercial – with various flight connections, potential delays or cancellations – when he has meetings, negotiations and billion-dollar deals to make. Time is of the essence, so is safety.

Looking at Mr. Lim’s continuous attacks, I’m led to believe that he might have a personal agenda against Tan Sri Hassan. A little bird told me that the two of them used to work together in an accountancy firm long ago. Could there be old grouses at play here? I don’t know.

Like I said in my previous posts, I expect a lot from my elected political leaders. When they promise they would bring about change, I thought they would behave differently from their counterparts, they would be fair, they would tell the truth to the rakyat and so on. I forgot politicians are politicians -- they are not accountable for anything.