NST: SOUGHT FOR HIS WEALTH OF IDEAS

PEMBETULAN KESILAPAN DAN PENJELASAN

Di bawah ini tertera satu rencana mengenai Tan Sri Sanusi Junid yang dimuatkan dalam suratkhabar New Straits Times pada 21hb November, 2011.

Oleh kerana ada beberapa fakta yang yang tidak tepat, samada kerana salah faham waktu Tan Sri Sanusi diwawancara, atau hanya kerana salah cetak, atau tertinggal apabila diedit sebelum diterbitkan, maka saya turunkan petikan yang relevan dari wawancara yang panjang itu untuk rencana ini dengan sedikit pembetulan dan penjelasan yang difikirkan perlu.

Banyak fakta dan pandangan lain yang tidak diterbitkan sementara pembetulan dan penjelasan ini dibuat hanya jika ada kaitan dengan isi rencana yang dicetak. Yang dibetulkan atau diperjelaskan tertaip secara 'italics'.

Fahmi M. Nasir,
Penyelidik di Perpustakaan Toeti Juairiah.

Unstoppable Tan Sri Sanusi Junid recalls the genesis of his oratory skills and his many ideas

By R. Sithamparam

A speech Tan Sri Sanusi Junid delivered at the 1993 Umno general assembly must rank as one of his best.

Leaving for Rome, to attend the FAO conference, and trailing in the vice-presidency contest, Sanusi, who was then an incumbent vice-president and agriculture minister, showed a set of ringgit notes, and proceeded to captivate the political audience with a rendition on matters of honour and money politics.

Last week, Sanusi, now 68, related to the New Straits Times the genesis of his story-telling repertoire.

His father,  Junid Cut Li, who refused to be a citizen of a Dutch colony, Indonesia, or a British colony, had only a driving license which could be obtained easily at that time (1942), by just anybody, from RIMV through a driving school, worked in Malaya, delivering fish  from Kuala Kedah fishing boats, which at that time could unload their catches at a jetty in Alor Setar, to the markets in Ipoh.

During the weekend trips, the 10-year-old Sanusi would follow his father. Dad would regale his son with stories of the great prophets.

"At the market in Ipoh, he would put me on a wooden crate and ask me to narrate the stories he had told me earlier in the journey."

The market hands would then subject the  young Sanusi to a question-and-answer session. For questions that he could not answer his father gave him books to read where he could find the answers by himself.

Dad, who died two years later, insisted that Sanusi learn shorthand, typing, cooking and tennis.

The last would get him to meet VIPs, or so dad had thought, only to be reminded by the son that golf was a better door-opener. There was a golf course at that time in Sungei Petani where the British officers of the Gurkha regiment passed their time. The Gurkha regiment's camp was behind the Ibrahim School compound.

The golf course in Sungei Petani, as that in Taiping, due to rainfall, have soft grounds which necessitate the employment of assistant caddies who waited at the end of the fairway to see where the golf balls sunk into the ground. Assistant caddies were the smaller boys who could not carry a golf bag and there was no buggy in those days.

Sanusi was supposed to go to  Malay College  Kuala Kangsar (MCKK) at 12, but ended up as a dishwasher in a Mamak stall at the railway station in Kuala Kangsar -- being rejected, by the college headmaster Mr. Howell because Sanusi did not bring enough shirts, trousers, singlets, underwear, socks and shoes as a pre-condition for entry. Sanusi brought only two pairs of each as, he thought, he could wash and dry one pair while using the other.

Sanusi could not get home, as his adopted brother Thangimalai who later became Talib bin Abdullah, who accompanied him to the college, had earlier returned home, and Sanusi got a job at mamak stall at the Kuala Kangsar railway station.

Two weeks later, he gained admission into MCKK on scholarship plus RM20-00 per month of pocket money. It was a science teacher Mr. Tara Singh who came for his tosai at the mamak stall who found out that the dishwasher was the candidate for his class who had not reported himself for study for around three months.

The then headmaster, Mr. N. J. Ryan, who just took over from Mr. Howell, liked what he heard about the role of Sanusi's forefathers in Aceh during  Dutch rule. The late Mr. Ryan was a historian who wrote a great deal on Malaya and Southeast Asia.

A decade later, Sanusi was  on Hyde Park's soapbox in support of  (now Tun) Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who had been sacked from Umno.

Earlier, Sanusi's shorthand and typing skills saw him taking down  minutes for Majid Baba, the then Youth chief of a Seremban Bandar Umno branch.

Majid, chief office boy, was Sanusi's subordinate at  Chartered Bank.

Sanusi said it was his golf caddying from primary school, right through his MCKK days, that helped him land the bank job.

"At that time, Chartered Bank manager Mr. Charles McGregor, who I was caddying for, suggested that I become  a banker'.

Sanusi told Charles McGregor that he was fed up with the government who refused him the scholarship for a professional study in medicine, engineering or accounting. Sanusi was not inclined to architecture as he was not good at drawing and his village elders were against the kampung folk studying law as it was than not the Syariah. He later rejected a scholarship for mathematics at a local university.

Replying to Sanusi on what a banker performs Charless McGregor told Sanusi that 'a banker is a man who studies economics but not enough to be an economist, who studies law but not enough to be a lawyer and who studies accounting but not enough to be an accountant'. Sanusi was not interested in studying 'not enough' in anything, but was interested in banking because banking deals with money.

"He asked me to come for an interview at his bank and subsequently posted me to the Seremban Chartered Bank to become a trainees officer." Tun Abdul Razak was at that time urging the private sector to employ more Malays at executive levels. Sanusi's entry into banking was encouraged by his uncle Tan Sri Hanafiah Husin who was an MP and treasurer of UMNO at that time. Tan Sri Hanafiah was also the first Malaysian to be qualified as a Chartered Accountant.

This political veteran's  cooking skills also  cannot be denied.

It was this skill that helped Sanusi earn extra cash while continuing his studies in Germany.

"I distributed pamphlets promoting my "Exotic Asian Dishes" in the neighbourhood and had  about 10 customers dining at my house on some weekends."

Still on food and beverages, as agriculture minister, he turned around  coconut production by promoting air kelapa muda (coconut drink).

Every now and then, roof-top padi cultivation, international coconut tree climbing, and collecting tyres for artificial reefs, were criticised as his  "crazy" ideas. This roof-top padi cultivation was first mentioned after Sanusi visited the house of Vincent Siow in Taipei, Taiwan and saw Vincent's wife going out to the roof of the house with a torch-light attached to her head while carrying to pails, one with water and the other with fertilizer. She told Sanusi that he grows padi on the roof-top as a hobby but profitable. Vincent Siow later became the Prime Minister of Taiwan and later on promoted to Deputy President.

When faced with shortage of land for housing, around Alor Setar, and the first class padi fields, in MADA areas, which was a successful and highly praised World Bank supported project, was not to be reduced in acreage, the only choice was to use some of the padi fields for housing and in order not to reduce the acreage of padi growing areas the equivalent acreage on the roof tops could be a compensation.

This pilot project was built by MADA in Paya Pahlawan, Kubang Pasu and it was found very viable. Though highly criticised by rival politicians, multi-stories agriculture activities are now undertaken in the United States, Europe and China not only because of shortage of land around the cities but also because of exorbitant transport cost for the vegetables and fruits being brought from far away farms.

Last week, recuperating from a heart ailment, Sanusi was still brimming with ideas.

Besides helping out at his family 'guest-house' in Bangsar here, he is much sought after for his ideas.