A Doctor in The House: A Memoir of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (44 page)

I sought the support of the President of the Union of Workers in the Government Canneries, who was a good man. I listened to his complaints and, as any union leader would, he exaggerated the grievances of the workers. But some of his complaints regarding the management were genuine. I met the committee of the union and had long discussions with them. I decided to entertain their legitimate complaints, to agree to better wages and allowances, and so on. I did not revoke their privilege of getting cases of canned pineapple with their wages. I gave pep talks and explained how necessary it was for them to cooperate and help the company to cut its losses. Sabotaging it by putting lizards in cans could result in the company closing down.

They were stunned by this notion, even appalled. They worked under the firm belief that the cannery was set up to create jobs for them. It was a government company where profit was not supposed to be the motive. They believed they could do what they liked and the cannery would still remain open. I told them that the Government might accept some losses, but if they were too high even the Government would have to stop the bleeding. If the company did well, then they stood a better chance of making more money. But salary increases should be accompanied by greater productivity. If salaries increased but the Government kept losing money, there would be a time when logically, the operation would have to be shut down.

The workers were also voters in that constituency and some of them hinted that UMNO candidates in the elections may lose their seats if the workers lost their jobs. But it was an idle threat. Most of the workers were UMNO members anyway, and in Johor, UMNO was powerful, with practically no opposition. PAS had very few supporters there. I believed the people would continue to support UMNO and so I confidently called their bluff. I was right—the Barisan Nasional
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 won the next General Election in 1974 easily. But even before that I had managed to win the union and the workers over to my side. The union leader became a good friend and I was always able to get his help and support whenever there was an industrial problem within the company.

Later, I would take the same approach with Malaysian Airline System (MAS) when I was Deputy Prime Minister. The union tried to sabotage the company and planes were tampered with until they could not take off. I told them I would close down the national airline, and I did. The DAP called me a thug but that did not matter to me. These were national assets and one simply did not tamper with planes and make demands on a company that was not doing well anyway.

I was willing to shut it down permanently if that became necessary. The airline trade union in Australia backed the MAS workers and began refusing to handle MAS planes. I responded by telling them that when Australian planes came to KL, we would make sure their planes would not take off. After that Qantas stopped flying here. People had to learn the limits of what they could demand. When the other party becomes unreasonable, I am also prepared to be very unreasonable. It does not come naturally, but it comes with the job.

Back at PCM, I also checked on the whole process of producing the canned pineapple, beginning with the grading of the fruit. From the lorry, the fruits were thrown into three baskets according to grade. The man throwing the fruits seemed an expert on grading, but after they had been sorted, I checked the fruits and found that the grading was not properly done. Grade A fruits were at times classified as B or C, while C-grade fruits could be found in the A basket. The quality of the fruit going into each can was uncertain. Putting the first-grade fruit into second- or third-grade cheaper cans caused the company needless financial losses. When lower C or B Grades went into Grade A cans, customers might complain or simply not buy Malaysian canned pineapple.

The basis of the cannery’s problems was that it was run by an ex-civil servant who treated it like just another government department. He gave no thought to cutting costs and making a profit. Every year FIMA would submit a budget to the Government and Treasury would approve allocations for the year. Audits were carried out by government officials, but they were not familiar with business accounting and did not scrutinise accounts properly. They did not probe the causes of the factory’s repeated losses because government departments do not expect to make money. In those early days, few government officers could adjust to the novelty of doing business and making profits. They thought it was normal to allocate funds every year to these new government companies. Effectively, they were injecting new capital every year with no return. No business can expect the gift of yearly capital injections or assume them as an entitlement. Businesses either use internally-generated funds or they borrow, and debts constitute a cost of doing business.

My time at PCM was also made memorable by my encounter with Hajjah Fatimah, the canteen operator. She was a colourful character, very strong-minded and very influential in Wanita UMNO, the party’s women’s division. She ran the canteen profitably, but there were many complaints from the workers about the quality of the food. I thought I could deal with her by terminating her contract, but it was not that easy. When I visited the cannery the next time, she was there waiting for me. She was a formidable woman who did not pull her punches. She explained quite forcefully that she was not making much from her business because the company did not pay enough for her to provide good food to the workers. In addition, the workers owed her a lot of money.

I decided that it was probably wiser to make a friend of her than an enemy. Besides, she was willing to change and accept some of my suggestions. I admit to being biased in her favour because she was the leader of Wanita UMNO in that constituency. Also, since it is somewhat like my own way of dealing with things and people, I can appreciate the straightforward approach in others, if they are reasonable. I am always prepared to listen to others, because I believe that a person who listens learns, and a person who continually talks learns nothing.

I would later benefit much from my close friendship with her and she ran the canteen quite efficiently after that discussion. When, much later, Johor UMNO proposed that Hajjah Fatimah become a Senator, I had no hesitation approving it. Mak Aji Fatimah as she was known to all, was a character and a firm friend until she passed away in 1998.

When I was appointed to the Cabinet after one year of managing PCM, I did not give up my chairmanship. But I was no longer able to spend as much time as I had earlier to oversee operations. I never really turned the company around but it did make a profit of RM2 million in 1978 when I was still in charge, although I had by then become Deputy Prime Minister.

Though it was difficult to get things right, it was an invaluable experience for me. It gave me a chance to be directly involved in managing a big business and international negotiations. I learnt about the importance of knowing details, a lesson valuable in the running of a business—or indeed a government. PCM taught me the need to provide clear instructions and the importance of follow-ups and of reporting back on work done. Never assume that things are done simply because decisions have been made.

During my time at the cannery, I was also involved in negotiating the price for the supply of tin-plates from Japanese companies. On one visit to Japan I went to the Kawasaki Heavy Industries Steel Rolling Mill in the Chiba Prefecture. I was fascinated by the massive plant, which was about half a kilometre long. The steel rollers flattened the heated steel blooms into thin sheets, which were then rolled into a coil at the end of the line.

Steel mills are usually very difficult to keep clean but the Japanese kept their mill spic and span. They built their plant in such a way that if you wanted to inspect it, you could walk along an elevated walkway and not get in the way of the operations. Everything was in its right place and the process was almost completely automated. Seeing that was an education in itself.

The visit influenced my thinking greatly when I became Prime Minister. I realised that you had to have a system or process in place before you could get anything done. The common assumption is that all you have to do is make a decision and then send it to administrators to execute. But from that visit, I realised that it was crucial to ask if people knew what they were supposed to do. I took the trouble to set up for the administration a process with desk files, flow charts and manuals of procedures.

At about the time I was appointed to FIMA, I was also made Chairman of the Council of the National University, or Universiti Kebangsaan. Once, I was scheduled to chair a meeting of the University Council to be held at the university itself. The students were quite restless then and the university staff learned that some students intended to hold a demonstration when I was at the campus. They suggested we change the venue, but I demurred as it was not my way to hide.

Although the meeting was at Universiti Kebangsaan, the demonstrating students were from the Mara Institute of Technology (ITM). Their leader was Halim Arshat, the student president of ITM. He had failed the compulsory English examination but he wanted the Institute to exempt him from the requirement because his failure was due to his union activities. The Institute had refused.

When I came out from the council meeting, I was surrounded by hundreds of students. I allowed them to lead me up the steps of the library, where they proceeded to hold a kangaroo court. I was asked a number of questions, such as why English was a compulsory language. I told them that it would be in their best interest to master a language like English, and I answered the rest of their questions to the best of my ability. Soon they had nothing else to ask and they began to complain about the poor conditions at the ITM campus. I agreed to go with them to see the facilities and found their complaints to be justified. The furniture was broken and needed either to be replaced or repaired. I promised to take it up with the authorities.

As events turned out, Halim Arshat never did pass that examination and he left the Institute to join PAS. He turned out to be from my new constituency of Kubang Pasu and in 1978 he stood against me. He lost by a big margin.

Time passed very quickly. I was busy with my medical practice, attending meetings of the Senate, managing PCM and giving talks to UMNO groups. I was also invited to give talks by various other groups in Malaysia and as well as some in Singapore.

Soon there was talk about elections. Despite the aftermath of 1969 and the two-year suspension of ordinary politics, Tun Razak appeared to want to maintain the practice of holding the General Election at five-year intervals. Strictly speaking, the five-year period should have begun with the first sitting of Parliament in 1972, so Tun Razak could have waited until 1977. But he chose to hold the elections in 1974 instead, as if the first sitting of Parliament had been in 1969, the year the last elections had been held. That choice made its own positive statement: it expressed a desire to return to normalcy, and indeed, to set aside any notion that normalcy had ever been affected by the events of 1969. It would also help to validate his leadership as he had inherited his position from the Tunku without going through a General Election. Tun Razak’s plans would be for a return to a new political normality, not the one that had imploded in fire and bloodshed in May 1969.

I did not lobby to be a candidate, but something told me that I would be given a seat to contest in the 1974 elections. It was, at least, what I hoped for: to get back on my feet and return to the national political arena.

ENDNOTES

[
1
] The Rural Industrial Development Authority (RIDA) was the original agency that sought to promote Bumiputera participation in the economy by setting up rural or cottage industries.
 

[
2
] The Government unveiled its National Development Policy in June 1991 after the NEP had expired. Poverty was redefined according to relative criteria, and a new emphasis was given to creating employment and placing a greater reliance on the private sector.
 

[
3
] The Barisan Nasional, or National Front, was formed in 1973 as a successor to the Alliance.
 

By the time the elections were held, the aftereffects of the race riots of 1969 had all but disappeared and the gloomy predictions about Malaysia had been proven wrong. Foreign newspapers and news magazines had said that the riots spelt the end of Malaysia; even Tun Dr Ismail had said at the time that this was the end of democracy in Malaysia. But we had not only survived, we had also gone on to hold elections and restore democracy. It would not be the last time we would prove the doomsayers wrong.

Tun Razak had done a good job with the National Operations Council. The country had been in despair when the riots broke out, but with Tun Dr Ismail as Home Affairs Minister and the number two man at the NOC, calm soon returned to Kuala Lumpur. Tun Dr Ismail was most certainly the right man for the job, making it clear that anyone, regardless of who they were, would be arrested if they broke the law. That put a stop to the rioting and the torching of buildings by irresponsible Malay youths. Business picked up, people were able to go about their work without fear, and the races intermingled once more.

One of the methods the Government used to bring the races together was to hold durian
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 parties. The Chinese loved to eat durian, perhaps more than the Malays. Sometimes they could not wait to go home but would open the thorny fruit at the roadside stall to eat it. It was thought that a durian party would be irresistible to the Chinese and would bring them out. The Government in Selangor duly organised these gatherings and issued an open invitation to people of all races. Everyone, including the Chinese from the New Villages, came out and gorged themselves.