Businessmen with titles who siphon money meant for projects into their own pockets have to be brought to justice. These loans are meant to support projects, not for their personal expenditures and indulgences. —123rf
IT is common knowledge that most of our top business tycoons have, at some point in their careers, made flawed decisions that led to losses.
None of these big names have had easy paths to where they are. They have often put their company’s money, or their own, into ventures that failed to return any profits or worse, even failed to take off.
Not every deal is a successful one although we would like to think that these business personalities have all the answers.
We like to see them as symbols of success, with brilliant minds and the Midas touch; as people incapable of making blunders. However, risk-taking and failure are simply intrinsic parts of any business.
But a faulty business decision is not the same as failed integrity or abuse of trust for personal gain. In fact, they are the opposite.
Siphoning off multimillion bank loans meant for a company project to finance a lifestyle of luxury and indulgence is certainly unacceptable. This could include acquisition of opulent homes overseas and expensive liquor, among others.
Worse, while most of the money from the loans is spent, the project remains stalled, and a white knight has to be sought to clean up the mess.
For sure, the poor contractors would not have been paid and, in turn, the workers.
Malaysians are by now getting used to reading about some businessmen with Tan Sri titles being arrested, remanded, and investigated for various alleged crimes including money laundering.
Luxury cars, expensive watches, and jewellery are usually seized while bank accounts, both personal and their company’s, are frozen by the enforcement agencies.
It would not be wrong to suggest that we have even lost interest in cases involving a criminal Datuk or Datuk Seri – they’re just so prevalent nowadays. There is only excitement when a Tan Sri is implicated.
These arrests make big news, and the identities of these personalities are often speculated about quite accurately. After all, Malaysia is a small country and it is hard to keep these things a secret, but Malaysians also want to see these errant figures being formally charged in the courts.
Many high-profile cases seem to have quietly faded away after a while, leaving many of us wondering why. Is it because there are insufficient grounds to charge them or are there other reasons that the public can only speculate about, rightly or wrongly?
It doesn’t help the authorities if these cases turn cold, whether they involve the police or the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.
More importantly, the recent cases of abuses of financial resources raises ethical, economic, and legal concerns.
Bank loans provide businesses with capital to grow, innovate, and sustain operations – not to fulfil personal delights.
Our institutions extend these loans based on trust, business plans, and the borrower’s plans, projections, and credibility.
It is fraud when loans are redirected towards something else under the pretext of developing the business project. Those who do so are not mere failed businessmen, they are criminals who have failed to uphold integrity and credibility.
They have betrayed the institutions, including banks, that provided the support.
But there is also another serious question: What has happened to the auditors, internal and external, and bank officials, who are supposed to keep track of such projects, and how the money has been used?
These abuses, at so many levels, are disturbing and chilling, as they are a clear reflection of deep ethical rot. They also mean weaknesses in monitoring mechanisms.
There are legal, enforcement, and regulatory areas that need improvement.
When professional bodies and experts are implicated, it takes on another dimension because they are seen to have willingly engaged in deceit and fraud. It no longer involves one dishonest individual but a trail of bad actors leveraging on connections and falsifying documentation while hiding away facts and figures.
When accountability flies out of the windows of accounting firms, then we have hit rock bottom.
If there is a lesson to be learnt here, it’s that we should not be so quick to award titles and honours, and highlight superficial successes.
They may have a Tan Sri to their names but they are failures if they have no ethics. These crooks don’t deserve any badge of honour, and any they wear should be taken away.
