The Wealth of the House of Daim
The Pandora Papers – documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) on tax havens used by the rich and powerful – released recently have shown Malaysia how rich our former Minister of Finance, Tun Daim Zainuddin, actually is.
In a widely circulated report by Malaysiakini, around RM 141 million in companies and trusts based offshore are held by Daim’s wife, children, and known associates.
Most notably, two of his sons were named owners of a British Virgin Islands firm, Newton Invest & Finance Limited, when they were both nine and twelve years old respectively.
As they grew older, they ended up owning several other offshore firms set up in the British Virgin Islands and other tax havens as well, including one which held London properties worth about RM 65 million at the time.
Despite offshore trusts being legal, one should wonder how a former Minister is able to amass such a fortune.
Daim’s humble beginnings as a Magistrate before transitioning into business, and eventually politics, deserves more scrutiny from the public. Despite his insistence to the public that all of his businesses before and after his two time tenure as Minister of Finance (from 1984 – 1991, and again from 1999 – 2001) were done legitimately, it is simply illogical that one can amass such wealth without any favours from the power that be.
Daim’s various businesses, which started with his venture into real estate and eventually into banking (with interests in multiple banks globally till today, most notably in ICB Banking Group, which was one listed in the London Alternative Investment Market), was also marked with his forays into various government linked agencies and companies such as Peremba and UDA Holdings – which gave us a host of crony capitalists who are still plaguing us with their greed.
Source: http://www.kinibiz.com/story/issues/27907/could-halim-have-done-it-on-his-own.html
During all those years, the former MP and Senator was also appointed as the chairman of Fleet Holdings Sdn Bhd, an UMNO holdings company, during Tun Dr Mahathir’s first tenure as PM, during which the company saw many corporate dealings befitting the excesses of the 1980s.
His chumminess with Tun Dr Mahathir no doubt benefited both of them. Daim’s proven prowess in business, as well as the sheer power from the Prime Minister himself, cemented their own legacies and safeguarded the wellbeing of their children and grandchildren for decades and even centuries. These two essentially form the nexus of crony capitalism as we know it.
With all of this being said it is not surprising that he ended up as a very wealthy retiree. The bigger question should be on why he insisted on keeping most of his wealth in trust accounts and shell companies overseas, if they were legal to begin with? Could it be the very person who went all out against the former BN government corruption may not be so clean after all? At the end of the day how much tax revenue are we losing from Daim hiding his wealth overseas?
Daim’s success is a result of the New Economic Policy aimed at empowering Bumiputera and closing the wealth gap, no doubt. However, Bumiputera ownership in Malaysian equities and Bumiputera wealth only grew a dismal amount comparative to the growth of his own wealth. Many Malaysians are still living below the poverty line, which has exacerbated even more with the pandemic, while Daim and his friends, family, are still cushioned comfortably at the top.
While Daim may have called members of the media obsessive for scrutinising his wealth, the media is actually doing the public a favour. In the years to come, even after his death, the public would be better off keeping an eye on his family’s wealth – to ensure the same would never happen again, no matter how “legal” it is.
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