Omar appointed to Petronas board

Study loan controversy a ‘misunderstanding’ among parties, say sources 
(Malay Mail) - OXFORD-trained Omar Ong, the controversial boss of Ethos & Company, has been appointed to the board of Petronas as a director, ending months of speculation.
The appointment letter was given to Omar, 38, just before Hari Raya, sources said.
The Malay Mail’s source in Petronas could not give an official confirmation on the appointment but said the national oil corporation would make the announcement very soon.
Omar, a former aide to Datuk Seri Najib Razak when he was the Deputy Prime Minister and whose views and ideas are valued by him, had been rumoured to rejoin Petronas at the Board of Directors’ level sometime middle of this year.
The appointment was said to have been held back, however, after blog postings accused him of breaching a scholarship agreement he had signed with Petronas.
Even former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who is also Petronas adviser, had blogged about his reservations on Omar joining the Petronas board in view of the scholarship controversy.
It turned out that the said controversy was the result of a “misunderstanding” between Petronas and its scholar as Omar had offered to pay in full the RM120,000 penalty for the supposed breach earlier on, an offer that the national oil corporation somehow overlooked or ignored.
Omar is the son of Mustapha Ong, a former private secretary to long-time Information Minister Mohamad Rahmat and for some time served in the diplomatic service in New York and Brazil.
The younger Ong has been described as “a very ambitious person” with an “outstanding background”. He started with Petronas as an executive on Feb 16, 1995 before joining the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDC) on Feb 1, 1997, where he stayed until March 31, 2000. Omar then joined McKinsey & Co, London but was based in Kuala Lumpur and in February 2002, co-founded Ethos & Co.
Around this time, Petronas issued him a letter of demand for breach of his scholarship agreement (which
requires him to serve the government for a period of 10 years).
In February 2004, he was appointed Special Officer 1 to the then Deputy Prime Minister and a deed of settlement was signed in May 2005 and he was to serve the Government of Malaysia for an assigned period of 4 years 10 months, failing which he would be deemed to have breached the scholarship agreement again.
He resigned from his position as the Special Officer 1 and rejoined Ethos & Co in February 2006.
The earlier rumours of Omar’s appointment had been accompanied by talk that the Prime Minister would make Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar, the former Home Minister, the chairman of Petronas. This could not be confirmed.