Background
Born in Sitiawan, Perak, Ho, the son of a Preacher and a god-fearing mother, began his career as a teacher.
何文翰
Born in Sitiawan, Perak, Ho, the son of a Preacher and a god-fearing mother, began his career as a teacher.
In the course of his career, he served as a barrister, Cabinet minister, chairman of Maybank Finance, and as a director of several publicly listed companies in Malaysia. Richard Ho Ung Hun was a Malaysian civil servant. In the course of his career, he served as a barrister, Cabinet minister, chairman of Maybank Finance, and as a director of several publicly listed companies in Malaysia.
He later joined the public service under the colonial British government as a court interpreter.
Resigning as an Assistant District Officer in Malacca in his early 30s, Ho left for the United Kingdom where he pursued his law degree, being called as a barrister of the Lincoln"s Inn in England at the age of 34. The same year, 1961, Ho was called to the High Court of Malaya as an advocate and solicitor.
This was despite Ho, who had married at the age of 55, having steadily moved up the Master of Computer Applications ladder till becoming the deputy president to Lee by then Lee, believing his ambitious aides that Ho"s active traversing the country meant he was eyeing his top job, was used by them who actually eyed Lee"s job.
According to his confidante and close friend of more than 40 years’ standing, newspaper editor-turned-New Zealand-trained lawyer Tan Ban Cheng of Penang, “Ho never wanted to be Master of Computer Applications president
He moved into his position as deputy by the force of circumstance and had always supported Lee.” An insider noted that it was Ho"s resignation as Master of Computer Applications deputy president that triggered the fight between the academician and incumbent Cabinet Minister Datuk Neo Yee Pan and businessman Tan Koon Swan factions. Unable to resolve the claims of the contending ambitions, Lee resigned in 1983, sending the Master of Computer Applications into an almost three-year-long crisis that culminated in the eventual rise of Doctor (now Tun Dato Seri) Ling Liong Sik over the ambitious Datuk Neo and architect and incumbent Cabinet Minister Datuk Mak Honorary Kam both of whom fell out as the crisis widened. In 1983, already out of the political arena, Ho was appointed concurrently as the vice-chairman of the Maybank board and chairman of its finance subsidiary.
Eight years later, in 1969, in what was considered a feat, Ho, then 42, stood as a "favourite son of Sitiawan" on the opposition Democratic Action Party (Directory of American Philosophers) ticket, wresting the ruling coalition"s blue ribbon Sitiawan parliamentary seat from Kam Woon Wah, the secretary-general of the then powerful Malaysian Chinese Association (Master of Computer Applications), a senior partner of the governing National Front coalition. Ho, who was to successfully retain the Sitiawan seat renamed Lumut where Malaysia"s navy is located in 1974 and 1978 for the ruling National Front coalition as he moved up the political ladder from the age of 47 as Deputy Minister of Road Transport (1974), Deputy Finance Minister (1976), Minister in the Prime Minister"s Department and Minister of Labour and Manpower, was dropped in 1982 as the ruling coalition"s candidate in an intra-Master of Computer Applications intrigue involving powerful forces who finally removed Master of Computer Applications president Lee San Choon, also a Cabinet Minister.
Quotations: "a man of many parts, always humble, helpful and caring.".