On Wednesday evening of 25 February 2009, 7 other bloggers and I were invited by Sime Darby Berhad’s Chairman, Tun Musa Hitam, and its President and Group Chief Executive, Dato’ Seri Ahmad Zubir Murshid, to a dinner at its Convention Centre at Bukit Kiara. Head of Corporate Social Responsibilty & Group Communications and Corporate Affairs, Leela Barrock, was also present.
The reason why I was invited was because I was one of the ‘bloggers’ who had been critical of Sime Darby’s involvement in the IJN and LCCT @ Labu issues that ended with the conglomerate abandoning the projects. I also agreed to attend only because I sensed there was sincerity on their part to engage bloggers instead of just having the function as a mere PR exercise to gloss things over.
The tone of the evening was set when Tun Musa started off by saying that all he wanted to do was “for us to just sit down and talk about nothing, especially with those who are critical of us.”
Talk we did and the “nothing” bit was Tun’s way of saying nothing is sacrosanct and don’t be afraid to ask. He also added, “We believe in good governance and we want to be transparent about what we do. When we make mistakes we want to know where and we’ll fix them.”
Blogger Datuk A Kadir Jasin was quick to the point and led by going straight to ‘talk’ about the IJN controversy, followed by LCCT @ Labu. What was revealing was the fact that Sime Darby was caught off-guard and was a victim of its own corporate governance when it came to both issues. According to Dato’ Seri Ahmad Zubir, Sime Darby will never make any comment or announcement regarding any project until and unless they had solid “black & white” and only after conforming to the company’s and Bursa Malaysia’s requirements.
All said, while Sime Darby was busy doing the governance needful, they left a vacuum a little too long that was quickly filled with speculations and diatribes. Oppositions to the projects from the public came so fast and furious that anything Sime Darby should say after that would be seen as attempts at rationalization and back-pedalling.
Admittedly, Sime Darby (whose background is one nurtured in government) had problems in their Public Relations department – they never had any! Tun Musa also admitted that Sime Darby had Fox Media but Fox Media failed miserably in the public relations exercise and that’s why Leela Barrock has recently come on board to rectify that weakness.
At the informal dinner that took 4 hours, we talked about many issues. I came out of it feeling that Sime Darby is serious about transparency, governance and corruption and is not afraid to admit their mistakes. If it takes to meet up with bloggers to hear their views they will do it.
Tun Musa said Sime Darby will continue to engage bloggers. “We are in the age of digital democracy and the old ways of doing things are gone. We will have to change and keep up with the times.”
I will give Sime Darby the benefit of the doubt and wish other corporations would emulate the conglomerate by engaging bloggers and practising transparency and true governance.
* The bloggers who were present: Datuk A Kadir Jasin (The Scribe), Ahirudin Atan (Rocky
