This Malaysian applied for a RM20K grant from MARA, but had to pay RM10K for it

For all its controversies, Majlis Amanah Rakyat (MARA) has contributed lots of good to its intended demographic, having pumped millions of Ringgit into SME capital injections, as well as providing free online training for entrepreneurs during the MCO.

But despite their self-proclaimed role of  ‘spearheading the fields of entrepreneurship, education and investment to enhance equity holding of Bumiputera’, MARA just can’t seem to stay out of trouble; they’ve found themselves embroiled in several shady incidents, with one even extending as far as Singapore and Australia.

And now, they may have to add another to their list of alleged mishaps. At the end of April, we received a press release from Syed Muhammad Faiz, a business owner from Cyberjaya who claimed to have been a ‘victim’ of MARA’s alleged wrongdoings. So we decided to reach out to him and find out the tea on the situation.

It all began with a MARA ad offering RM20K financial aid for Bumiputera companies

Like many Malaysians, Faiz’s business was hit hard during the financial downturn of the MCO. So when he found a poster ad offering RM20,000 in financial assistance for Bumiputera digital business owners, he didn’t need much convincing, and applied for it. The initiative, according to Faiz, was part of MARA’s BASE (Business Advancement and Standard Development) programme.

Despite going through what he described as a ‘manual and tedious’ process, he was impressed by the professionalism of the MARA officer, which further assured him. However, when it got down to the nitty-gritty details of the deal, Faiz was surprised by a requirement allegedly stating that he had to pay RM10,000 in ‘service charges/company contribution’:

“This commitment was not mentioned when the offer was made; MARA only told us about it when we were right about to sign the deal.” – Faiz

It was at this point that he began to feel suspicious about MARA’s intentions, especially since MARA was asking for money directly and not via a third-party contractor, which he claims is often the case with agreements such as these:

“Indeed, I have dealt with Cradle, MOSTI, SKMM previously regarding grants, nothing like this la… I think that even with other agencies they would never take money from any company, they would say ‘can you pay to your contractor?’ and whatnot. They would never ask you for money to be paid to them, to the agency.” – Faiz

He began asking questions that many other people in that situation would likely have asked, like: “Why should a struggling company have to pay 50% of the assistance fund?”, and “Why wasn’t this payment mentioned in the ads?” But he went through with it anyway, and paid the RM10,000 to MARA. 

Despite the service charge payment, Faiz claimed that MARA never sent the financial aid

Months on, there was still no progress. Faiz had become very disillusioned with MARA.

One thing about MARA is that when you sign up with them, your project has to make some progress. The entrepreneur has to fulfil certain milestones, but because of MARA’s perceived ‘cheekiness’ in asking for his money beforehand, Faiz decided not to pursue his project any further. So when a nervous MARA officer contacted Faiz on his project’s lack of progress, Faiz was no longer keen, and had become rather apathetic:

“At that particular point, they kind of became a bit worried because they felt like ‘oh, I think we’ve fallen into a trap already, because we’ve taken the entrepreneur’s money, but they haven’t benefited anything from MARA’. So that’s when they got a bit worried, because it was evident then that we weren’t interested in doing the project any more.” – Faiz

On the 27th of August 2021, more than a year after Faiz found the MARA ad, Faiz decided enough was enough, and wrote to MARA for a refund:

“They never paid that RM20,000 as advertised. So what was supposed to happen was that they were supposed to pay that RM20,000 to an appointed contractor (whom we’d already engaged), but because we wrote a complaint to them to say ‘eh look, we already paid RM10,000 to you and nothing happened, so therefore we just asked them to return the money. We never received a single cent from MARA.” – Faiz

In other words, he MARAh (sorry, we just had to).

It was at this point that MARA realized they messed up

Cos well, as an agency, you’re not supposed to take someone’s money and do nothing with it. MARA instantly issued Faiz his refund, and that was that. Or so Faiz thought…

Much to his surprise, MARA allegedly decided to take action against two MARA officers who, according to Faiz, were innocent in the context of this whole episode, as it was the Selangor MARA’s main office who had the power to decide on the RM10K collateral.

“One of the officers came to see me at my office to return the cheque for RM10K, and she told me that her position is in danger. I said ‘no la, it has nothing to do with you.’ Then the next day they transferred her and another officer. I felt bad for them; this is the reason I’m picking a fight with MARA.” – Faiz

And all this was allegedly done without consulting Faiz for his side of the story. Faiz strongly believes the two officers were scapegoated to protect MARA’s higher-ups:

“It’s very cartel-like behavior. The backstabbing culture is second nature there. It’s a corrupted work ethic and mentality. Their ways are outdated, but they remain willfully ignorant. ” – Faiz

What’s more is that Faiz claimed that he tried to contact literally everyone to report the issue, from MARA Selangor’s Director Mohammad bin Yatim, to MARA’s Chief Director, to the Ministry of Rural Development, and even Prime Minister Ismail Sabri himself. All gave him the cold shoulder. In fact, he even issued a challenge:

“I would like to be given the chance to meet MARA face-to-face, but they are trying to run away from dealing with any kind of report. All the best with getting MARA to respond. Hopefully they will respond to you.” – Faiz

 

MARA risks undoing all the good it has done in the past with occurrences like this

We mentioned it at the start of the article, but we’ll mention it again: yes, MARA has done some good work, especially in helping the little guys get started on their road to entrepreneurship. But it’s stories like this that has tarnished their reputation among locals. And even if these shady occurrences are in the minority, their lack of communication has not helped them one bit. It’s no wonder that there have been calls for a royal commission to look into MARA’s shortcomings:

“There must at least be a review, even if it takes five years to conduct the review. We must be brave enough to relook at Mara.” – Tun Arshad Ayud, pro-chancellor of UiTM

As of time of writing, MARA has not responded to our attempts to reach out. But of course, they’re welcome to at anytime in order to clear the air.