When beurocracy rules..

By K Ramakrishnan

 

In 1981, former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad started the Amanah Saham Bumiputera for the Malays to uplif their economic status.

When the non-Malays complained, he started the Amanah Saham Permodalan BSN Bhd. And so all the poor Chinese and Indians made a beeline at Bank Simpanan Nasional to buy shares with the hope of securing a better future for themselves and their children.

My late wife persuaded me to buy at least 1,000 units at the price of RM1 per unit. So I bought the units under her name.

We were told to open an account with BSN, which we promptly did and later, my wife received her Amanah Saham Sijil or certificate.

As time passed, the AS Bumiputera was declaring dividends of up to 13% but the shares of the non-Malays continued to tumble. Once in a blue moon, we received dividends in the form of a RM25 voucher.

After all these years, our share is now worth about RM400 in the market.

In 1982, our MIC leaders decided to uplift the Indian community and started a “mega project” called Maika Holdings. The community was given the picture that Maika Holdings would help bring us on par with the other races or at least close to their economic level.

And so the Indians went in droves to banks and pawn shops to gather the funds needed for an investment.

Smitten by the prospect, I took my wife to the UAB Bank in Bangsar those days, and when we reached there, we were shocked to find the queue stretching until the road outside.

It was a very hot morning, and the line was moving very slowly. So I told my wife to wait at the nearby coffeeshop while I waited for my turn.

About an hour later, when she could not stand to see me sweating in the heat, she told me to forget the plan and the decision she made that day was a blessing in disguise as we all know what happened to Maika Holdings.

In 1990, Mahathir gave the Indian community 92 million Telecom shares and the community was once again excited and as usual, started building castles in the air.

After some time, the shares and their castles vanished into thin air.

To hell and back for RM400

Before my wife passed away, she told me that whatever money that was due to her should be given to my grandaughter and in order to honour her wish, I decided to claim the investment from Amanah Saham.

So I went to the BSN branch in Petaling Jaya, Old Town. I took with me all the relevant documents and told the bank that I wanted to sell back my wife’s share. I was given some forms and was told to obtain a certificate of oath from the magistrate’s court. I did the necessary and submitted the documents .

After a month, I received a letter from the bank saying that they had banked in RM100 which was left in my wife’s account. I went back to the bank and enquired about my wife’s share which was worth RM400.

Once again, I was given a set of forms to fill and was told to call them in the next three weeks.

Two weeks later, I received a call asking me to come to the bank. When I went there, I was told that their headquarters in Ampang wanted me to produce a “surat akuan” from the land office or from a lawyer or from Amanah Raya.

I went to the land office located near Dataran Merdeka but was told that the particular section had moved to Jalan Semarak, and since I did not want to drive that far, I came back home. I then asked my daughter to check if there was a land office in Putrajaya, which was closer to where I live.

After numerous phone calls, we found out that a land office exists in Putrajaya and made our way there.

At the land office, an officer told me that he could not help me since my address was in Selangor and suggested that we go to the land office in Kajang. And since there was no Amanah Raya office in Putrajaya either, he gave us the address of the one in Bangi.

Once in Bangi, the officer asked whether my late wife’s parents were alive and if they had passed away, do we have their death cerificates. We told him that my wife’s parents were Singaporeans and had passed away a long time ago.

Following this, I was given another set of forms to fill, including my children’s particulars, and was required to take an oath before the commissioner of oath and fork out a stamp duty of RM10.

The next form was for two witnesses who must be nearly the same age as my late wife as well as another ceritificate of oath from the commissioner of oath.

I was also told that Amanah Raya would charge me RM50 for processing the documents and if there were any mistakes, I would need to start all over again.

From the start, my children told me that it was not worth the hassle and money spent for a meagre sum of RM400. But I told them that it was a matter of principle, not the money.

There must be a system where a small amount could be returned without all this red tape and the need to go through hell and back. There are probably thousands like me, and for some of them, RM400 could mean a lot.

So when people are subjected to such a torturous procedure, most would give up, especially if it involved a small sum, and then after a certain period, the sum would be classified as unclaimed and be absorbed by Amanah Raya or God knows, who else.

Just out of curiosity, I even checked with a legal firm, and the lady who attended to my call had told me: “Uncle, with all the red tapes, it’s not worth it.”

K Ramakrishnan, 74, is a retired civil servant.