the pitch
The deputy Prime Minister, sat in the middle of the array of sports bureaucrats, with the Sports Minister to his left, eighteen people on the opposing side of table.
With another twenty junior bureaucrats lined along the wall.
All facing the four of us.
We had already presented to get this far, so there was a nodding familiarity.
Me, smiling, one to the other around the table noticing.
The key people were ALL wearing the same, ostentatious REAL gold Rolex watches!
But this was the final pitch, so just an observation.
I had formed a joint venture office in Kuala Lumpur, as partners in a pitch for the main stadium design for the Commonwealth Games in Malaysia.
I had worked with this company before, their role being to take care of the local politics.
As well as the locals, we needed more grunt.
So, I tapped into my American contacts to get HOK on board, being one of the premium sports facility designers in the world.
We designed the stadium using intel provided by HOK, with full audio visuals, drawings, perspectives, the lot.
We were up against the Germans.
Who were still designing stadiums as if they were for the Hitler youth!
We had the contemporary American commercial intel, which gave us the edge.
The presentation was bi-lingual, therefore the cadence of the presentation
Was slow and protracted, although they all spoke better English than we did!
It was their country, their rules, it was all fascinating to me!
All our reports had to be written in Bahasa, a village-based language, with a very limited vocabulary, although they were trying to update it.
The Government, then retranslated the pitch, back into English, so the bureaucrats could then understand it?
It was also interesting, that we used as translator, a Chinese Malaysian headmaster from the east coast, Uncle Soh, as he was affectionately known, to translate our documents into Malay.
Uncle Soh was better at written and spoken Malay than the Bumiputra, the native sons.
His family came over 600 years ago, as one of the very early boat people.
Sadly, he was still looked upon as Chinese, not Malaysian.
The presentation went well.
After a great deal of discussion, over tea and biscuits, the presentation was slowly, forensically analysed, then folded up.
Over the next two weeks, our local intelligence was that our design was preferred, so the government gave our documents to the Germans and asked them to emulate it.
Now I finally understood where the gold Rolex watches came from, they had out bribed us.
I call it the 15% club.
Government infrastructure projects, were usually handled by external agencies, run and financed by the government.
Everyone knew that to all consultancy service fee submissions, you added 15%.
Which was skimmed off and put into the Umno Party’s coffers being the governing political party.
No wonder they had been in office since independence from the British.
This was an established institutional way of operating in Malaysia.
In addition, there was individually targeted bribery on top of that.
Holidays, direct cash, cars, women, so called business trips.
What good Muslims did while they were overseas was no bodies business.
What this meant was, the company that finally got the contract to build it, often didn’t have enough money left to build it properly, starting the erosion of the intended outcome.
As an example, main road infrastructure often washed away in the first monsoon, due to the 15% club erosion of standards.
Very expensive!
Often even non-existent infrastructure got funded, but with no intention of building it!
The funds went into their collective pockets.
I was taken to a hill in the jungle by a client, who was taking over a bankrupt company’s projects that we were looking at kick starting again.
The land stretched to the horizon, the proposed site of a new city for local Japanese steel works.
We overlooked the overgrown roads and partially completed homes, the jungle reclaiming this arrogant folly of man.
I speculated.
Where did all the millions go?
One hell of a lot of 15%’s.
There was an inevitability to it all, sadly.
The Malays had control of the land and the resources, the Chinese had the money and the get up an’ go, knowing exactly where to put the money to leverage the maximum advantage to themselves.
This was not on a project-to-project basis!
It was endemic in the bureaucracy and government, bribes to specific people, in key places. An ongoing, established relationship, of mutual benefit.
As an observer I knew this from the outside but was never directly involved.
Drowning our sorrows at the loss of the stadium project, over a Courvoisier fuelled banquet.
As the fourth bottle arrived, my Malaysian friends, slid into the nostalgia of their Australian education.
They all had dual citizenship.
Morris the major director of the local company, having his first wife and two children in Strathfield, with his second wife in Terengganu.
Sheldon, another director, with a tear in his eye, the emotion deeply felt, describing something
that I had never experienced, as a native born Australian!
Pouring another drink, Sheldon rambled on.
In my student days, my absolutely, favourite, weekend pastime, was going to the pub in the afternoon, drinking and watching the horse races.
Betting sometimes heavily and loving it.
Sheldon came from a wealthy family, so gaming was in his DNA.
Australia had educated through the Colombo plan, most of the Asian elite, who were now people of influence throughout Asia.
They loved Australia, but made their money in Asia, spending it in OZ or around the world.
Often smuggling out their wealth in the form of diamonds, that they could carry out undetected, as insurance.
The Indian and Chinese Malaysian communities being always very aware, that their situation could be tenuous.
As they were reminded of it daily, with the images of the bloody ’69 race riots, always at the back of their minds.
So safe financial havens, became their lifeboats out of Malaysia.
Always in place!
Always ready!