YOURSAY | 'A single supplier? Anyone who's played 'Monopoly' will know what happens next.'

All Mara Digital products to go through sole bumi company

Gaji Buta: Wow, it's so easy to run a business. Just wait for sole supplier WGN Innovation Frontiers to source, vet and hand over the items to the traders to sell, and pass them back to WGN should there be any complaints/defects.

The traders just act as postmen. I wonder how much business skills they would gain. In the end, the non-Malays may get blamed again.

Mojo Jojo: This defies logic. In principle, a retailer who manages to source for goods that are cheaper than what WGN offers can't sell his or her products if WGN says 'no.'

In any case, why would WGN say 'yes' to approving such retail purchases when it means less profit for WGN?

Going by this line of reasoning, we see one thing: the age-old adage of "buy low, sell high" doesn't apply here. No, what is truly in place is the BN principle of "buy high and sell even higher".

If Rural and Regional Development Minister Ismail Sabri Yaacob truly cares about the entrepreneurial "plight" of bumiputera, he sure has a very strange way of showing it.

Odin Tajué: Ismail Sabri, the system that you are putting in place announces very loudly and very clearly that:

1) You are abysmally ignorant and thus grossly incompetent.

2) Why the Malays cannot, generally speaking, match the Chinese and the Indians in business.

I will now explain point no 2 by giving you an example. I know a Chinese who started off some eight years ago selling those unsmart phones and top-up cards.

He did not just sell those phones; he actually knew how to repair or upgrade them, depending on his customers' needs or requests, because before he went into his business he took the trouble to equip himself with the necessary product and technical knowledge and technical skill.

Naturally, with that sort of background, he can tell what are knock-offs and what are authentic. Therefore, he need not go through any middle party such as your WGN to determine the authenticity or otherwise of the phones that he intended to stock and sell. And therefore, he loses nothing to a middle party.

In the case of your Mara Digital Mall, it would seem that those Malay vendors will merely sell whichever of the two types of products, or both, and of which they have no product knowledge and no technical skill to execute repairs, upgrading, or modifying.

This means that they will rely only on the profits they will have made on sales and earn no revenues from repairs, servicing and the rest of it.

In order to be competitive vis-à-vis other vendors in the same mall, each of them would have to operate on smaller margins - margins already made small by the WGN having either to charge them some kind of a fee, or to mark up the prices of the products before distribution to them.

In view of all this, one seriously doubts that those vendors will last long after they will have to pay for the rental of their shop space. Anyway, it is your and the vendors' funeral, in a manner of speaking.

Kudaku Lari: The truth is finally revealed. WGN is appointed to solely milk the bumiputera companies. I wonder who is the real owner. Another crony company?

Nippon: This is truly Umno's way of helping the Malays. Another middleman to squeeze the poor Malay retailers.

Instead of going direct to the source, now there is an appointed middleman. How much do they have to pay them?

Fairnsquare: In business when the term "sole" is used, the practice of monopoly follows, resulting in unfair practises, kickbacks and all other corrupt practices.

Is this how you build bumiputera entrepreneurship? How idiotic.

Yap CS: A single supplier? Anyone who has played 'Monopoly' will know what happens next. The fleecing is now revealed. Perhaps the targeted people will now realise who is sucking their blood all along.

Ruslan Bahari: Ah, so the penny's dropped. The solution is to remove the middlemen, not to introduce them.

Cks: Indeed, what entrepreneurial skills can the bumi traders acquire if they get the same products from one single supplier?

Az: So now the real reason is revealed as to why the minister was so keen to have this mall. I would check on who the beneficiaries of this company appointed to check the authenticity of the goods are.

Orang Asal: What's the big deal? Ahmad will call from his bedroom. Ah Seng will be doing the running around and supply the products. Ah Pek will do the technical work in the background.

Siti and Ali will do the fronting of the stall. Bottom line - prices will go up.

Discovery: How could Ismail Sabri not see the folly of his actions by having one company monopolising the supply of products?

This is another Umno scam to cheat its own people by letting a crony to monopolise the supply and make money out of its own people.

Very soon, the Malays will see the real situation and move to stores like Low Yat or Kota Raya where they can shop for the best price and from shops providing the best service.

Whatsup: So, that's the main reason for this mall. A crony acts as the middleman to siphon more money from the racially-motivated and ignorant tenants. Greed knows no bound for Umno cronies.

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