Bravo! 2,738 business applicants have been successful in getting their arses saved by the government.

I am talking about The Star's article today on "SJPP approves RM3.5 bil loans" (Star Biz headlines). It was reported that Syarikat Jaminan Pembiayaan Perniagaan Bhd. ("SJPP") has thus far approved RM3,500,000,000 (that's a whole lot of zeros dei!!!) worth of financing to 'eligible' companies to help them survive this economic downturn. Basically, something like what the US is doing in keeping the likes of Citibank and AIG afloat with taxpayer's money - the now taboo term called 'government bailout'. Only slightly different, our government (SJPP is owned by the Minister of Finance Inc.) does not disburse the money direct but stands as an 80% guarantor for the loans disbursed to these 'eligible' companies.

Key point - if the beneficiary company does not repay the loan, the government will have to repay the bank with your money... and mine too!

That leads us to the question of who are these recipients of which we, the rakyat, are standing for as guarantor? How transparent is SJPP going to be on this? Will we, the guarantors, get to know what measures are being put in place by the recipients of the loans to ensure that they will not default on their repayments or worse, run off with the loan money?

So far RM3,500,000,000 have been approved. The total available under 2 separate funds is RM10,000,000,000. Yes! Whopping figures! Much larger than a Double Whopper burger. 99.99% of Malaysians will never come close to seeing this kind of money in their bank accounts.

Back to my question on transparency. Where can we taxpayers find out who are the beneficiaries of this scheme? Can we go to SJPP's website (http://www.sjpp.com.my/) to retrieve the list of names of the beneficiaries? So far I can't find any at SJPP's website.

Who are the directors and shareholders of the recipient companies? We taxpayers have the right to know. And we need to have an update on their loan status. Have they been making monthly on-time repayments? Is anyone in SJPP monitoring this? If a system is in place, then it is not very troublesome to post this on SJPP's website.

Can we have these disclosures on SJPP's website like how the PLCs post their announcements on Bursa's website. After all, is this not of public interest? A PLC has got a whole lot of disclosure requirements for the sake of good governance as the interests of the public is at stake. Even in a PLC's annual return and quarterly reportings the PLC is required to disclose who the PLC stands for as guarantor. That is just a PLC of which the interested public is more often than not its shareholders. SJPP has a much much wider interested party. Approximately 27 million of them.

We the guarantors have the right to know and keep a close eye on these recipients. No, there cannot be confidentiality. This is not between the recipient and his bank. This is between the recipient and all of us. If you require so much confidentiality, then please get someone else as your guarantor.

Mr. Minister of Finance cum Prime Minister, please look into this. You are calling for transparency here, there and everywhere. What about this RM10,000,000,000 that you may or may not have to disburse. By the time you have to disburse this much money, it may be too late for us to be calling for your blood. Another PKFZ in the making? I hope not.

And in the case of the most unfortunate of events that this turns into another scam, of which the chances are damn blardie high, remember, Simon Templar has warned you rakyat Malaysia on this.