PUCHONG, Aug 30 — Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim today questioned why 6,000 Malaysia Airlines’ (MAS) could lose their jobs in the impending overhaul of the airline, when those who mismanaged the flag carrier were instead “adequately” compensated.
The opposition leader pointed out that the national carrier once raked in billions in profits during the 1980s, but began to suffer losses after former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad privatised the airline in the following decade.
“You ever think for a second what is the future of the 6,000 employees?” Anwar said at a course called The Asian Renaissance Course at the Centre for Reform, Democracy and Social Initiatives here today.
“Why are they being punished while those who commit the crime are given adequate compensation?” he added.
MAS’s main shareholder Khazanah Nasional Berhad announced yesterday that almost a third of the airline’s 20,000-strong staff, or 6,000 workers, would be laid off as part of the restructuring exercise.
Anwar today contrasted the case of former MAS executive chairman Tan Sri Tajudin Ramli to the airline’s workers who now stand to lose their livelihoods.
The MAS privatisation deal saw Tajuddin taking out a RM1.79 billion loan in 1994 to buy a 32 per cent majority stake in the airline.
Tajudin, who was affected by the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, later sold his stake in MAS to Putrajaya for RM1.79 billion — or RM8 a share — the same amount that he paid in 2001; the company’s closing share price at that time was RM3.68.
But the flag carrier’s problems did not end there. In the years that followed, MAS has undergone three business turnarounds at an estimated cost of nearly RM20 billion to the government.
Bloomberg reported recently that MAS recorded a sixth quarter of losses and that the national carrier has bled RM4.13 billion in the three years through last year.
Anwar hit out today at the “lies” and “leakages” that have ruined MAS.
“This is a bailout,” he said, referring to Khazanah’s RM6 billion plan to revamp MAS.
