The Government is the douchebag. Petronas has paid RM335 billions in past 30 years.

Mahendran, there’s nothing wrong with defending Petronas. You should always defend Petronas. Chances are, if you are a Malaysian citizen, many of your family members or friends were indebted to the company’s successes in the near past, directly or indirectly.

Petronas can b compared to wat most other country would have as Ministry of Oil/Petroleum … but just tat they act independently as a private company. THeir profit should be seen as a company’s profit tat would be used for future growth etc…and lets not forget, petronas does embark on many community-projects all..

I would agree with what Khairil stated above, the problem is not bout Petronas, is bout how those in power allocates and uses the oil-money.

(oooh yeaah~~ OMG i defended petronas! :p )

The thing is, Petronas is a corporation, not our (pocket) welfare department. True, it is a government owned public listed company (i.e. government is the shareholder) and indirectly we own the company because morally we “own” the government. But a point to note that a shareholder is merely supplier of funds (who get returns on the money they invested), the company is completely a saperate person. Hence, shareholder’s intervention in how the company should use its money is an inteference and is very unbecoming.

If we look at the history of Petronas, it was corporatised (from a mere [corruptible] government agency, if not mistaken) to fully exploit our natural resources. but since I do not know when people started to have the idea that the company should contribute in lessening the burden of the people just because it made a lot of money that it could afford (once) the tallest building in the world.

All monies the company used to fund projects should be considered as investments of which returns are expected. That’s how a company creates value for its shareholder (as in our case, the government). Unless of course if we want to have the first not-for-profit oil and gas company in the world. We do love record-breaking achievements, dont we?

The problem is not about Petronas refusing to fund the building of each jambatan to connect all islands in Malaysia. It is with the government which has failed to fairly spread the wealth it gains from the company i.e taxes, investment returns, royalties, etc. If Petronas makes so much money but retaining most of its profits, then I don’t see any problem the government should tax the company more. If oil royalties paid to the government seemed to little, make them pay more.

That’s what our lawmakers should do. They have the means to make not only Petronas, but other super duper kaya raya companies in the country to actually lessen the people’s financial burdens. Then, it all goes into the yearly budget. How many of us are really paying attention to it. Have our budgets in the past being scrutinised in the parliament. Again, this is where our legislators come in. All we heard every year were “caring budget”, “consumer friendly budget”, “budget to make poverty history”.

For goodness’ sake, elected representatives stop trying to control how Petronas should be ran which they can never ever do. Just do your job. There are many other fat-pokected companies in our country hiding their ass. Look at the bloody big picture.

Sorry if its too long. I’ve just got plenty of time to kill in the airport.

Petronas is an incorporated company. Read its M&A and the Act of Parliament setting it up because what Petronas can or cannot do with its money is set out there. I don’t think the Government will change the law to suit the opposition.

Why don’t you campaign for subsidies that benefit the Rakyat directly who really need it rather than subsidies that benefit the rich who don’t need it and the foreigners (both legally or illegally in Malaysia) who out number our poorand needy Rakyat?

Pax.

Whaaa……? tiba-tiba jer… What does that have to with anything?

Petronas is indeed a government set up to manage our oil resources. It is indeed one of the best oil companies of the world, and it certainly will benefit the people of malaysia in the long run, even now it has helped malaysia as a reputable nation by upbringing the petronas brand to the world.

John has a point there, it is the government’s right (if indeed petronas is “theirs”) to allocate how much money goes into what. But yes, the whole process should be more transparent and it should also skew to the people’s benefits. But to think of it, petronas gives a lot to the people in malaysia, not only in terms of monetary profits, so that’s something to talk about too.

I’ll also take this opportunity to point out that there are far better things to spend our oil money on than subsidising petrol, and that I hope the opposition stops shilling for such policies.