"What's cashflow projection?"

This is not a qualifying exam question for chartered accountants.

I was asking this to a newspaper vendor the other day.

"Hey! So simple!"

"For example, I get the newspapers from the factory. They give me one-month credit. I sell the papers every day and get my money. Other than paying for fixed expenses, I've got to make sure I have enough money to pay the newspaper company end of the month."

"So, I must control the inflow and outflow of cash. I must have enough cash in hand and make provision for all types of expenses."

"Or I won't be able to pay the newspaper company and they won't give me the newspapers to sell!"

This is fundamental knowledge which is like peanuts to newspaper vendors, and upon which they have operated relatively successful businesses.

If we know nothing about cashflow management, then we'd better not talk about doing business.

But then there's someone saying she has no idea what "cashflow projection" is.

She used to be the GM of Port Klang Authority responsible for a billion-ringgit mega project.

Former PKA general manager Datin Paduka OC Phang told the Parliament's Public Accounts Committee she didn't know what cashflow projection was all about.

PAC chairman Azmi Khalid shook his head in disbelief.

Little wonder that the PKFZ finances are a big mess. Before the cash has even arrived, the project has started running.

With only a few hundreds of million in hand, she had the guts to invest in a project costing billions of ringgit!

That gives us some idea how the billion ringgit "black hole" has appeared.

Phang was appointed PKA general manager in 1997 when Ling Liong Sik was the transport minister. Under her, the PKFZ project was moving ahead unhindered and in full steam.

When the PKFZ scandal came to light two years ago, she made a timely retirement and off she went to Australia.

No one has heard much of her since.

A key person in the whole debacle, her return is awaited in much anticipation, with the hope the mystery of PKFZ black hole would be unearthed.

Perhaps the retirement life Down Under is too comfortable that her brain gets degenerated.

That explains why her reply to the many questions is a simple "I don't know!"

No one knows whether she is really that innocent.

--Sin Chew Daily/ANN