Play The Game

We were talking about how tenders and fundings are dealt with in Malaysia. The usual lament is how only certain companies with great big "cables" are awarded tenders, only to delegate the job to smaller start-up companies with a fraction of the designated compensation, slipping a big portion into their own pockets. This is the usual practice, no? Everybody knows it, but it's a "hush-hush, wink-wink" fact, yes?

So a sort-of big dude in a sort-of big Malaysian technology development whatever told my husband, "You can't just keep complaining about what's happening. You just have to accept it and play the game. Just take the one million they're offering, and forget about the six mil they're keeping.* Just do your job and keep taking up offers and everybody's happy." If You Can't Beat Them, Join Them. This should be our Independence Day slogan since 1980, man. Scrap all that Malaysia Boleh bullshit. Add that along with my ever so favorite If There's a Loophole, A Malaysian Will Surely Find It and Abuse It.

What the big people with the big cables don't see is that if you give the small start-up companies the full designated budget, be it 500K or 5mil, the money can be used for all sorts of things other than building yourself a honking kerawang-filled mansion of poor taste in Bukit Antarabangsa. Sure, the project probably could be completed for just one mil, but then the rest of the money could be used for research and development of other products or services, the start-up company could hire new people, get a better office maybe, get better training for their present employees. The rest of the budget could be put to use for the betterment of a whole group of people, not just the priveleged few. The company could expand, go regional, international, global. Isn't this the Malaysian Dream that's been shoved into our throats all these years?

Do you think in the future this "system" will ever change? Do you think, as the children of the post-NEP generation begin getting into the government, industry, politics, whatever, they will try to change the system and build a better one beneficial for everybody? Is it naive of me to hope so?

Man, Eddie is so right. The Haves have no fucking clue.

*No one is offering my husband one million of any currency. They were just talking in the hypothetical.*