The Lecture

Hi kids, I'm back! I know there must be some of you will miss me..hahaha..

I'm really sorry for not attending your class for the past few days . My throat was sore, my eyes were dry..but please don't be afraid, it's not swine flu. It's just the side effects of too much crying for the past fortnight..

Ok, what I gotta teach y'all today huh? Hurm, how about Business Management? What? Oh, I know this subject was not even in your syllabus yesterday, but what can I do? The government has just changed its policy yesterday..hahaha. So be it. As I'm waiting for the highest bid of commission from the textbook supplier, I'll take my materials from this website.

Sri, can u gimme a name of a company that nearly collapse because of bad management habit so I can make an anecdotal example? What? Agni Inc.? Good Sri, I've known for a long time that you are a bright student. According to the website, there are 6 tips to good business management.

First, please bear in your mind kids, even you are an expert in your field, that doesn’t mean that you have what it takes to be a business owner. In Agni's case, it's even worse. Let me read you the CEO's profile:

Sri Lingham, holds a doctorate in Electrical Engineering and is a member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers. Dr. Lingham spent 10 years in Investment Banking in the UK, Hong Kong and the US with HSBC, Merrill Lynch and GMAC. He had started investing in the Fuel Cell and Alternative Energy industry in the 90s and left Investment Banking to drive Agni Inc in 2002, with overall responsibility for execution and technology development. Dr. Lingham holds patents and visiting lectureships.

from http://www.agni-inc.com/mngmt.php

He has never worked as an engineer when he started the business and suddenly he became Mr. Know-All. Do you get what I mean?

The second point, hire the right peoples. You cannot ask a History teacher to teach Science to the students. He will teach you, but he will be unsure on what he's teaching. In Agni's case, Sri Lingham appointed managers who didn't have the experience handling power generation project. The engineers were not well-trained on the right standard of piping, heat exchangers, and pressure vessels design. I'm not blaming the managers and engineers, but I'm blaming the CEO, because he didn't ask for experts' opinion when he was starting the company. Someday, some of you will work as engineers and that time, you will know how tight is the regulations for oil and gas, power plants, and refineries. You will need vast experience to get involved in these projects. Training in this field is compulsory to avoid poor design thus tragedy.

According to the web, a business owner shouldn't appoint his relatives and friends to important designations in the company. Why? You should be professional enough to manage a company. In Agni's case, mother of the CEO controlled all finance matters, vendor payments, employees' salary, etc. Do you know kids, the workers had to queue up outside her room to collect their cheques? I think the CEO realized that what her mother was doing was not helping the company at all, but due to his respect to his mother he just zipped his lip off. Y'all should check this website for more classic results of hiring friends and families.

We continue to the next reminder of the website. Don't make snap decisions, planning strategy is everything. Lemme give y'all a question. Are you willing to spend millions of ringgit on something without considering various aspects? That's another problem of Agni Inc. The CEO always made hasty decisions, whether it's project decision, or company management decision. Kids, let me remind you, making a management decision is not the same with making decision of which clothe you should wear, it involve a lot of parties and cost.

Oh! The bell has rung, luckily..hehe. Maybe I'll continue with the other two tips next week, if the government doesn't change its policy..haha. Or maybe I'll teach something new to you. So kids, see you next week!

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Agni Inc : Terminated our dreams and hope

The CEO had terminated most of us without a proper procedures and ethics. Most of us had suffered a lot. Especially, during this time of economy slow down.

We cannot eat

We cannot sleep

We cannot smile

We are stressful

Creditors are bugging our daily life

We had lost most of our friends

Our relatives walking away from us

Our families suffering

Our children starving

O' God, please help us.

O' God, please give us strength and the will to keep on surviving...

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Cowardice?

Guys, we're not cowards. I'm planning something that may be huge (in monetary terms). But it will take some time as we're still looking for another job. Another problem is this action will involve another parties and quite time-consuming.

It's very saddening because I believe Agni has a very bright future in front of it, but unluckily, it's led by a bunch of peoples who clearly have no idea what they deal with.


Please e-mail us for any info to be share in this blog. Dont worry because every information will be treated as confidential.
[antiagnienergie(a)gmail.com]

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What Are We Gonna Do?

What we should do after being treated like this? Last Friday, some of us has lodged reports to Labor Department, Wisma Consplant, Subang Jaya. Although it's understandable that each one of us have our own matters, please be more pro-active to fight for our right.

During a lengthy discussion with an officer from the department, he suggested that we hire a lawyer to fight for our case in the court. I strongly back his suggestion because we know nothing about the law. Remember that day? We just simply signed the letter without knowing what it meant. We must bear in mind that Sri Lingham is a man full of tricks. Anybody knows the story how he pulled his tricks so that the company didn't has to pay its suppliers? In the turbine vendor's case, Agni was not willing to pay for its services because it alleged the vendor for being late, thus against the agreement.

Has anybody heard about how a mat rempit filed a lawsuit against PDRM for wrongfully detaining him after a road block? His lawyer present the arguments on how the policemen wrongly handled the road block, e.g. not putting the required cones, not wearing the uniform, less than 3 required policemen, etc. The mat rempit won. This proves that our law has many loopholes which are realized by Sri Lingham and his team of lawyers. Why did he asked our HOD to sign the retrenchment letters although all this while he's the one who signed the employment, confirmation, and wage increment letter?

I realize that we must be fully prepared if we wanna go against him. The Labor Department officer himself admitted that his scope of power is limited. When I asked him,"What will happen if the company suddenly change its name? Will this report still valid?", he answered,"I don't know". Another question, "What if the company suddenly declared bankrupt?". The answer is the same..

The government bureaucracy is very troubling. Our report will be submitted to Officer A who will then submit it to Officer B and the process will take months, if not years. If we hire a lawyer, I believe that this process will be cut short because the lawyer should know the jurisdiction. He will refer to his books of laws, records of previous cases, and any other relevant documents. That's how a lawyer works. And that's the reason the Perak crisis is still on-going.

How about the cost? Usually, in the case like this, the lawyer will be paid of 10-20% of the collective demands. I know we all want 100% of our rights, so I wanna propose that we make an agreement with the legal firm that if we win the suit, the lawyer cost will be paid by Agni, not us. If we lose, we'll not pay a single cent to them. I think our collective demand is around hundreds of thousand, and it's a big money for the legal firm. The lawyers are smart, and they will study our case thoroughly. If they think we can win, they will fight tooth and nail for the case, and if not, they will tell us sincerely.

Let's wait for 12.07.2009, because our ex-employer are required to pay us back by that time. If not, let's meet and discuss.

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The Answers

Guys,

Let me answer the allegations by the CEO.

1. Termination notice
When we arrived to work in the morning, we were not allowed to enter the office. I really have no idea on what was going on until I spoke 2 several maintenance technicians. They told me that they heard a rumor that a retrenchment list was prepared the night before. There is no earlier notice issued by the company.

2. Present Economic Climate
The CEO is well-known as a leader who always made hasty and stupid decisions. For instance, he did not allow the Portuguese engineers to liaise with us directly. All e-mails must go through him first. One silly mistake he has done was not forwarding an inquiry e-mail from the Portuguese engineer to us and just decide on the matter he knows not. The result? (10 helper x 50 euro) + (3 welder x 75 euro) x 7 days equal to 5075 euro or RM20300 loss by assuming that 1 euro is equal to RM4. Just one e-mail has caused such a big loss. We really understand that the economic climate is very challenging. But on times like these, what all companies should do is determine what is important n what is not. In Agni's case, it should decide whether to bid for 40 projects or focus on Resulima n Triang. It also should decide whether to continue the stupid PEDDS project or halt it. The company must realize its capabilities. Frankly speaking, there is only 1 decision maker in Agni, namely Sri Lingham.

3. Excess Resources

Every Agnian knows that the name below is the excess resources which have halted Agni's growth,

a. Malar Lingham aka Madam, Board of Director (it's rumored that she's 85 this year)
An ego old lady who likes peoples begging her for their money. She is very careful with company finance, that's why every month we had to queue outside her room to collect our cheques. CHEQUES??! WTF??? Her reason using cheques as method of payment is that the company can save up to (RM2 x 200) - (RM0.50 x 200) equaling RM300/month, compared to much more easier way, that is by banking-in the salaries into our accounts. Eh Madam, I have told u already, ur stupid way of saving company's money is not gonna work because ur son keep doing the stupid decisions.

b. PV Lingham aka Andy Lingham Board of Director (someone told me that he's a year younger than his wife)
Not much to say about him, but please la, if u r 80 n above, stay at home, play with ur grandchildren, pray a lot to God, etc.

c. Mahesan HOD of Civil Engineering Dept. (somebody told me that he's a Sri Lankan)
Madam told us that he was involved in LRT rail construction, don't know whether to believe it or not, because his subordinate told me that he don't even know how to calculate the concrete capacity. He's very unprofessional and hotheaded (based on my experience liaising with him).

d. Thavarajah, HOD of Legal n Compliance Dept. (60++ I think)
I heard before joining Agni, he works in a Legal firm (I'm not too sure). His daily schedule:
i. Arrive at the office
ii. Switch on the PC, checking e-mails
iii. Drink coffee
iv. Read newspaper
v. Meet his subordinates
vi. Talk 2 Mahesan about SLIPPER issue (1 hour)
vii. Lunch time
viii. Lying to somebody
ix. Another round of SLIPPER discussion with Mahesan (2 hour)
x. Go back home with full of satisfaction..

hahahaha...

e. Ratnasingam, HOD of Chemical Engineering Dept. (80++)
Hurm...he's a nice person, but too old. We really worry if he suddenly fell and die on the scene.

f. Michael J, Project Director (50++)
He's a real stupid bastard. Anyone here working as Piping Engineer? You must know that after we receive the PID from Chemical Dept, we should check the pipe size, pipe thickness, pipe material,pipe routing, pressure loss, pump sizing, availability, WPS, pipe support calculation, etc. He expect us to complete a design in 3 days! WTF? That's why, I laughed when u present ur so-called design timeline because u don't even know how to read PIDs, and suddenly u urge us to follow ur ridiculous timeframe. FYI, previously he worked at Infineon Batam, and I don't know whether he has ever been in power generation project before, but in my opinion, he knows nothing except reporting to boss on who smoke 4 times a day, who's not at their place at certain time. He smoke 2 big packs of Dunhill a day, and still accuse us of curi tulang.

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Why We Had To Let Engineers Go

Agni Energie Sdn Bhd, a company specialising in high-efficiency performance and environmentally-friendly power generation technology, denied it had terminated 100 engineers at its Shah Alam workplace.

MCPXIt also denied claims that termination notices were not given out to the affected workers prior to Friday's exercise.

Its chief executive director Dr Sri Lingam said the number of staff affected was 66 and not 100. The company has in its employ 225 workers.

“31 are engineers and project managers, while 19 are technicians, laboratory and support staff. The remaining 16 are information technology, finance and administration staff,” said Lingam said in a statement.

“The staff were briefed on the unfortunate circumstances and why we had to let them go. They were given an opportunity to question the directors as in a question-and-answer session.”

'Our right to restructure'

Lingam said the present economic climate had necessitated the rescheduling of several projects in view of clients reassessing their priorities.

“This translated to excess resources, which could no longer be supported - hence the restructuring exercise. Companies retain a right to restructure or reorganise under law, and often do so in economically challenging times,” he said.

On Saturday, Malaysiakini reported that 100 staff were caught by surprise when they arrived for work. They claimed they received termination letters without prior notices.

An employee who requested anonymity told Malaysiakini that he was shocked to learn that all the employees were given termination letters..

The company, which is involved in environmental friendly power generation technology, including fuel cell technology, fuel processing technology, cogeneration technology and solar thermal energy generation technology, had announced last February that it was awarded a renewable energy plant contract in Sarawak.

Lingam said the affected staff were given early releases to seek alternatives avenues for employment. He also said the labour office has been duly informed as required by law.

'Action if rules are flouted'

When contacted, the affected workers denied that they had been briefed over the matter.

“I also do not believe the management reported the matter to the labour department,” the source said, adding between 60 and 100 staff were given termination letters.

The workers also claimed they had not been paid their May wages and, to make matters worse, they are now facing the prospect of being laid off.

The source said several of those affected have lodged reports with the Labour Department.

Companies, under labour law, are required to pay their employees' wages, at the latest by the seventh of each month.

In a related development, a labour department spokesperson from Subang Jaya said they were investigating the matter.

He reminded companies that they should inform the labour department a month ahead if they wished to offer voluntary separation schemes or terminate their employees.

“Action can be taken against employers who failed to do so. Similarly, workers denied their wages can lodge a complaint with the department,” he said.

from http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/106533

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100 Engineers Lose Jobs Overnight

It was supposed to be an usual working day for around 100 engineers at Agni Energie Sdn Bhd Shah Alam but their day turned into nightmares when all of them suddenly lost their jobs upon receiving termination letters without notices.


An employee who requested anonymity told Malaysiakini that he was shocked to learn that all the employees were given termination letters with the reason that the company was not going to continue.

“We all came in to work as normal this morning. Suddenly, one of the directors said they were going to terminate everybody. They even gave us the termination letters,” he said, adding that he refused to accept it.

The employee, who has been working in the advanced energy technology company for the past seven months, said there was no problem with the company before this except it being inconsistent with the salary payments.

“Throughout my employment there, there has been no problem. Except last month, they said they didn’t have the money to pay us. They said they would only give it to us this month,” said the employee.

Reports lodged at Labour Office

However, he said that now with the termination of their jobs, they would only be given their backdated salaries next month.

“But they did not even tell us how much they are going to pay us,” said the employee.

The employee said many of his colleagues are lodging reports against the company at the Labour Office in Sepang and are still awaiting the outcome.

Agni Energie Sdn Bhd is a specialist in high efficiency, performance and environmentally-friendly power generation technology including fuel cell technology, fuel processing technology, cogeneration technology and solar thermal energy generation technology.

However, its managing director, PV Lingam, said the shutdown was only temporary due to “restructuring work”.

“There is no such thing as the employees being terminated. We are just going through some process of restructuring, that is all,” he said.

The doors are tightly shut at the factory

He also said that the employees were given notices before the restructuring work took place.

“Yes, they have been told... I think you better check with the board of directors to get better clarification,” he said, before cutting the interview short.

The chief executive director, Dr Sri Lingam, however, could not be contacted to clarify the matter.

A check with the company however indicated that no “restructuring work” is taking place as of now because the doors are tightly shut.

“No, there is no restructuring work going on whatsoever,” claimed the employee.

The company’s main office used to be located in Section 15, Shah Alam but has moved to Section 7 eight months ago.

According to its website, it has branches in Singapore, London, Lisbon and Barcelona. It also said it has won a renewable energy plant contract in Sarawak on Feb 3 this year.

from http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/106415

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The reasons

All of us were teminated without a solid valid reasons (instead of retrenchment).

No salary for 2 month.

No EPF since March 2009.

Most of claims (medical, millage, etc) since Jan 2009 still pending for payment until the day of termination.

The way Dr Sri Ligham terminated all of us was so cruel. On the day, everyone have to wait at outside the factory. Hot and sweeting. We even cannot took our belongings. We were ask to leave the premises.

Dr Sri Lingham had planned the day of the 'super-mega termination event' early. As he continiously, urged all of the staff to 'save' (kept) their work on the server. This is an odd practice for such company. All of works should be kept in the hard drive instead the server that could be accessible to IT personnels.

Most of the research and work done by our Malaysian Engineers may be use for next Agni project. Mostly in Portugal where Agni had received government grant. All of our Malaysian Engineers hard works were viciously taken by Agni.

There are lot of fund received from an European Venture Capitalis that can be use to cover the operation and to pay our salary.

All of us had sacrifice a lot to the company. But, this is what we got in the end? Sudah dapat madu, sepah dibuang.

The company is seriuosly have a poor & cruel management and lack of corporate governance.

PLUS, recently, Dr Sri Lingham had given a false and misleading information about the 'super mega termination event' in the media.

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Another Agni propaganda?

Check out this misleading information on the media. Seriously, we need more help.

http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/6/16/business/4124451&sec=business

Tuesday June 16, 2009
Agni cuts workforce

PETALING JAYA: Renewable and alternative clean technology firm Agni Inc has cut 66 staff in a restructuring of its factory operations in Shah Alam “to retain the required levels of expertise to manage near term project demands”.(big lie!)

It said in a statement that local unit Agni Energie, which had 225 staff, had on June 12 terminated the employment of 30% of its staff comprising mainly engineers, project managers and technicians. (big lie!)

The company said the employment cessations were conducted in accordance with the terms and conditions of employment. (big lie!)

“Reducing the headcount will enhance efficiency of the firm’s global business,” the company said, adding that the restructuring would enable greater efficiency for its operations and business both locally and globally. (big lie!)

“Agni Inc remains committed to its projects and remains active in Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Europe and the United States, with its headquarters in Singapore.”(big lie!)

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Pay Check Blues

Every month late pay-cheque.

All of us still can accept that.

But now, they terminated all of us.

Without our pay-cheque or salary.

Last month and as per contract of termination 1 month pay in lieu.

Please give our right!

We want our salary!!!!

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The meaning of Lingham in Wikipedia

Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linga

The Sanskrit term लिङ्गं liṅgaṃ, transliterated as linga has many meanings, including a mark, sign or characteristic. It has a number of specific uses in Sanskrit that are derived from this general meaning. Vaman Shivram Apte's dictionary gives seventeen definitions of the term, including these examples:[5]

Nepalese stone linga dated 900-1000. On display at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, California.

* The image of a god
* A symptom or mark of disease
* A spot or stain
* A means of proof, a proof, evidence
* The effect or product which evolves from a primary cause
* The concept of grammatical gender
* The male organ of generation

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