Political Analyst: Dr M Like A Father Who Had Tried To Sell His ‘Son’

By MT Webmaster On May 28, 2017

(The Star) – A political blogger has questioned Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s grief over the sale of a 49.9% stake in Proton to Chinese carmaker Zheijiang Geely Automotive Co Ltd.

Revealing that it was Dr Mahathir who set the wheels in motion for the sale, Lim Sian See wrote in his blog on Saturday that the former Proton chairman was crying fake tears.

He was responding to Dr Mahathir’s recent blog post lamenting that the sale was akin to him “losing a child”.

“Therefore, it is strange for Mahathir to suddenly criticise the sale of a stake in Proton to China’s Geely and claim he is crying since it was Mahathir who first said that Proton should sell a stake to Germany’s Volkswagen in 2005.

“It was Mahathir who asked the Government to sell all its stake in Proton to a private company in 2011 and it was Mahathir who first approached Geely in China in 2014 to ask it to help save Proton,” Lim wrote.

He added that this was akin to “a father who had tried to sell his son but then tried to blame others”.

According to Lim, Proton sales started to decline in 2003 during Dr Mahathir’s last year in office.

“Just two years later in 2005, it was overtaken by Perodua in the Malaysia market and after Mahathir became chairman in 2014, it was overtaken by Honda too in 2016,” he said.

He added that Lotus Cars have lost an estimated total of RM6bil since Proton acquired the company in 1996 and never had a single year of profitability.

Lim said that in 2005, Dr Mahathir had invited Volkswagen to acquire a 50% stake in Proton, although the deal fell through.

He said that it was also Dr Mahathir who had asked the Government to sell its shares in Proton to DRB-Hicom in 2012.

Lim added that as Proton continued to lose billions, it was Dr Mahathir who first approached Geely to help save the national carmaker.

“After being made chairman of Proton in January 2014, it was Mahathir and Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar who travelled to China in April 2014 to invite Geely to help save Proton,” he said.

Lim said that DRB-Hicom Group, which fully took over Proton in 2012, had been dragged into incurring losses, putting the group and hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk.

“Proton was threatening to bring down the entire DRB-Hicom group that was very diversified and includes airports, ports, construction, power, logistics etc – along with its 60,000 jobs,” he said.

Due to the jobs at risk, Lim said the Government then granted Proton billions of ringgit in soft loans to enable it to stay afloat.

“The total assistance given by the Government to Proton in 2016 alone is RM3.2bil,” he said, adding that Proton had also received another RM14bil in assistance since it was first founded.

“Even Mahathir’s son Mokhzaini who was listed as Malaysia’s second richest Malay and has a well-known penchant for expensive cars but not Proton was not interested to use his billions to take over Proton,” he said.

Lim said with 50.1% of Proton owned by DRB-Hicom and with Geely on board, Proton’s survival is assured.

“It is better for Malaysia to own 50.1% of a company that has chance to survive and have a market of 1.43 billion people than to own 100% of a company that is on the verge of bankruptcy and losing billions of ringgit every year in a market of just 30 million people,” he said.

DRB-Hicom said on Wednesday it had reached an agreement for the sale of the stake in Proton. Both parties expect to sign the definitive agreement in July 2017.