[UPDATED VERSION] In October 2006, former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad said national carmaker Proton Holdings Bhd. will collapse until it finds an international partner.

At the rate it is going, it’s not going to last long. […]

Proton is reporting losses all the time, and they still have a lot of cars which they cannot sell.

True enough, on February 27, Proton Holdings Berhad reported a third straight quarterly loss as sales slumped to the lowest in at least seven years.

Before that, three foreign carmakers General Motors, Volkswagen and Peugeot were reported to have on-going discussion with Proton. Local companies like Naza and DRB-Hicom also expressed interest to take up Khazanah’s 43% equity in Proton.

However, early of this month, Peugeot ended talks with Proton after seven months of evaluation and research, citing cooperation with Proton was not feasible.

It’s March 30 now, meaning that the Government is very likely to miss the self-imposed end-March deadline to announce a strategic partner. No surprise indeed, given the complexity of the politically-sensitive matter as well as Proton wasn’t willing to give up management control due to the Proton’s national identity.

Besides, the entry of a strategic partner could spell the end of less competent and competitive vendors, which would not be what the government wanted to see.

Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak admitted not much time left to decide a new partner and pointed his fingers to MOF and MITI for the delay in doing evaluation.

"Never mind. There’ll be time. Don’t worry. It doesn’t matter if we miss it."

Already the country is going nowhere, however it’s the continuance of "never mind, don’t worry & doesn’t matter" mentality that continue to plot the downfall.

Meanwhile, as a friendly reminder to taxpayers, you too part of the shareholder of Proton which suffers the recent third straight quarterly loss.

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