If you can change the world... or perhaps just one person's thinking..

1. I am confronted with the possibility of putting myself right in the middle of the crossfire - the MRT project, with a controversial contract owner as a potential employer. As always, I'd need to examine my heart and pray the istikharah - not that I have even attended the interview.
2. To do this, I need to have a sincere positioning as to this opening. What is my role, and this role must be one that I can live with. Of course, the devil uses all sorts of bogeys to prevent decisiveness and encourage uncertainties - but alhamdulillah Allah has provided aql and also to reach out to Allah for hidayah.
3. Principles are as below:
• That I benefit the most people in my position of responsibility
• That I uphold truth and justice in my dealings. While this means exercising independent thought, this also means being able to discern the different roles of the different stakeholders.
• That I have the opportunity to do good to my family and to myself.. ie leave a legacy. 
4.  Now I've got that out of the way, let's examine facts about the MRT.
• by all accounts, extremely high cost vs all others. I'm not sure if inflationary effects and base raw material effects have been included in the consideration, but surely that is a question to be asked? Are the specifications common or there are additional features in the Malaysian design that seemingly inflated the costs to most worrying levels.
• That it seems rushed. The alignment has still not been sorted out for the Jalan Sultan, TTDI and perhaps other locations. The overall MRT masterplan is still out there somewhere. Yet this unsolicited MMC-Gamuda bid has been awarded at this inflated cost.
• Speaking of costs, does the Govt know how to value projects of this size? My prior experience in PBX2 seems to indicate they have no idea and the fact that there is willingness for the public sector to fund private sector profits indicate they are ignorant of a proper funding structure for these PPP/PFI type projects.
• Auctioneering is necessary otherwise government will always be beholden. Will the private sector refuse generous terms? Are there kickbacks involved? I wouldnt want to know if there are - but these are dangerous times to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to this types of development. The Arab Spring had "sprung" up in reaction to raging impotence to a sense of injustice. RM36b - RM50b can do that. The question will be what is the funding structure? Refusal to have open tenders, or a token Swiss Challenge, is insufficient.
• But again, Government is probably a bit smarter in that there is the added layer of building a "world-class private sector objective", although in this case, privatising profits is a strange way of doing it. There should be no additional subsidies / grants to support financing given the ridiculous profit margins for this and to consider the construction as purely a private sector play. Having said that, where is the breakeven for the operators?
• And here GoM has the trumpcard of a property play for the sites. And so, there is the answer for a rather complex equation. Does this mean the numbers work out? That remains to be seen.
5. So what would my role be? Primarily to deliver value to the company, increase credibility of the engineering profession, and ensure I turn out fine insyaAllah. May Allah guide me in my affairs.

GE13 considerations: what should the outcome be?

1. A DA process would begin with identifying a decision statement and then identifying the objectives of the decision. In this case, what is the best possible GE13 outcome for Malaysia?
2. Best outcome will be where:
• the long-suffering Malaysian rakyat get their rights protected against injustice, such as what Abu Bakar had said in his ascension as the first Caliph, I have been given the authority over you, and I am not the best of you. If I do well, help me; and if I do wrong, set me right. Sincere regard for truth is loyalty and disregard for truth is treachery. The weak amongst you shall be strong with me until I have secured his rights, if God wills; and the strong amongst you shall be weak with me until I have wrested from him the rights of others, if God wills. Obey me so long as I obey God and His Messenger. But if I disobey God and His Messenger, ye owe me no obedience. Arise for your prayer, God have mercy upon you.
• the economy moving steadily in the right-direction, which we can clarify further to mean that private businesses get a chance to prosper and grow, where proactive government policies create a level playing field to promote 
• a leader for the leaderless malays, setting a malay-muslim development policy that replaces the what was then necessary but now needs tweaking NEP, one that builds upon 'let's help the helpless malays' (and look at the political support we are getting!) to one that builds on the policies espoused by Saidina Abu Bakr about egalitarianism, firstly amongst the malay community and then amongst the wider community until such time meritocracy is fully workable (notice the subtle insinuation that meritocracy brings). To that end, I fully expect the GLCs to be where they are supposed to be - an open, diverse community without the artificial barriers that has been built-in within the policies, the government ministries to be scaled down and has greater multi-ethnic representation at all levels and not so much a quota-filling exercise (not to mention less politicking please). And all this must be done while ensuring the "helpless malays" change the subsidy mentality - hence a strong mandate is required for one or the other.

Dogmatism of Islamic Finance: Middle-East standards vs Malaysian-standards

This Vellfire business is made unnecessarily complicated by lack of an initial uninformed choice. Choice was of financing from Rajhi waving the Middle-Eastern corner against Maybank Islamic waving the Malaysian standards. Below are my findings:

1. Standards
Rajhi uses BBA - ie Bank purchases car and sells to customer at upside with staggered financing payments. Pure sale-purchase agreement and opts out of the hire-purchase conditions. The SPA absorbs any of the conditions within the HP Act that does not contravene the Syariah to protect the bank.

Maybank uses the typical Malaysian standard that tacks on Syariah-compliant contracts to existing transaction.

This is where philosophies differ. Whilst Rajhi's standards are stricter and more compliant given the fundamental structure of the transaction, are we to say that the contracts entered with Malaysian islamic banks are not? If so, where? Is it in the intention of the banks as a hillah? If so, who decides on this? Is this allowed on the basis of daruriyyah, which incidentally is difficult to ascertain, just as it is difficult to ascertain hillah on the part of the bank.

I would suggest that the daruriyyah is in the form of having a stronger Islamic bank presence against the conventional bank presence, and to argue one is better than the other is futile and only encourages meaningless cannibalisation of the same niche customer market. In this situation, the preference is with the Middle East standards only if other criteria are evenly matched. To use an inappropriate word in this case, I would suggest that the customer is agnostic in terms of standards as long as there is Syariah compliant acknowledgment by an established and reputable Islamic finance regulator.

2. Customer orientation and protection
The BBA allows banks to set a security deposit if required. I'm not sure of the equivalent in the AITAB but I dont recall of any such conditions. The other departure will be the purchase price with the dealer, where the Bank will pay full amount regardless of booking fee, in which case customer will have to bear ther burden of recovering the booking fee from the dealer later. To note that even in the BBA, a JPJ K3 form allowing repossession is similarly required.

These departures need to be communicated to the customer as well as the dealer upfront, as in this case, I'd need to bear the risk of non-retrieval of the booking fee, especially so when there are certain conditions that I have agreed with Jack how the final product will look like, ie pro-bono accessories of LCD, colour change, and what have yous have been agreed beforehand.

At the same time the rates are 2.48% pa, much higher than what I had asked for at 2.45%. And without ascertaining with me, the loan tenure was set at 9 years when I was actually considering 6 years. Maybank didnt flinch when I asked 2.40% and eventually agreed on 2.42%.


3. Services
This is the weakest area of the lot. After 2 weeks of haggling, I've yet to cross the finish line. With clearer expectations, I would be able to understand these changes but perhaps not at this stage. With 4 people running around and motivation flagging when Saudi dignitaries are expected to visit and all, I need to pull the trigger.

My promise though was this - I'll be back to consider them when the time comes later.

Wisdom-oriented direction

1.       I’d like to achieve wisdom. The kind where I can read what this mat Salleh write, and I don’t go into automatic naivete mode thinking how great their research has been, but that it is merely a teaser to their greatest strength, which is to market and influence others to believe in their superiority. The internet does not help to overcome this inferiority complex.

2.       So what should happen is that the automatic reflex is to chunk up the information up to understanding people’s motivations, which are by and large driven by materialistic and capitalistic tendencies.

3.       Big question is, am I already afflicted? Take today’s call from a potential DF buyer. It was quite clear that I wanted the deal to be purely on price, but did I need to be unnecessarily harsh? Even with the agent? Where is my akhlak? It is in moments like this that I despair of what I have become after almost four years here. Nevertheless this is what I need to overcome. Ensure the automatic response is the ones not meant to impress the capitalists, but one where I can use the brief transactional exchange to further the image of Islam, to please Allah.

4.       It then becomes quite clear that I’d need to fill up my spiritual self with love of the Word of Allah, as that IS wisdom. How far apart have I gone? I need to come back. As it is, this already a poor influence on others in my family.

5.       Then it comes back to this Decision. The risks. The potential opportunities. All driven with sustaining the current lifestyle – but the real non-variable should be that family development will go by the rails / guidance that has been shown in light of this Wisdom. Hubbud-dunya wakara hiyatul mawut. Again, such a sensitive decision and how I need to deal with this with akhlak.

6.       Then the question is how do I deal with the naysayers, even those close to me? Challenge is to derisk all possible initiatives carefully, and to take care that it’s not about not taking risks, but to take carefully evaluated risks.

7.       But the other point is on courage and determination. And this comes from my relationship with Allah. The tawakkal part. While at the same time ensuring that I commit fully to the project. There is no shortcut. There is no exit. And realizing that the relationship with Allah is not because I have something that I want or need, but it is because He is the Almighty  Creator that I bow down to.

8.       And then again realizing how far away I’ve dropped off to. And how far is the distance that I need to close, but only then comforted by the fact that if I walk towards Allah, Allah will run towards me. I have had my share of the darkness. This is but one of those episodes. Do I then throw my hands up in the air or do I try to find a light?