Style Mahu, Kalah Selalu! (2)

More Atrocious Shocking info.

An ailing airline suffers losses of 648 million ringgit just in the first 6 months of its current financial year, on top of years of poor management. Then to compound its sickness, its Chairman bought 3 paintings costing 1.55 million ringgit, of course charged to company expenditure, for his office.

Wait, there's more. He also renovated his office including an attached kitchen to the tune of 841,000 ringgit. The kitchen equipment costs some 34,000 smackers.

How do we all come to know of this?

An anonymous email titled ‘MAS – the flying buffet’, obviously from an insider, revealed the scandalous spending by the Chairman. The writer said rather caustically “Well, once you renovate your office for RM841,000 certainly you need some artwork to grace the office”.

And most shamefully, the Deputy Transport Minister had the gall to even aver that the three paintings were bought to enhance the ‘stature' of the Chairman's office. Stature? This is the Chairman of a terminally sick airline that requires a rescue package of at least RM 3 billion, with western ‘doctors’ called in on salaries of RM3 million per annum.

Why couldn’t the minister just say that such profligate expenditures were totally unjustified, especially in the face of the airline’s loss, and will be dealt with. It seems that among Malaysian ruling politicians and bureaucrats the attitude is to defend at all cost even the indefensible.

One of the paintings by a Columbia artist alone costs RM 1.14 million. It’s titled ‘Still Life with Violin’. Maybe it ought to be retitled ‘Still Alive? With Violations’ (of good governance)

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Style Mahu, Kalah Selalu!