From Madani Housing Scheme to Madani Mosque, and from Budi Madani RON95 to Rahmah Madani Sales, the Madani administration of Anwar Ibrahim has now introduced the first Madani Mart retail outlet in the country. Just like his predecessors’ policy frameworks and slogans, Anwar’s Madani is just another political branding to convince voters that this government is better.
Prime Minister Anwar’s “Malaysia Madani” – replacing predecessor Ismail Sabri’s concept of “Keluarga Malaysia” – is also another marketing gimmick to enrich the political elites and cronies, the same way how sloganeering business was booming under Abdullah Badawi’s “Islam Hadhari”, Najib Razak’s “1-Malaysia” and Muhyiddin Yassin’s “Kerajaan Prihatin”.
The branding and promotion of government slogans are huge business. For example, the Keluarga Malaysia (Malaysian Family) slogan under the administration of former Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob cost over RM62 million within a just a 14-month period. But the leakage was as high as RM700 million, which led to Sabri being investigated over his government promotional allocation.
The inauguration of Madani Mart by Prime Minister Anwar on Friday (April 3) at Indera Mahkota 8, Pahang has raised more than a few eyebrows due to its similarity to ex-PM Najib’s Kedai Rakyat 1Malaysia (KR1M) chain of convenience stores. First launched in 2011, Najib’s pet project – supposedly to help reduce the cost of living for low-income groups – soon went belly up in 2017.
The KR1M stores were designed to sell basic, essential groceries at lower prices (30% to 50% cheaper than market prices) than standard supermarkets, branded under Najib’s 1Malaysia brand. The main operator, Mydin Mohamed Holdings Sdn Bhd, reported losses exceeding RM100 million. It simply could not compete against established retailers in terms of product quality and competitive pricing.
To save face, then-PM Najib tried to rescue it with KR1M 2.0 in February 2018, but was discontinued after the ruling Barisan Nasional government lost power for the first time in the May 2018 General Election. Ameer Ali Mydin, the managing director of Mydin, mocked that KR1M 2.0 was a “joke” and a massive loss-making venture that should be discontinued.
So, what’s so different between Anwar’s Madani Mart and Najib’s KR1M? Anwar defends Madani Mart – with the slogan “Kedai Runcit Harga Rahmah” – as a government initiative to help ease the cost of living, but people generally see Madani Mart as a copycat of KR1M. Upset, Deputy Minister of Domestic Trade and Cost of Living Fuziah Salleh denied Madani Mart was a “copy and paste” job.
Fuziah argues that unlike the previous KR1M model, the business model of Madani Mart did not involve “direct” government capital expenditure but was driven through a strategic collaboration model involving the public sector through the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Cost of Living (KPDN), operators or license holders (private), and Yayasan MADANI (social).
If KR1M, despite government’s capital injection and subsidy, could not succeed, what makes the clueless Fuziah think that Madani Mart would work without government funding? What she did not reveal was that the government actually provides capital “indirectly”, not directly. Get real, no business can start with zero capital, especially in a razor-thin margin business like convenience stores.
Madani Mart is a rebadge of KR1M, the same way Najib’s Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M) cash assistance program introduced in 2012 was rebranded by the Anwar administration in 2023 as STR (Sumbangan Tunai Rahmah). However, Madani Mart appears to use franchising model, which the government claims to be a licensing model. The primary difference between both models is the depth of the business relationship and the degree of control.
Like McDonald’s, the franchising model enforces strict operational standards, training, and uniformity across all locations. In the licensing model, the licensor has much less control, focusing primarily on how the intellectual property is used, while the licensee maintains operational freedom. Yet, despite Fuziah’s denial that it’s a franchise system, Madani Mart provides almost everything – from training to support, and from pricing to customer service standards.
On top of the food chain is Yayasan Madani, the licensor who owns the copyright of Madani Mart brand, granting licensed rights (3 years, renewable) to store operators (licensees). Licensees will be provided training, business mentorship, evaluation, and development courses. In returns, operators or licensees have to pay not only license fees, but also “royalties” to Yayasan Madani.
The licensees have to bear 100% capital for the Madani Mart stores, but have to maintain operational standards, staff and store operations, ensure service quality and comply with brand guidelines, pricing, store payout and branding. The question is where do the cost of training and support, marketing and branding and consultation to maintain compliance and standards come from?
The answer is obvious – those costs come from the government, not to mention the hidden possibility that operators might get “soft loans”. Yayasan Madani is trying to copy and replicate the business model of successful convenience stores like 7-Eleven, 99 Speedmart, KK Mart, FamilyMart or even myNEWS. The cost of setting up a Madani Mart store could easily breach tens of thousands of ringgit.
Crucially, the Yayasan Madani board of trustees comprises Deputy Minister of Domestic Trade and Cost of Living Fuziah Salleh, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s political secretary Farhan Fauzi and Kamil Munim, political secretary to Minister of Finance Anwar Ibrahim. What could possibly go wrong with politicians loyal to Anwar selling licenses for Madani Mart, right?
Kamil is the Youth Chief of Anwar’s political party PKR (Parti Keadilan Rakyat), while Farhan Fauzi is a PKR member, who is also the son of Fauzi Abdul Rahman, a former Member of Parliament for Indera Mahkota and Kuantan. Fuziah Salleh is currently a PKR Senator, who used to be a fierce critic of Lynas rare earths plant in Kuantan – till PKR became the ruling party and Anwar became the 10th Prime Minister.
It’s not hard to predict what is going to happen even before Anwar’s ambitious plan to establish 640 Madani Mart stores could materializes. Conflict of interest, mismanagement, leakages and ultimately corruption would see Madani Mart go bust the way KR1M did. Tax payers’ money to the tune of hundreds of millions, if not billions, would be used to bail out certain cronies or free loaders.
Yes, the entire scheme smells fishy – even triggers a “mini corporate mafia” suspicion – when Deputy Minister Fuziah proudly proclaimed as founder and chairman of Yayasan Madani, whilst two aides to Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim are glorified as co-founders. The three musketeers must be having a wet dream fantasizing themselves as billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
Store layout planning, renovation, POS system installation, and inventory setup would see cronies making handsome profits through sub-contract jobs. A centralized supply system would see top management of Yayasan Madani soliciting kickbacks from suppliers eager to supply products for Madani Mart stores. And what is there to stop license fees and royalties paid to Yayasan Madani from going into the pockets of Fuziah and her gang?
Because Yayasan Madani knows nuts about convenience store business, it has to outsource consultation, training and support, marketing and branding, and whatnot to cronies, who in turn would outsource those services to external parties or contractors. It’s not rocket science that government allocation (taxpayers’ money) has to be channeled for this pet project.
Fuziah should stop insulting people’s intelligence with half-baked narrative that Madani Mart does not involve government funding. There is no such thing as free lunch. Even brand awareness campaigns need money. Someone has to pay for the so-called “free” service. The suckers are either the mart operators, the taxpayers or both.
The whole idea of Madani Mart was from the Rahmah Sales program, which used public funds to the tune of RM600 million in 2025 alone. Some genius got the idea of transforming the Rahmah Sales, which runs three times a month in 600 state constituencies at various locations, into Madani Mart, which now involves high operational risks but opens up more opportunities for cronies to exploit.
When politicians venture into business using taxpayers’ money, it is bound to fail and screams conflict of interest. A government’s job is to administer and govern the country, not do business and act like a business tycoon in awarding licenses and collecting royalties. Worse, before Madani Mart collapses, it would create havoc on the existing supply chain ecosystem and forces small players to close shop.
With an unclear financial structure and without transparency, people are in the dark over who covers the operational costs (such as rent, salaries), who manages the inventory, and which suppliers are being used. Without subsidies, it’s hard to believe Madani Mart could offer lower prices than existing, competitive retailers. There’s an easier way to help ease the cost of living – increase the allocation for MyKasih cashless aid distribution programme.
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April 5th, 2026 by financetwitter
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