A 'trillionaire' descendent of the Emperor of China is the ‘Emperor of Indonesia’?

Enter the ‘Emperor of Indonesia’

 

 By PHILIP GOLINGAI The Star/Asia News Network

A Tanjung Malim-born Dutch citizen claims he is a descendent of the Emperor of China and that his bloodline is linked to royal families in India, Java and Siam.

IT is not every day that you get to meet a trillionaire. So when I was invited to interview Kamal Ashnawi, a person I've never heard of, I said yes.

On Saturday morning, at a Kuala Lumpur hotel coffee house together with two of Kamal's aides, I waited for the so-called trillionaire.

Wearing a baseball cap, long-sleeved shirt and jeans, he sauntered over to our table. The two aides bowed, pressed their palms together to their forehead as if greeting royalty and kissed his hands.

“We call him Tuanku as he is a sultan from Indonesia,” one of the aides whispered to me.

The money trail: Kamal with a document which he claims proves that he is a trillionaire. >>

According to Kamal, he is a Dutch citizen born in Tanjung Malim, Perak, on Jan 1, 1964.

“I'm a descendent of the Emperor of China and in a history that went haywire, my family fled from China to Kedah. I traced my bloodline to the royal families of China, India, Java and Siam,” claimed the man who is also known as Raden Mas Prabhu Gusti Agung Ki Asmoro Wijoyo.

“I grew up in Tanjung Malim and my family here is very simple and ordinary. Nobody in my family talks about our royal blood and wealth. But my grandmother once told me: “You are special and, when the time comes, you will know.”

It was in Holland in the late 1980s that Kamal “found out who he really was”. A member of an Indonesian royal family, kicked out of the country by president Sukarno, told him he was of royal blood.

In London in the early 1990s, a lawyer told Kamal about his royal family's massive wealth. Unconvinced, he told the lawyer to prove his claims.

He and the lawyer flew from London to Hong Kong to meet the “keeper of the royal treasure”. From there, Kamal and the keeper travelled to Kunming in China.



They hiked up a mountain for four hours and reached a cave guarded by an old couple who, Kamal says, are immortals.

“If you tried to pass them without their blessing, you would cough blood and die,” he said.

Inside the three-metre-high cave, Kamal saw gold bars stacked like a pagoda, US$15mil (RM46mil) in jade and US$10mil (RM31mil) in diamonds and stacks of US dollars.

“I took a gold bar and knocked it on a rock. It was really gold. The treasure is the wealth of the dynasties that ruled China. Their wealth was also kept in other mountains and in vaults all over the world,” he said.

About three years ago, when Kamal watched Nicholas Cage's movie National Treasure, he laughed.

“The treasure in the movie was small compared to the wealth I saw in the mountain,” he said.

Next, Kamal told of his meeting two years ago in Kuala Lumpur with Dr Wong Eng Po, a royal physician from China.

Dr Wong placed his hand on Kamal's bald head, then immediately bowed in front of Kamal and ordered his five followers to do the same.

“He said I was the reincarnation of Emperor Nurhaci (1661-1626) of China. He felt an energy on my head which was superhuman because an emperor, unlike an ordinary human, has to think more.

“I'm the reincarnation of two emperors of China,” Kamal added.

He elaborated that a few years ago, the royal family decided he would be the sole administrator of the royal wealth kept in secret accounts in about 1,000 banks worldwide.

“This means that 86.7% of the world's money belongs to me,” he said.

Taking out several folders, Kamal said: “You're lucky, I brought documents.”

He produced an A4-sized paper with the photographs of the national treasure, the immortal couple and several “official-looking” letters allegedly from HSBC certifying he has an account of five trillion euros (RM20tril).

“That is a small amount. I have more money in other banks and institutions,” he added.

I wondered why his name has not appeared in the Forbes' list of world's richest people. And a suspicion lingered about his claims.

However, I could not authenticate his documents since the bank was closed for Chinese New Year.
Kamal has not made any withdrawal from the account as “it is not money that you can move just like that”.

“The money is under the control of Indonesia, Germany, Britain, the US and the Euro Central Bank and I've got to go smooth with them,” he said.

“I can't use the money directly but I will invest in certain projects. Like three trillion euros (RM12tril) to green a desert in China.”

Curious, I asked what was the difference between a billionaire and a trillionaire.

He replied: “A billionaire needs to show he has the money. But for me, I don't need to show that I got money. I can travel in a bus. I can wear slippers.”

Born in the year of the dragon, Kamal believes 2012 is his year. In March, he says he will negotiate with institutions such as the IMF to be recognised as the Emperor of Indonesia.

He says he's rich. But his story could just be as rich.

Let's hope he is not another Elie Youssef Najem, the so-called Lebanese billionaire who made headlines for all the wrong reasons.

ROWE for an honest living ?

Cover via Amazon

A WRITER'S LIFE By DINA ZAMAN

The traditional economy of working long hours no longer works in a global economy that does not recognise time zones and deadlines.

MUCH has been written about the number of holidays and company leave days Malaysians have. What is apparent is the effect on productivity. Thus, begs the question: What is true productivity?

A number of columnists have shared their views. Is it true productivity when employees leave late simply because of the following reasons:

> The boss is working late or there is an unwritten code that until the boss leaves, no one else can; and

> The longer you stay at work, even if you are on Facebook, you are a good worker?


Peer pressure is a factor; another are long meetings with no set agenda and goals.

Perhaps Malaysian companies and business owners would do well to look at the US and Europe. Despite their worsening economies, a movement that addresses work-life balance is gaining ground.

Why Work Sucks and How To Fix It, written by Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson (www.gorowe.com) is about creating a results-only work environment (ROWE). Hot on the heels of lifestyle gurus such as Tim Ferris of the 4-Hour Workweek, Ressler and Thompson write about and offer solutions to the never-ending circus of meetings, schedules and clock-ins.



The traditional economy of working long hours from Monday to Friday, and also weekends, no longer works in a global economy that does not “understand” time zones and deadlines.

Home life, chores like doing the laundry, missing the children’s school concert — there has to be a better way to make a living.

You may wonder what is the difference between a flexible work arrangement and a ROWE.

Simply put, with flexi hours the employee needs permission and faces limited options. It is management controlled, requires policies, focusses on time-off, and there is high demand and low control.

ROWE offers the worker the following: No permission is needed and the working boundaries are unlimited. The employee manages his or her KPIs, and this requires accountability and clear goals.

If these are not met, out you go. ROWE focusses on tangible business results and it is high demand with high control.

Employers should view ROWE as beneficial to their businesses. They stop paying people for activities (Facebook anyone?) and start paying for outcomes.

They stop paying people for a chunk of time, and start paying them for their work. The employer must set clear terms of references on what needs to be done on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis.

“Then it is up to the employee, with the coaching and guidance of the management, to meet those goals. If there are problems along the way, it’s the work that comes under scrutiny,” say the authors.

The big question is whether we Asians can adapt to this.

Asian businessmen and conglomerates have a different view of hard work, discipline and meeting profit margins. Despite the available technology, burning the midnight oil at work and networking while juggling a personal life still seem to be the practice.

It is common to see employees carrying two or three mobile phones and hooked onto almost every social media site, all in the name of keeping abreast with business trends. Is it any wonder why we are stressed?

Many will argue that with the wealth we are seeing now, there is little to complain about. People are more educated, healthier and hold down jobs.

However, economic growth and human development do not always coincide (UNDP Human Develop-ment Report 2010), and this is quite evident when one observes the current lifestyles of Malaysians.

Something must be amiss when many Malaysian professionals take up multi-level marketing jobs and other side businesses (i.e. tuition, catering) just to feed the family.

Young parents, seeking a better future for their children, take up consultancy or off-site projects just to be able to afford the tuition and activities their children need.

Holidays see tired families barely able to enjoy themselves. Stress-related illnesses are on the rise. The breakdown of relationships is on a steep increase, and thanks to limited time and resources, friendships are via social media like Facebook. This is not healthy.

More holidays do not mean that one’s life will change for the better when the fundamentals such as low pay (or not being paid what is worth) and archaic management per se are still practised.

With inflation on the rise on basic household goods, the Malaysian worker will have to grind even harder yet probably save little.


> A WRITER'S LIFE By DINA ZAMAN - The writer is working on religious histories and communities of Malaysia. She can be contacted at editor@thestar.com.my.

Change or be changed!

Image by Danny Choo via Flickr

WE all know that people and businesses who don’t adapt get phased out. Generation X, of which I am part of, has seen the evolution of technology transform how we live our daily lives.

From the VHS tape to the DVD and Blu-ray discs, and from snailmail to email, there are numerous examples how one way of doing things has given way to a faster, better and cheaper methods.

The bankruptcy of Kodak is the latest proof of how businesses can become irrelevant if they don’t keep up with the times. Research In Motion Ltd, the maker of BlackBerry phones, is feeling what Nokia has gone through. The digital age is moving along at breakneck speed and is transforming a multitude of industries and leaving an indelible mark on people and businesses.



There are companies that have done well to make changes on the fly. Most famous is Apple and before that Corning, which was – and maybe still is – famous for its cookingware rather than its fibre optics.

The need to transform is also not lost on corporate Malaysia. A lot of the big banks have done so and have become a lot better at what they do today. MMC Corp changed from a miner to an infrastructure player and the likes of Genting and IOI have expanded dramatically in the business they are in to become world giants today.

That transformation is also seen in the big institutions in Malaysia. The Employees Provident Fund restructured its portfolio from owning 400-plus stocks, some of which most punters will not touch today, to a leaner portfolio of around 100. Its narrower focus has allowed it to take the plunge into private equity and property and, as a result, the returns it can make for depositors should also improve in time.

The same can be said of Khazanah Nasional Bhd. In 2004, when Khazanah first started under new “management”, it had a bunch of old assets sitting in its books. They included stakes in some of the largest companies in the country, but sitting idle and waiting for results was not the way to go.

Khazanah restructured its portfolio, and from a bunch of companies that was heavily leaning towards utilities and telecoms, it invested in new businesses and industries. New investments were in part funded by monies from asset sales such as the divestment of Khazanah’s legacy stakes in Pos Malaysia and Proton.

As a result, Khazanah’s returns improved. During a recent briefing with the media, Khazanah revealed that if it had just sat on it and relied on the government-linked companies’ transformation programme alone, its returns would have been a meagre 2% a year.

But it did not do that and instead invested in new businesses which it felt will bring better growth. Those new investments brought in a return of 22% a year.

One such investment is the hospital business. Integrated Healthcare Holdings (IHH), which consists of hospital investments such as Apollo Hospital Enterprise Ltd and Parkway Holdings, recently made a big acquisition in Turkey when it bought Acibadem.

Healthcare in the demographics in which IHH operates will be hugely lucrative. India, South-East Asia and now Turkey have the desired young but ageing population with growing incomes.

IHH is slated for a massive listing and the changes that some entities in corporate Malaysia have undertaken should be a showcase of how transforming when it needs to be done should be the course of action.

● Deputy news editor Jagdev Singh Sidhu wonders when the retirement age in the private sector will be raised.