I REFER to the six-page press statement by Pemandu published in The Malaysian Insight yesterday, which is a response to my article titled Pemandu: A half a billion colossal failure.

Pemandu Associates’ response, authored by its executive vice-president and partner Alex Iskandar Liew, proves one vital point, which also reinforces my suspicion, of its shocking naivety.

The response is nothing but a classic case of tautological obfuscation in splendid display by Pemandu. All smoke and mirrors – verbosity personified at the expense of substantive rebuttal.

Let me explain. (Don’t worry, I would not do a six-page response.)

First, he did not refute my argument that we are off track towards becoming a high-income nation. In fact, he is unable to refute robustly, blow by blow to the points raised.

For instance, instead of admitting that we are not going to achieve a US$15,000 in gross national income (GNI) per capita by 2020 because the GNI per capita has decreased, Pemandu’s response is to blame others.

Stunningly amateurish. Basically, this is what Pemandu is saying: “Don’t worry guys, other countries also experiencing a drop in GNI per capita. Don’t over-react, our currency may have dropped slightly” (although Pemandu’s definition is slightly different than mine; “slightly” to Pemandu means our currency has only weakened by 42% against the US dollar between 2011 and 2016). These are the “brilliant” answers by these overpaid “experts” who chart our economic development. Fantastic! 

Second, the six-page response demonstrates severe technical deficiencies among Pemandu’s senior management. They are clearly not well-versed in the management of economic development or finance.

Evidence No. 1: it is shocking that their definition of “inclusive growth” is so narrowly restrictive. Inclusive growth is not about just “building rural roads” or planting more rubber trees. 

There is also no empirical evidence to show that “fiscal prudence” and “a more diversified and sustainable base for investment” translate into equitable or inclusive society. Perhaps you should spend less time on those fancy power points and instead, read serious academic literature.  

Evidence No. 2: Pemandu also claimed that our debt is within the legal limit. Even a first-year finance student can tell you that that figure is misleading. If we add all those contingent liabilities, our debt level would easily breach the legal limit. 

Pemandu knows this, but would rather spew disinformation rather than being straight and honest with us. Stop treating the rakyat as fools. Remember the saying, “you can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time”.

Third, it is gravely alarming that Pemandu relies on “alternative facts” to prove a point. 

Instead of rebutting the statement that Pemandu has failed in reining in the rising cost of living, it suggested that we read, wait for it, a blog article written by an “analyst” who incidentally was also found guilty by a court of law for writing false stories. Gulp! We are paying Pemandu obscene amounts of money and yet the best they can do is to refer us to a blogger? 

Fourth, Pemandu, for lack of better words, is intellectually sloppy and lazy. 

When we stated that Pemandu has spent more than half a billion ringgit of public funds, instead of refuting the figures, what Pemandu did was to say this: “If the writer takes a closer review, he will notice that the estimated budget for Pemandu in 2017 is RM40 million”.  I am beyond belief with these kind of puerile denials. 

If a director of Pemandu can earn up to RM50,000 a month, imagine how much salary is being splurged for the whole of Pemandu’s top management to produce this kind of feeble and insipid rebuttal.

Could they not come clean and be sincere in acknowledging the fact, yes, fact that they did spend more than RM500 million of the rakyat’s precious money since its establishment.

Since it decided not to admit and had deliberately omitted this fact, one can reasonably conclude that it is basically being callous and most cavalier towards the rakyat’s concerns. 

My original article criticising Pemandu was analytical, replete and substantiated with statistics and evidence of its failed performance, but what we get in return in defence of its dubious contributions is paragraph upon paragraph, bordering on disrespect and misdirection.

Fifth, the deliberately boring and heavy bureaucratic language employed in the “rebuttal” shows that it is incapable of answering us truthfully. Astonishing indeed for those whose stock in trade is transforming the country.

When pressed about their eloquent silence on the biggest kleptocracy case that the whole world is talking about, Pemandu’s thundering  reply was that, among others, it has arrested a number of “Tan Sris” and “Datuk”. 

Really?  The whole village knew about an elephant’s carcass in the room, yet Pemandu seems to be olfactory challenged and tip-toed meekly around the stench.

Enough is enough. 

We can conclude that the Pemandu team members are evidently not very good at their work and one is well justified to ask whether they have also been honest.

Its reputation wrecked, due to its wretched performance. Despite the government spending more than half a billion ringgit of our money, and despite having the largest government “delivery unit” in the world ,when similar units in other countries comprised only about six to 16 workers, the “transformation” has failed dismally. The country is paying the price of Pemandu’s failure. Their attitude is no a laughing matter, it hurts millions of Malaysians.

Finally, since Pemandu claimed that it has been “transparent and proactive in reporting”, why not step up to the challenge and kindly publish the full list of all the consultants engaged and their fees and nature of work done, and the detailed costs on Pemandu staff salaries and benefits.

Do not omit to also show us the clients of Pemandu Associates, and tell us that there is no deviation from global best practices  and good governance for Pemandu Associates in the process to secure consultancy services provided to foreign governments and to the Malaysian government.

What better way to clear your reputation than to embrace the proposal for an open inquiry into the affairs of Pemandu and its new entity Pemandu Associates. If there is any wrongdoing, those involved should be in jail. And for a very long time. Shame on you, Pemandu. – May 3, 2017.

* Osman Jailani is a The Malaysian Insight reader.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.