By Khairul Khalid
A potential downgrade by Fitch Ratings agency caused all sorts of panic among Malaysia’s investors. Was the fear justified or is there more than meets the eye?
In the past few months, Malaysians have been paralysed by fear. People scuttled home from work and bolted their doors. Children stayed away from schools. Shops shut down early. Trains and buses were half-empty. Looming in the dark was a big bad monster, its deadly claws ready to pounce.
Scary scenes from the new dinosaur epic Jurassic World?
Worse. It was the dreaded Fitch Ratings.
The influential credit ratings agency was breathing down Malaysia’s neck, waving its big axe ominously. Fitch was threatening to downgrade the country’s creditworthiness due to various economic and political uncertainties.
Many ordinary, hardworking men and women in Malaysia were, however, quite simply perplexed by Fitch’s various predictions of doom and gloom. Some still saw the brighter side of things.
“Adoi. Why is Fitch so pessimistic. We still have plenty of oil money what,” said Ali Bubba, who sells ayam golek at a Ramadhan bazaar. When reminded that even mighty state oil company Petronas is cutting its budget and expenditure due to the oil crisis, Ali let out a significantly longer refrain of “adoi”.
“Alaa… chill man, don’t let Fitch frighten you. We still have hundreds of thousands of acres of valuable oil palm what,” said Jimmy “Daft” Phang, a popular DJ at 1FM radio station. When told about the troubled plantation giant Felda Global Ventures and its plunging share price, “Daft” Phang’s casual “alaa” turned to a more tense “alamak”.
“Don’t worry. Worst-case scenario, we have our government agencies to help us out and boost small businesses,” said Dudley Saravanan, a real estate agent who flips properties for profit. When told about the brewing Majlis Amanah Rakyat property scandal in Australia, Saravanan himself promptly flipped and slapped his forehead several times.
Some, although ambivalent about Fitch’s rationale and motives, are staunchly against the rating agency’s potentially damaging actions against Malaysia.
“No! No! No!” said Kassim Kyriacos, a half-Malaysian, half-Greek kebab vendor. When asked to elaborate the reasons behind his strong stand against Fitch, Kyriacos again just shouted: “No! No! No!”
Some have no reservations at all in expressing their disgust for Fitch.
“Fitch is pure evil. I stumble and fall every time Fitch opens its mouth,” said Ringgit Singh, a money changer.
Surprisingly, there are those who are actually quite cheerful about the Malaysian economy, despite Fitch’s grim tidings.
“I have no idea what these depressed people are whining about. My business is booming! It shot up 5,000% in the last few weeks,” said Nur Syaheeda, who supplies various types of extra-large sarongs and long pants to government departments and agencies.
Naturally, Malaysian politicians were also up in arms over Fitch’s never-ending bouts of doom-mongering.
Zaheed Pinokio, the outspoken minister in the Department of Self-Defence and Preservation, personally met up with the top management of Fitch, demanding an explanation.
“Why is Fitch doing this to Malaysia? Our economic fundamentals are good and sound. Yes, our ringgit is taking a beating at the moment but exports are still going strong. We have hundreds of billions of cash and foreign reserves. Alright, a few billion are stuck (cough) in mysterious units (cough, cough) here and there (sputter), but overall we are doing just fine. We have nothing to hide (cough, cough,sputter, sputter),” said Pinokio angrily, his nose fast elongating.
The Fitch executive Jho Tattoosh calmly listened to minister Pinokio’s rant and jotted down some notes before replying.
“Look, minister Pinokio. Let’s call a wombat a wombat. Malaysia is still a good country, but you cannot escape the fact that many investors are getting more and more nervous about the shenanigans surrounding the 1Malaysia Development Bhd scandal and the billions of public funds allegedly squandered. But to show that we are reasonable people, we will defer our downgrade for now and revise Malaysia’s outlook to ‘stable’,” said Tattoosh.
“Phew. Thank you,” said minister Pinokio.
“But we will have to issue Malaysia a show cause letter instead. To make sure that you guys get your act together and right the wrongs immediately,” said Tattoosh solemnly.
“What? You can’t be serious. I don’t know what you’re talking about. What have we done wrong?!” said a frustrated minister Pinokio, his nose now a mile long.
Tattoosh winked at minister Pinokio before replying.
“You should know. If you eat chilli, you will feel the heat.”
GRRRRR!!!
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