COMMENT | Two-time prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad - for 22 years and then 22 months - easily forgets these days. He recently expressed sadness that Malays were still poor, lamenting their backwardness relative to other races.

But why are the Malays poor, Mahathir? The truth is that they are poor because of you, Mahathir, you ignored them for the nearly 24 years when you were in power - you were too busy making Malay (and non-Malay) billionaires, including one or two of your children and saving them from ruin as well.

What was it that you did for the poor Malay, or for that matter any poor Malaysian? In the last 42 years, you were PM for almost 24 years, 57 percent of the time. You had every opportunity to take care of the poor, but you did not. Because you were focused on the rich.

You wanted to create world-class billionaires and businesses from a country whose income was middling - how is that possible? The only way you develop a country and increase its gross national income is to increase productivity and pay everyone a decent wage.

The only way you get many billionaires in a poor country is when you give away the country’s precious resources in return for your own well-being and the well-being of your party and politicians from your party who got kickbacks aplenty from these businesses and businessmen.

You cultivated a coterie of billionaires by...