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 presented before
to get shortlisted
so there was a nodding familiarity
me
Nodding and smiling
One to the other
around the table
Noticing
The key people were ALL wearing
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
Mainly to take care of the local politics
With a company I had worked with before
As partners in a pitch for the main stadium design for the Commonwealth Games
As well as the locals
we needed more grunt
So I tapped into my American contacts
To get HOK on board
As the one of the premium sports facility designers in the world
It was a great design
We designed it
HOK provided the intel
Full audio visual, 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 all the contemporary American commercial intel
Which gave us the edge
The presentation was bi-lingual
Therefore
the cadence of the presentation
was a bit slow and protracted
Although they all spoke better English than we did
It was their country, their rules
It was fascinating to me
That all our reports had to be written in Bahasa
Then
As Malay was a Village based language
With a very limited vocabulary
Although they were trying to update it
The Government
Re translated it
back into English
So the bureaucrats could then understand it?
It was also interesting
That we used as translator
a Chinese Malaysian head master from the East Coast
Uncle Soh
To translate our documents into Malay
As he was better at written and spoken Malay than the Bumiputra
The native suns
His family came over 600 years ago
One of the very early boat people
Sadly, he was still looked upon as Chinese
The presentation went really 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 understood where the gold Rolex watches came from!
They had out bribed us
I called it
the 15% club
All Government infrastructure projects
Were usually handled by external agencies
Run and financed by the government
Everyone knew
That to all service fee submissions
you added 15%
Which was skimmed off and put into the Umno Parties coffers
No wonder they had been in office since independence from the British
This was an established institutional way of operating in Malaysia
Then
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
Didn’t have the money to build it properly
Main road infrastructure often washing away in the first monsoon
Very expensive
Often even non-existent infrastructure was funded
But never built!
I was taken to a hill in the jungle once
by a client
who was taking over a bankrupt company’s projects
We were looking at kick starting it
The land stretched to the horizon
The site of a new city for the Japanese steel works
Overlooking the overgrown roads and partially completed homes
The jungle
reclaiming the arrogant follies of man
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
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
I knew this
But always seeing
knowing from the outside
but 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
Slide into the nostalgia of their Australian education
They all had dual citizenship
Morris having his first wife and two children in Strathfield
With his second wife in Terengganu
Sheldon
With a tear in his eye
The emotion deep felt
describing something
that I had never experienced
being a native born Australian?
Pouring another drink
Sheldon rambled on
In his student days
His absolutely favourite, weekend pastime
Was going to the pub in the afternoon
Drinking
And watching the horse races
Betting
Sometimes heavily
Sheldon came from a wealthy family
Gaming being in the DNA
Australia had educated
through the Colombo plan
The majority of the Asian elite
Who were now people of influence throughout Asia
they loved Australia
They made their money in Asia
Then spent 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
Were always very aware
That their situation could be tenuous
being reminded of it daily
The images of the bloody ’69 race riots
always at the back of their minds
So safe financial havens
Became their life boats out of Malaysia
Always in place
Always Ready