Sarawak and Sabah State Assemblies should meet first to take a stand on the issue  before a bill is presented to Parliament on  amendment to the Sedition Act to categorise calls for secession of Sarawak and Sabah from Malaysia as sedition offences

Last Friday, I had pointed out the gross injustice of the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak in buckling under pressure to the rightists and extremists in UMNO and UMNO-sponsored NGOs to renege on his promise in 2012 to repeal the repressive colonial law of Sedition Act and to announce its strengthening by roping in calls for secession of Sarawak and Sabah from Malaysia as offences under the Sedition Act without consulting the two states.

DAP does not support any call for secession of Sarawak and Sabah from Malaysia but we also do not support the retention and amendment of Sedition Act by adding new offences as calling for secession of Sarawak and Sabah from Malaysia as sedition crimes under the Act.

Nobody is surprised at the cavalier and contemptuous treatment meted out by UMNO  to MCA, Gerakan and MIC leaders (PPP President had cogently spelt out the rules of the game for these Barisan Nasional component parties –
 “There are only two rules in the game: the boss is always right. If the boss is wrong, refer back to Rule 1.”
 ) but it violates a fundamental principle of the Malaysia Agreement when legislation directly affecting Sarawak and Sabah are not made in consultation with the two states.

Do the people, governments and legislatures of Sarawak and Sabah agree that the Sedition Act should be “strengthened” by the amendment to make calls for  secession of Sarawak and Sabah from Malaysia as sedition offences?

As only a small group of people are calling for secession of Sarawak and Sabah from Malaysia, the proper and prudent response is to find out the root causes of their unhappiness and to take all remedial action if their grouses are legitimate and deserves prompt government action, and not to criminalise their views.

One way is for the establishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry to examine into the unhappiness of the peoples of Sarawak and Sabah over the failures in the past five decades to honour Sarawak’s 18 Points and Sabah’s 20 Points which were the basis for their agreement to form Malaysia in 1963 – a proposal I had made many times in Parliament but with no support or even interest from the Barisan Nasional MPs whether from Sarawak or Sabah.

The Sarawak and Sabah State Assemblies should meet first to take the stand of the people, government and legislatures of Sarawak and Sabah before a bill is presented Parliaement to amend the Sedition Act to specificially categorise calls for secession of the two states from Malaysia as offences under the Sedition Act.

In actual fact, Najib has  broken two pledges, when he announced the retention of the Sedition Act,  together  with proposals to “strengthen” the sedition law.

Secondly, his pledge in his UMNO Presidential speech to be “fair” in the enforcement of the laws against hate speeches  which were  broken in less than 24 hours.

This was because two DAP MPs Teo Nie Ching (Kulai) and Kasthuri Patto (Batu Kawan), my political secretary Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud and DAP activist Syefura Othman had lodged a police report against Kedah UMNO Wanita delegate Mashitah Ibrahim on Friday morning for her racist and incendiary hate speech lying about the Chinese community in Kedah burning the Quran “page by page during a prayer ritual” when the Kedah Mentri Besar Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir had said that the incident involved a mentally-ill Malay individual who had torn the Quran.

There has been no police action for the past six days despite Najib’s promise to be fair in enforcement of the laws!

Furthermore, numerous police reports have also been lodged against the Penang UMNO delegate, Mohd Zaidi Mohd Said for his hate speech at the UMNO General Assembly, alleging that the Chinese in Penang profited from vice, crime and illegal businesses and also offending the Indians with a most derogatory and insensitive term.

Again,  despite Najib’s promise to be “fair” in the enforcement of the Sedition Act, Mohd Zaidi appears to be “untouchable” who enjoys immunity and impunity from the sanctions of the law after his hate speech at the UMNO General Assembly.

In making the pledge that the Barisan Nasional government would be “fair” in the enforcement of the Sedition Act, Najib must assume responsibility for the recent dragnet of selective and malicious prosecutions of PR leaders, intellectuals and activists under the Sedition Act to create a climate of fear in the country.

How can Najib claim to be fair when sedition investigations and prosecutions are tainted by double standards, where there is selective and malicious prosecution against dissent while immunity and impunity for UMNO/BN leaders and supporters guilty of hate speeches and crimes, like the cases of Mohd Zaidi Mohd Said and Mashitah!

Yesterday, I asked the Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi what has happened to his solemn undertaking and public oath more than two months ago swearing that the police will act within 24 hours if police reports are lodged against any individual which impinged on a sensitive issue,  he had failed to live up to his oath  in both cases of Mohd Zaidi and Mashitah, and whether his public oath was just a public relations exercise not to be taken seriously?

Zahid’s continued silence is deafening, especially coming from a very trigger-happy Home Minister. I am still waiting for Zahid’s response. Will it have to take more than 24 hours?

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 3 December 2014, 1:17 pm and is filed under
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Six reasons oil’s price plunge has shaken the markets

Malcolm Maiden

The Age

December 2, 2014

Oil is a key economic input and its price has fallen sharply. All things being equal, that’s a plus for global growth, but the markets are in turmoil. Here are six key reasons why oil’s price plunge has the markets gyrating.

THIS IS AN OIL PRICE SHOCK

In 2011, 2012 and last year oil averaged $US95.13 a barrel, $US94.15 a barrel and $US98.05 a barrel respectively, a spread of just $US3.90. It averaged $US100 a barrel in the first six months of this year and got to $107.26 a barrel on June 20. Monetary policy was still loose and the consensus was that the oil price would not move sharply in either direction.

Instead, it tipped into an accelerating price slide, to about $US75 a barrel ahead of last week’s meeting of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). It hit $US66.15 a barrel on Monday, after the world’s biggest producer, Saudi Arabia, failed to back OPEC production cuts, and was still below $US70 a barrel on Tuesday despite a 3 per cent-plus bounce. Investors didn’t see the price slide coming, and haven’t worked out what it means.

AUSTRALIA IS EXPOSED

Australia is not a big oil exporter, but it is an energy exporter through its coal and LNG projects, and all energy prices will be affected if oil remains weak. Soft global demand that is playing a part in the oil price slide is also weighing on other commodity prices, depressing Australia’s export income, government tax receipts, the value of the Australian dollar and resources sector share prices.

Since the end of October Wall Street’s less-commodity-intensive sharemarket has risen about 2 per cent. Our S&P/ASX 200 index has fallen almost 4 per cent, after taking a roller coaster ride – a fall of almost 10 per cent from the start of September to the middle of October, a rally of  almost 8 per cent from then to November 7, and a fall of almost 6 per cent from November 7 to now, on the back of oil’s most recent descent. Energy companies in the ASX 200 index are down 13 per cent since the end of October.

THERE ARE DEBT MARKET RISKS

By maintaining its production, Saudi Arabia might simply be forcing a production purge that is similar to the one BHP and Rio Tinto are creating in the iron ore market. It knows higher-cost producers are under more pressure to cut production than it is, and might have in its sights American shale oil producers, who have doubled United States oil production in a half a decade. Higher-cost OPEC producers including Iran, Venezuela and Nigeria might also cut production.

The US shale sector is highly geared, under pressure at prices of less than $US80 a barrel, and is investing heavily each year to maintain or increase production in the face of steep first and second-year declines in output from existing wells, a characteristic of shale oil production.

Bloomberg estimated recently that 61 oil shale companies are carrying combined debt of $US163 billion. If the oil price stays low and some cannot service their debts, high-yield “junk” bond investors would be particularly exposed. Some say it could develop into another bad debt crisis, albeit a smaller one than the mortgage debt meltdown that triggered the global crisis of 2008-2009.

THERE IS SOVEREIGN RISK

Last October the International Monetary Fund estimated what price oil-producing nations needed to break even. Iran needed $US136 a barrel, it calculated, and Venezuela and Nigeria needed $US120 a barrel. Russia needed $US101 a barrel, while Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates needed $US70 a barrel. Even after Tuesday’s price recovery, oil is about $US68 a barrel. The national accounts of the higher-cost oil-producing countries are under considerable pressure.

THERE ARE GEOPOLITICAL UNKNOWNS

Russian President Vladimir Putin predicts the oil price will recover as the northern hemisphere winter sets in, but Russia is exposed. Oil and gas account for 50 per cent of Russia’s export income and the rouble has fallen almost 10 per cent in a week.

A less-confrontational approach to the Ukraine might ease sanctions the West has imposed, which are combining with the plunging oil price to push Russia’s economy to the brink of recession. As it is pressured by the low oil price, Iran might also be more prepared to scale back its nuclear programme to ease sanctions that are hurting its economy. However, countries that get pushed into corners sometimes lash out, and the geopolitical consequences of oil’s price slump are yet to unfold.

THERE ARE DEFLATION RISKS

Lower-energy costs usually boost economic activity, but they could create a separate problem in Europe by giving momentum to deflation, a condition that encourages economic stagnation. The governing body of the European Central Bank meets this week to discuss that conundrum.

In the United States, lower oil prices might ease inflation and encourage the US Federal Reserve to keep its interest rates low for longer. That would stimulate the US economy – or would if there was not also a shale oil corporate debt implosion.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 3 December 2014, 2:08 pm and is filed under
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What you need to know about falling oil prices

by Tom Huddleston, Jr.

Fortune

December 2, 2014

Prices have been cut by one-third since mid-summer due to oversupply.

It’s looking like Monday’s spike in oil prices was little more than a blip.

The price of oil fell again on Tuesday after experiencing a brief rebound to start the post-holiday week. Crude oil prices gained as much as roughly 4% yesterday, rebounding from five-year lows, before falling again today. Prices for Brent crude oil are recently down about 2.3%, to $70.83, while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is down 1.8%, to $67.26.

Oil prices are down sharply this year, losing over 30% of their value since hitting a summer peak.

Why are prices dropping?

Put simply, global oil supplies are exceeding demand and driving down prices in the process. A major factor has been the explosion in U.S. oil production, which is up to almost 9 million barrels per day and expected to hit the highest levels in four decades next year.

Another factor is the struggling economies in Asia and Europe leading to a decrease in oil consumption. China, one of the world’s largest oil consumers, has seen its economic struggles result in its demand for oil being outpaced in Asia by India, a country that has also struggled financially of late. Saudi Arabia also cut the price of its own crude to the U.S. earlier this month, which has further propelled the sell-off.

Meanwhile, oil futures were hit especially hard late last week by a decision by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) not to adopt additional measures to tackle oversupply issues. OPEC, the cartel responsible for one-third of global oil production, said it would keep its self-imposed output ceiling at 30 million barrels per day. The announcement subsequently sent already-low oil prices down even further as OPEC’s maintained quotas will do nothing to lower overall oil output to a point that is consistent with global demand for the cartel members’ oil, which the International Energy Agency estimates at just above 29 million barrels per day for next year.

How far have prices dropped?

Prices have fallen steadily throughout the second half of 2014, declining from mid-summer highs above $100. Oil dropped below $70 per barrel for the first time since May 2010 last week and have continued their decline this week. Brent crude has dropped 37% since the summer and fell nearly 12% over the past week in the wake of the OPEC quota announcement. Similarly, WTI is down 34% over the past five months and the oil’s price has dropped by roughly 12% since last week.

Who are the biggest losers?

Energy companies’ stocks have been punished throughout the ongoing drop in oil prices as Exxon Mobil  XOM 1.99%  and Chevron  CVX 2.05% have each lost around 6% in share value over the past six months. Transocean’s  RIG -3.05%  stock has hit its lowest point in nearly two decades, while Halliburton’s  HAL -2.11%  shares have lost almost 40% of their value since June.

Continental Resources’  CLR -2.09%  stock has also dropped dramatically, about 43% in six months, with CEO Harold Hamm seeing his personal wealth decline by about $12 billion in the past few months, according to Bloomberg. The billionaire has had a rough year, including divorce proceedings in which he was recently ordered to pay his ex-wife nearly $1 billion in a settlement.

Meanwhile, the Russian economy has been hit especially hard by plummeting oil prices and the country is now publicly acknowledging the likelihood that it will enter a recession in 2015. On Monday, Russia’s ruble suffered its largest one-day dip in value — nearly 9% — since 1998.

What about the winners?

Well, the plunging oil prices are having one very noticeable benefit: the lowest gas prices in years.

The average price for regular gas at pumps across America over Thanksgiving weekend was about $2.80 — the lowest in four years and 50 cents below last year’s average, according to AAA. Some states are even likely to see prices below $2 per gallon. Happy drivers took to Twitter to express both surprise and pleasure at pump prices:

Cheap fuel is a blessing for travelers — with more hitting the roads over the holiday — and for retailers, with traditional logic suggesting that low gas prices are a boon to consumer spending. (It may not have helped enough, though, as the National Retail Federation estimated that spending was off by 11% for the four-day holiday weekend.)

Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, thinks falling oil prices could provide a boost to the global economy on the whole. Lagarde said this week that exporters will be hurt, but many other countries will be helped by reduced spending on their own oil needs.

The U.S. energy boom — what’s behind it?

U.S. oil production has increased by about 80% over the past six years, from 5 million barrels per day in 2008 to 9 million per day this year. The U.S. energy resurgence is riding a shale boom in states such as North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and others where oil companies use the technique known as “fracking” to extract oil from shale rock formations deep beneath the earth’s surface. With that boom, the U.S. is contributing more oil to the global supply, resulting in a glut as demand has failed to keep up with production.

There seem to be dissenting opinions on whether or not falling oil prices will spell the end of the shale boom in the U.S., as oil producers may start to scale down expansion plans and drilling activity for 2015 and beyond if oil demand continues to diminish. Earlier this fall, analysts told Fortune that oil companies would likely start rethinking their plans should prices stay below $80 a barrel for a period longer than a few months. Some companies, including Continental Resources and Denbury Resources  DNR -2.25% , have already announced scaled back plans for 2015.

However, lower oil prices don’t necessarily spell doom for the U.S. shale boom, as Fortune today pointed out that factors such as the industry’s efforts to improve efficiency in the production process should help companies continue to grow even with weaker demand.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 3 December 2014, 7:26 am and is filed under
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World’s most corrupt industries

By Ivana Kottasova

CNNMoney

December 2, 2014

LONDON – Drilling for oil and digging for minerals can be dirty, in more ways than one.

Known as the extractive sector, oil and mining tops a new list of the world’s most corrupt industries. Construction and transportation make up the top three, according to a report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

The OECD analyzed 427 cases of bribery in international business.Two-thirds of the cases occurred in just four industries: extractive (19%); construction (15%); transportation and storage (15%); and information and communication (10%).Senior executives were involved in more than half the cases, with chief executives playing an active role in 12%. They either paid the bribes themselves, or authorized them, the OECD found.

Public sector employees and those working for state-owned companies were most likely to be the target of corruption. They were promised, offered or given bribes in 80% of the cases.

These included top politicians, such as government ministers, and presidents of state companies. Officials working in customs, health and defense were also likely to be on the receiving end.

Not surprisingly, the higher-ranking the official, the bigger the bribe. While heads of states and ministers were bribed in only 5% of the cases, they received 11% of total bribes.

Customs officials on the other hand, were targeted in 11% of cases, but pocketed little more than 1% of the bribes.

All of the cases looked at by the OECD have been prosecuted and reached a final judgment.

Nearly a third were brought to the attention of the authorities by companies that often uncovered bribes during internal audits or when combing through accounts before a merger or acquisition.

Whistleblowers, on the other hand, were involved in only 2% of the cases.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 3 December 2014, 6:49 am and is filed under
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Permanent secretariat in 199-word proposal

Malaysiakini

Dec 3, 2014

The royal commission of inquiry (RCI) on Sabah has made only one recommendation in its 376-page report – a permanent secretariat to address the problem of illegal immigrants in the state.

In its long-awaited report unveiled today after two years of exhaustive inquiry, the RCI came up with a 199-word recommendation where the main plank is for the government to set up another committee.

The four-paragraph recommendation also proposed the setting up of a management committee on foreigners with extensive powers to support the permanent secretariat.

However, the RCI stressed that if the concept of such a management committee is not acceptable to the government, there is the choice of forming a consultative council on immigrants and foreigners.

This council, the RCI said, should be headed by an independent professional of the highest integrity who is not involved in politics and consist of senior government servants, corporate figures, academics, law association representatives, state attorney-general and so forth.

“The council should be conferred with extensive powers in researches and studies on all aspects relating to immigrants/foreigners in Sabah and to discuss and deliberate thereon and thereafter, to make reports including recommendations to the permanent secretariat.

“The council should also be conferred powers of establishing committees or sub-committees to deal with specific aspects on immigrants/foreigners in Sabah,” read the report.

With such a body, the RCI expressed confidence that the illegal immigrant problems and related matters plaguing Sabah can be resolved.

“And that sense of gloom we referred to earlier, be erased forever,” it added.

The six-member royal commission, set up in 2012, was headed by former chief judge of Sabah and Sarawak Steve Shim. It completed its report earlier this year but it was not made public until today.

Full Sabah RCI recommendation

“We would subscribe to the proposals announced by NRD (National Registration Department) workshop. We believe that a permanent secretariat along the lines propagated by the workshop as reflected in the document P136 should be established. The workshop has proposed a management committee on foreigners with extensive powers as a support-base for the permanent secretariat.

“However, if the concept of this management committee is not acceptable to the government, then perhaps a consultative councils on immigrants/foreigners headed by an independent professional of the highest integrity who is not involved in politics and consisting of senior government servants, corporate figures, academics, law association representatives, state attorney, general, etc, could be established.

“The council should be conferred in extensive powers in research and studies on all aspects relating to immigrants/foreigners in Sabah and to discuss and deliberate thereon and thereafter, to make reports including recommendations to the permanent secretariat. The council should also be conferred powers of establishing committees or sub-committees to deal with specific aspects on immigrants/foreigners in Sabah.

“With such a body, we are confident that the illegal immigrant problems and related matters plaguing Sabah can be resolved and that sense of gloom we referred to earlier, be erased forever.”

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 4 December 2014, 7:08 am and is filed under
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Report of the Commission of Enquiry on Immigrants in Sabah

Read online via Google Drive

Download report [15.3 MB] (right click on link; Save):-

Site 1

Site 2

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 4 December 2014, 3:31 pm and is filed under
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The Sabah RCI report in a nutshell

By Ram Anand

Malaysiakini

Dec 3, 2014

The Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) report on illegal immigrants in Sabah was finally released today in Kota Kinabalu after much delay.

The commission was first mooted in 2012, and had hearings beginning Jan 14 up until Sept 2013.

It heard 211 witnesses before the findings of the commission were submitted to the federal government in May this year.

Former Borneo chief judge Steve Shim  headed the five-man panel which heard testimonies from the witnesses, which included former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and PKR de-facto leader Anwar Ibrahim.

Over the course of the hearings, nobody took blame for the projects and operations that granted these citizenship to immigrants.

Despite being widely blamed for the “Project IC” or “Project M”, Mahathir denied knowledge of any such covert operations.

No guilty party

Below are the conclusions and findings of the RCI as per the report:

The report did not name any perpetrator or party behind the large influx of immigrants into the state. The aspect of finding the guilty was not outlined in the RCI’s terms of reference when it was announced in 2012.

It found that syndicates and individuals aided by corrupt officials were responsible for issuing Malaysian ICs and documentation through illegal means.

Project IC “probably” existed at all material times due to “some credibility” behind witness statements.

Economic motivation was the main contributing factor for influx of illegal immigrants to Sabah.

Illegal immigrants did not find any difficulty in procuring Malaysian ICs, birth certificates and other documents to facilitate access to most rights of Malaysian citizenship.

There was also confusion on whether the nature of the commission was a RCI or a mere commission of inquiry, as the title of the report was called Commission of Enquiry. Indeed some officials, including government chief secretary Ali Hamsa and the RCI secretary Saripuddin Kasim, did not use the word “royal”.

Weakness in border control and the lackadaisical attitude of law enforcement officers had precipitated the influx of illegal immigrants into Sabah.

A “weakly institutionalised” system in Sabah also contributed to the problem.

No clear indication that National Registration Rules 1972 were contravened in procedures relating to information and documents. Procedures had instead been abused by applicants.

Exact number of those who are in the electoral roll even though they are not supposed to be there is “uncertain”.

Authorities should be aggressive in a regularisation programme in Sabah given the huge number of foreign workers there.

In its one-page recommendation, it called for the setting up of a permanent secretariat for look into the problem and to solve it.

In its postscript, the RCI stressed that it is not the be-all, end-all and instead said that the problems can only be solved through political will and depending on how authorities adopt the recommendations.

Eight terms of reference

The RCI was confined by eight terms of reference:

1) To determine number of immigrants granted blue identity cards;

2) To determine number of immigrants granted blue identity cards due to statelessness;

3) To investigate whether this was done legally;

4) To investigate if immigrants holding blue identity cards were illegally registered in the electoral roll;

5) To investigate the standard operating procedures (SOP) for issuance of blue identity cards and recommend improvements;

6) To probe if the authorities had taken action or done improvements to the SOP to prevent infringement of the law;

7) To investigate reason behind the increase in Sabah’s population and their impact on the electoral roll; and,

8) To investigate the social implications of granting citizenship to immigrants in the state.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 4 December 2014, 6:50 am and is filed under
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TI CPI 2014 nothing for Najib to crow about when  he has done worse in TI CPI rankings in his five years as PM than Abdullah’s five years and Mahathir’s 22 years

There is nothing for the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak to crow about for Malaysia’s improvement in Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2014, moving up to 50th spot among 175 countries from the 53rd position last year.

Although any improvement is to be welcomed, there is no ground for Najib to be ectastic to talk about “not rest on our laurels”, as Malaysia has yet to achieve any laurels on the anti-corruption front under his premiership.

For the sixth consecutive year, the Najib premiership (2009-2014) has registered a lower TI CPI ranking than under the two previous Prime Ministers, Tun Mahathir and Tun Abdullah.

This is illustrated by the following chart on TI CPI 1995-2014:

Prime Minister

Best ranking

Best score

Worst ranking

Worst score

Mahathir

23(1995)

5.32/10 (1996)

37 (2003)

4.8/10 (2000)

Abdullah

39(2004)

5.1/10 (2005/7/8)

47 (2008)

5/10 (2004/6)

Najib

50 (2013)

52/100 (2013)

60 (2011)

4.3/10 (2011)

No wonder of Mahathir had always boasted that corruption is worse now than during his 22 years as Prime Minister (although Abdullah can also make the same boast about his five-year premiership).

Of course, Mahathir had blissfully ignored another reality – that it was under his 22-year premiership that Malaysia started the slide and plunge into the morass of corruption, as under the first three Prime Ministers, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak and Tun Hussein Onn, corruption was never a major problem and was well under control.

In fact, until the seventies, the biggest scandal in Parliament was the RM65 million Bank Rakyat scandal which I debated in Parliament in 1979.

 Since the eighties, corruption and financial scandals increased by leaps and bounds from the RM2.5 billion Bumiputra Malaysia Finance (BMF) scandal, the RM600 million Maminco tin-buying scandal and the RM1.5 billion Co-operatives Finance scandal in the 80s, to the RM30 billion Bank Negara foreign exchange scandal and RM11 billion Perwaja scandal in the 90s, and the multi-billion ringgit Scorpene and defence procurement scandals and the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone scandal in the last decade.

The root of corruption – money politics in government parties – instead of being curbed has taken on wings, as it has been estimated by UMNO inner circles that it takes more than RM10 million to win a seat as UMNO Vice President and more than a million ringgit to win as a UMNO supreme council member.

Under Najib’s premiership, however, financial scandals have flown  into  the stratosphere in regions of tens of billions of ringgit as if the sky is the limit, like the 1MDB scandal and another burgeoning   multi-billion ringgit Pembinaan PFI Sdn Bhd scandal.

Mahathir has blogged his deep frustration that there was no discussion on the 1MDB scandal, but it was the same during his time, as there was no discussion of the BMF, Co-operatives Finance, Perwaja, Bank Negara forex and Port Klang Free Zone mega-financial scandals in the UMNO General Assemblies when Mahathir was Prime Minister and UMNO President.

This is the strongest reason why UMNO and Barisan Nasional must be replaced in the next general elections (as Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin has admitted  at the UMNO General Assembly, all it needs to accomplish this catalytic change is a shift of two per cent of voters away from UMNO/BN) as  there can be no serious anti-corruption battle in Malaysia so long as UMNO/BN is in power.

There is another reason why there is nothing to crow about the TI CPI 2014 ranking – as Najib has surreptitiously kicked off Abdullah’s target of improving Malaysia’s 37th placing in 2003 (when he became Prime Minister) to 30th place in 2008 further down the road by another 12 years to 2020.

I do not think Najib expects to continue to be Prime Minister in 2020 (although there are people in UMNO who would want him to step down earlier) so he need not be responsible for meeting this target.

Can Najib explain why he had shifted Abdullah’s target of Malaysia achieving at least 30th placing in TI CPI by 12 years from 2008 to 2020?

                This entry was posted on Friday, 5 December 2014, 3:31 pm and is filed under
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Do Sabahans Deserve the RCI They Got?

By Kee Thuan Chye

Yahoo! News

December 4, 2014

The Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on the illegal immigrants in Sabah has turned out to be a big disappointment.

We had hoped to get conclusive findings in its report – announced last Wednesday, almost two years after the hearings began in January 2013 – but instead, after the 43 days spent on hearing the testimonies of 211 witnesses, the months of writing the report and then the months of keeping Malaysians waiting for it to be announced, what the panel came out to tell us was that Project IC “probably existed”.

“Probably”? Project IC, which purportedly gave out citizenships illegally and systematically to immigrants in Sabah, has been in the Malaysian consciousness for decades. Former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad was even said to be the mastermind behind it, which accounts for why the scheme is called Project M as well. Those who were part of it testified to its existence at the RCI and named figures in high authority implicated in it.

And yet the RCI concludes that the whole operation was not politically motivated. It says the Government and political parties were not involved. It blames instead syndicates and former National Registration Department (NRD) officials out to make big bucks.

It reveals that between 1963 and Aug 2013, only a total of 68,703 immigrants were awarded citizenship – despite attestations by witnesses that hundreds of thousands of ICs were given out, despite claims made by Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) as early as 2007 that the number of immigrants with genuine ICs by that time was about 600,000.

The RCI’s figure is low because it came from the NRD’s director-general and may therefore be expected to be conservative. Nonetheless, it begs the question: How could so many immigrants have been given citizenship so easily without the collusion and approval of people in high places?

The key witnesses had testified that government agencies like the NRD, the Immigration Department, National Civics Bureau (BTN) and the Election Commission (EC) were involved in registering illegal immigrants as voters. Even the police gave their cooperation.

One witness said, “You would not get the approval for (the issuance of the ICs and their registration in electoral rolls) without the involvement of the agencies concerned.” Would such complicity have been forthcoming without the intervention of higher – political – authority?

Former Sabah NRD assistant registrar Kee Dzulkifly Kee Abd Jalil revealed that in 1993 alone, 100,000 blue ICs were given to Filipino, Indonesian and Pakistani immigrants in Sabah. If in one year, as many as 100,000 ICs were allegedly given out, how could the RCI accept that only 68,703 citizenships were issued over a period of 40 years?

In any case, why does the RCI panel not give credence to the testimonies of the key witnesses who were, after all, the front-line perpetrators of the scheme? It explains that this is because “none of the witnesses were subjected to cross-examination”. And also because – hold on to your chairs – “the big names formerly in government who took the witness stand never admitted to any wrongdoing”. This would refer to people like Mahathir, Anwar Ibrahim, Harris Salleh and others. Let’s get real; would they have admitted it if they had indeed done wrong?

Besides, why should the word of the latter category count for more than that of witnesses like Kee Dzulkifly, Hassnar Ebrahim and Mat Swadi Awi?

Hassnar, a former Sandakan chief district officer, testified that he attended a “secret meeting” in the 1980s with the police and government officials that proposed the addition of between 130,000 and 150,000 names to the Sabah electoral roll to boost the number of Muslim voters – and Megat Junid Megat Ayub, who was home minister then, assured the meeting that Mahathir had approved the project.

Mat Swadi testified that from 1987 to 1990, he deployed Malay and Muslim voters to strategic constituencies, using genuine citizens as well as immigrants who already had either fake or genuine ICs, and elicited the aid of the EC in registering them. He did this at the request of then United Sabah National Organisation (Usno) president Datu Mustapha Datu Harun – with the consent of Megat Junid. They both assured him that Mahathir had given his approval to the plan.

Hassnar and Mat Swadi corroborated each other’s implication of Megat Junid and Mahathir. In fact, the RCI admits in its report that the five key witnesses who were actively involved in the shenanigans did corroborate one another’s evidence at the hearings, and yet it maintains that politics was not part of the equation.

Could syndicates and former NRD officials alone have been able to pull it off? Is the RCI credible for believing this to be so?

It hardly even addresses the pressing issue of electoral fraud caused by a compromised electoral roll resulting from the illegal granting of citizenships. Why this is overlooked is strange because one of the terms of reference of the RCI is to determine whether those who were illegally granted citizenship have been registered in the electoral roll.

What a waste of time and public money the RCI has turned out to be. Prime Minister Najib Razak probably knew what the outcome would be when he gave the panel its terms of reference. That’s why it was safe to proceed. Given these terms, the RCI cannot name the guilty parties involved or recommend punitive action against them.

It says it only has the power to “inquire” and “make findings”. Follow-up action is up to the Government. It recommends the setting-up of a permanent secretariat to manage the immigrants issue in Sabah, and in accepting this, the Government has appointed Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman to head the secretariat.

But these are people who have obligations to the Barisan Nasional (BN) Government – and, of course, their own party, Umno. And given that our credibility in the Government and Umno-BN is at rock-bottom, how can we be sure they will do right by the people of Sabah? When it comes to deciding between the interests of genuine Sabahans and the interests of their party, which do you think they will go for?

The secretariat will also oversee the separate working committee that is headed by Sabah Deputy Chief Minister Joseph Pairin Kitingan, set up last month by Najib Razak for the purpose of studying the RCI’s recommendations.

At the time, Pairin said, “Effective implementation is needed, including stern enforcement. … We need to eradicate the perception among illegals that they have the right to encroach on Sabah.” But that was before the RCI findings were released. Now that they are, is he truly satisfied with the outcome? Could he be satisfied given that his party has taken a strong stance on the issue over the decades, having been calling for an RCI since 1985?

Does he still remember that he used to persistently insist that Muslim immigrants from Sulu and Indonesia were being given citizenship so that they could dilute the Christian electorate in the state and Sabah would have a Muslim majority? Does he remember that it was done to stop his own party, PBS, from ruling Sabah?

If he does, should he accept the RCI’s findings tamely and take on the job of chairman of the working committee?

Well, he’s caught of course. His party is part of the ruling BN so if he expresses disagreement with the RCI and agitates for something more to be done, he will have consequences to face from the federal big boys. So chances are, we can’t hope for much from Pairin. Neither can we hope for much from the other Sabah parties that are also part of BN.

But what about the genuine Sabahans, the ones who have suffered most because of the social, economic and security problems caused by the unchecked influx of immigrants over the decades? They must have had high hopes that the RCI would finally show the way to some kind of resolution, a light to brighten up their future?

Are they going to accept this RCI report and continue to live with the problem? Are they going to continue to support the current government at the next general election? Are they unaware that if the federal government – or even just the Sabah state government – were to fall to the Opposition, a new investigation into the illegal immigrants issue might be instituted which could expose more of the ugly truth?

If the answer to each of these questions is yes, then Sabah may be beyond saving. All we can say in addition to that is that they deserve the RCI they got.

* Kee Thuan Chye is the author of the current bestselling book Can We Save Malaysia, Please!

                This entry was posted on Friday, 5 December 2014, 11:19 pm and is filed under
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I will ask for meeting with Zahid on the expiry of 480 hours on Dec. 18 to find out why the Home Minister is unable to fulfil his public oath that the police will start investigations within 24 hours of a report lodged against any individual over a sensitive issue

Sense and sensibility has not only abandoned the UMNO leadership and delegates at the UMNO General Assembly last week, but also after, so much so that UMNO Ministers are incapable of diligently and responsibly discharging their duties not just to UMNO, but even more important, to the nation and all Malaysians.

I will ask for a meeting with the Home Minister Datuk Seri Abdul Zaid Hamidi on the expiry of 480 hours on December 18 to find out why the Home Minister is unable or incapable of fulfilling his public oath that the police will start investigations within 24 hours of a report lodged against any individual who impinged on a sensitive issue.

It is more than a weeks since two DAP MPs, Teo Nie Ching (Kulai) and Kasthuri Patto (Batu Kawan), my political secretary Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud and DAP activist Syefura Othman lodged a police report against former Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Dr. Mashitah Ibrahim for her hate speech at the UMNO Wanita General Assembly calculated to incite inter-racial and inter-religious fear, tension and conflict with the despicable falsehood that the Chinese community in Kedah had committed the sacrilegious act of burning the Quran “page by page during a prayer ritual”.

Yesterday, together with DAP MPs Zairil Khir Johari (Bukit Bendera), Steven Sim (Bukit Mertajam) and Vincent Wu (Assistant National Organising Secretary), my political secretary Dyana Sofya and the two DAP Kedah State Assemblymen, Tan Kok Yew (Derga) and Teoh Boon Kok @ Teoh Kai Kok (Kota Darul Aman), as well as the PAS State Assemblyman for Kubang Rotan, Mohd Nasir Mustafa, I visited the Taman Anggerik market food court in Alor Setar where the sacrilegious act by the Chinese community was alleged by Mashitah to have taken place.

In our conversion with the stall holders and the people in the area, it was confirmed that Mashitah was guilty of a heinous hate speech by fabricating the dangerous lie in a multi-racial and multi-religious society that the Chinese community in the area had burnt the Quran “page by page during a prayer ritual”.

There was no such incident whatsoever and the result of our fact-finding visit fully collaborated the statement issued by the Kedah Mentri Besar, Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir on November 24 that anincident in the area on Nov. 20 concerned a mentally-ill Malay individual who had torn the Quran and who is being detained in the psychiatric ward, and there was no incident of the Chinese community burning the Quran “page by page in a ritual prayer”.

If Zahid is not happy with Mukhriz’s statement and the findings of our fact-finding visit to the food court yesterday, I suggest he should personally make a visit to the Taman Anggerik market food court to find out the facts himself.

It is most shocking that a former Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department could be so irresponsible as to purvey such hate speech to incite inter-racial and inter-religious discord, tensions and conflict, and despite the mountain of facts, Mashitah is not prepared to retract her lies and publicly apologise for her most irresponsible hate speech.

But what is even more shocking is that the top UMNO leadership, by their silence and inaction, is prepared to aid, abet and condone her misdeed.

Mashitah was not the only UMNO delegate guilty of hate speech calculated to incite inter-racial and inter-religious fear, tension and conflict, as the Penang UMNO delegate Datuk Mohd Zaidi Mohd Said was another culprit, who seriously undermined inter-racial and inter-religious peace and harmony in the country with his hate speech that the success of Penang was because of the illegal businesses and crimes “in broad daylight” committed by the Chinese in the state.

How many “24 hours” will Zahid need before the police would act on the numerous police reports which had been lodged against Mashitah and Zaidi? 48 hours, 96 hours, 240 hours or 480 hours?

I will give Zahid 480 hours or 20 days till Dec. 18 before I ask to meet him to find out why he is unable to fulfil his public oath that the police will start investigations within 24 hours of a report lodged against any individual who impinged on a sensitive issue.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 5 December 2014, 1:33 pm and is filed under
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ISIS in Gaza

by Khaled Abu Toameh

Gatestone Institute

December 5, 2014

When One Radical Group Believes Another Is Not Radical Enough

It is always dreamlike to see one Islamist terror group accuse the other of being too “lenient” when it comes to enforcing sharia laws. But it is not dreamlike when a terrorist group starts threatening writers and women.

That is what is happening these days in the Gaza Strip, where supporters of the Islamic State are accusing Hamas of failing to impose strict Islamic laws on the Palestinian population — as if Hamas has thus far endorsed a liberal and open-minded approach toward those who violate sharia laws.

Until this week, the only topic Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were talking about was how to rebuild homes and buildings that were destroyed during the last war between Hamas and Israel.

Now, however, almost everyone is talking about the Islamic State threats against poets, writers and women.

It is no secret that the Islamic State has a presence in the Gaza Strip. According to sources there, many disgruntled members of Hamas and other radical salafi-jihadi groups have already joined the Islamic State, with some fighting together with ISIS groups in Syria and Iraq.

Earlier this year, it was revealed here that Islamic State has already begun operating inside the Gaza Strip — much to the dismay of Hamas.

Hamas, nevertheless, continues to deny any presence of Islamic State inside the Gaza Strip. “There are no members of Islamic State in the Gaza Strip,” said Eyad al-Bazam, spokesman for the Hamas-run Interior Ministry.

Many Palestinians, however, do not seem to take Hamas’s denials seriously, and remain unconvinced.

Over the past few days, two separate leaflets signed by Islamic State threatened to target Palestinian poets and writers for their “wantonness” and “atheism.” The leaflets mention the poets and writers by name — a move that created panic among many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The leaflets also included an ultimatum to Palestinian women to abide by Islamic attire or face the Islamic State style of punishment — presumably being stoned to death. The threat leaves one with the false impression that, under Hamas, women can wear swimming suits at the beach and walk around the streets of Gaza City in mini-skirts.

But this is what happens when one fundamentalist group believes that the other is not radical enough.

“We warn the writers and poets of their wanton sayings and atheist deeds,” one of the leaflets read. “We give the apostates three days to retract their apostasy and wantonness and enter the religion of Islam anew.”

The threats issued by Islamic State have drawn strong condemnations from many Palestinians. This is the first time that such threats have been made against poets and writers or women.

Although Hamas has denied any connection to the threats, Fatah officials in the West Bank were quick to accuse the Islamist movement — which has been in control of the Gaza Strip since 2007 — of being behind the leaflets.

Palestinian political analyst Naji Sharab explained that any attempt to deny the presence of Islamic State terrorists in the Gaza Strip was “unrealistic.”

“There’s no denying that Islamic State exists [in the Gaza Strip] as a small group or as individuals,” he said. “The leaflets that were distributed this week could not have come from any Palestinian organization.”

Palestinians point out that the two leaflets were not the only sign of the presence of Islamic State inside the Gaza Strip. They say that Islamic State flags can be seen in many parts of the Gaza Strip, especially at football stadiums and public buildings. In addition, Islamic State stickers can be seen on the windshields of many vehicles.

More recently, Palestinians say, families have begun attaching the Islamic State emblem to wedding invitations sent out to friends and relatives. Photos of Palestinians who were killed while fighting with Islamic State in Iraq and Syria appear in many places, especially mosques and educational centers.

Of course, all of this is taking place while Hamas continues to insist that the Islamic State is not operating in Gaza.

Those who are taking the threats seriously are the women and writers whose names appeared in the leaflets.

Amal Hamad, a member of the Palestinian Women’s Union, expressed deep concern about the threats made by Islamic State. “We are headed toward the worst in the Gaza Strip,” she complained. “We hold the Hamas security forces responsible for the leaflets of intimidation and terror.” She and a large group of women in the Gaza Strip held an emergency meeting to discuss the repercussions of the threats.

Judging from reactions, it is clear that many Palestinians — including Hamas — are extremely worried about Islamic State’s presence in the Gaza Strip. Even if the terror group still does not have many fighters in the Gaza Strip, it already has countless followers and admirers.

It is also clear that if and when the Hamas regime collapses, the Gaza Strip will not fall into the hands of less-radical Palestinians.

The Gaza Strip has already been turned into an “Islamist Emirate” that is run by Hamas and other radical groups such as Islamic Jihad.

While Islamic State may have succeeded in infiltrating the Gaza Strip, its chances of entering the West Bank are zero. This is thanks to the presence of the Israel Defense Forces [IDF] in the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority and its President Mahmoud Abbas are well aware that without the Israeli security presence in the West Bank, the area would easily fall into the hands of Hamas or Islamic State.

It is important to keep in mind that the countries in Europe now voting for a Palestinian state may effectively be paving the way for a takeover by Islamic State.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 5 December 2014, 11:52 pm and is filed under
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Kurds Defend Kobani From Islamic State

Huffington Post/AP

12/04/2014

KOBANI, Syria (AP) — The men and women of Kobani call one another “heval” — Kurdish for ‘comrade’ — and fight with revolutionary conviction, vowing to liberate what they regard as Kurdish land from Islamic State group militants.

Amid the wasteland and destroyed buildings, a sense of camaraderie has developed among the town’s defenders who have for more than two months doggedly fought off the advances by the extremists.

Often, members of the same family can be found on the front lines.

Nineteen-year-old Shida’s father was a fighter before her. After he was killed, she gave up hopes of becoming an artist and decided she must follow in his footsteps to honor his example. She says her mother supports her decision. One of her six brothers is also fighting, the rest of her siblings are living in Turkey.

“I will not allow the enemy to take away my land and its soil,” she said. “I will not leave my land.”

An exclusive report shot by videojournalist Jake Simkin who spent a week inside Kobani late last month offered a rare, in-depth glimpse of the men and women fighting to expel the IS extremists from Kobani, a predominantly Kurdish town in northern Syria by the Turkish border.

Backed by small numbers of Iraqi peshmerga forces and Free Syrian Army rebels, the Kurdish fighters, whose political founders espouse a firm left-wing ideology, are locked in fierce battles to push back the Islamic State group, which swept into the town in mid-September.

In a surprising display of resilience, the Kurdish fighters in the frontier town have held out against the more experienced jihadis more than two months into the militants’ offensive, hanging on to their territory against all expectations.

“We are fighting for freedom,” said a Kurdish sniper who goes under the nickname Zinar, Kurdish for “The Rock.”

“Freedom isn’t something you can easily get or something that someone just gives to you,” he said. “Freedom is only achieved when you go out and get it yourself.”

The militants’ advance was part of the Islamic State group’s blitz this year that overran large parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq. Kobani, once a town of about 50,000 people but now virtually deserted except for the fighters, has seen some of the fiercest urban warfare in the Syrian civil war, now in its fourth year.

Abu Layla, commander of a Free Syrian Army-linked group in Kobani called Shams al-Shamal (Sun of the North) Brigade, said he is proud of what the FSA and the Kurdish fighters have achieved together in Kobani so far.

Their alliance is called “Burkhan al Furat,” which translates as Volcano of the Euphrates.

Abu Layla’s group has over a hundred fighters, mostly ethnic Arabs and Turkmens from Abu Layla’s hometown of Minbej.

He said he is not fighting for the Kurds, Arabs or Turkmens, or for Christians or Muslims.

“I’m fighting for a free democratic Syria, not an Islamic Syria but a free democratic Syria,” he said.

He has not lost sight of the real goal of the rebels, which is toppling President Bashar Assad. But he says the priority now is to get rid of the Islamic State group.

After that, taking down Assad “will be easy for us, if we have support.”

___

The Associated Press is running a series of five exclusive reports with video, text and photos to illustrate ongoing fighting and daily life inside Kobani, Syria. This is the last part of the series.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 5 December 2014, 10:20 am and is filed under
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Najib would have lost his premiership and UMNO/BN kicked out of Putrajaya if the RCIIIS Report had been written and released before the 13th General Elections

Datuk Seri Najib Razak would have lost his premiership and UMNO/Barisan Nasional kicked out of Putrajaya if the 368-page Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Illegal Immigrants in Sabah (RCIIIS) had been written and  released before the 13th General Elections on May 5 last year.

If  a Sabah state elections is held now, I have no doubt that UMNO/BN would be kicked out of state government and power by the single issue of the Report of the RCIIIS.

This is the measure of the disappointment, disbelief, disquiet and dismay which had greeted the release of the RCIIIS Report in Kota Kinabalu on Wednesday, both  in Sabah and in Malaysia.

This may explain for the cloak-and-dagger arrangements for the launching of the Report of the RCIIIS, where the DAP MP for Kota Kinabalu Jimmy Wong,  the DAP Sabah State Assemblyman for Kepayan Edwin Bosi, former Senator Maijol Mahap as well as NGO representatives were unceremoniously barred from the event, as if the authorities had something to hide instead of marking a historic event for the state and nation.

Obviously,  what the Chief Secretary Tan Sri Ali Hamsa and the Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail, who conducted the launching of the Report, were mortally afraid of was to be questioned by elected representatives about the report, but the ruckus over the barring of elected representatives of the people and NGO officials and individuals could have been averted if they had been allowed into the media event as guests and observers but without questioning rights.

In fact, the Prime Minister himself should have been in Kota Kinabalu to launch the report, unless he has reasons to believe that the report will be a public relations disaster, as it has proven to be in the past two days.

The orchestration of twitter bombs during the launch of the report to sabotage and jam  interested but critical twitter sites, like mine, was another tell-tale sign that there were those in authority who had a guilty conscience and wanted to deflect  full attention on  the Report of the RCIIIS – expecting rightly that it was a going to be a  disaster.

I do not think it is an exaggeration to describe the Report of the RCIIIS as the worst Royal Commission of Inquiry report in the nation’s history.

Clearly those in authority knew that the Report of the RCIIIS would be a disaster.

This was why elected representatives were barred instead of being welcomed with open arms.

This was why there was  more than six-month delay in the publication of the RCIIIS Report although it was submitted to the Yang di Pertuan Agong on May 14.

This is also the reason why the RCIIIS Report was not tabled in Parliament for debate.

Is this also the reason for the sudden attempt to strip the RCI of its “royal” character and to downgrade it to a Commission of Enquiry without the “Royal” appendage?

Native Sabahans have been let down for over four decades or for two  generations on the problem, which has changed the political demography in the state and created an unprecedented socio-economic crisis for the people in the “Land Below the Wind”.

In full trust, they had looked forward to the RCIIIS Report to provide  a final solution to the  problem but it has proved to be the “Letdown of all Letdowns”!

                This entry was posted on Friday, 5 December 2014, 4:46 pm and is filed under
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‘Farcical’ Sabah RCI let Projek IC masterminds off the hook, Anwar says

The Malay Mail Online

Dec 5, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 5 — Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said today the findings of the royal commission set up in 2012 to investigate the abnormal spike in Sabah’s foreigner population was not only “farcical”, but had also failed to bring to book the real culprits behind the problem.

The Opposition Leader noted that the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) report released Wednesday had placed the blame squarely on errant civil service runners for what he described as the “biggest illegal immigrant scandal” in Malaysian history since independence.

Anwar said the report, which was 366 pages long, contained mere “meaningless” texts that saw all government agencies and departments completely exonerated of any culpability in the scandal, which has now resulted in nearly 30 per cent of Sabah’s 3.12 million population made up of foreigners.

“The masterminds and the real culprits responsible for the nefarious importation into Sabah of illegal immigrants from southern Philippines and Indonesia are completely off the hook,” he said.

“Even more glaring is the utter failure to mention the role of the National Security Council as well as the Prime Minister’s Department, let alone attribute any blame on them, notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence to that effect,” he added.

After a nine-month hearing, testimonies from 211 witnesses and more than a year’s worth of delays, the much-anticipated RCI report was finally released to the public on Wednesday.

But its findings, according to local and federal opposition politicians, fell short of expectations.

The royal panel, despite acknowledging that “Projek IC” had in all “probability” existed, said the initiative was not politically-driven as initially claimed, but likely the fault of corrupt syndicates that handed out identification cards to illegals to make a buck or two.

Due to limitations in its terms of reference, the panel also made no mention of the culprits involved or recommendation of punitive action.

The panel ended its lengthy 366-page report with a postscript that said it only has the power to “inquire” and “make findings”, while any further action is up to the government.

Anwar’s longtime arch nemesis Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has been repeatedly accused of spearheading “Projek IC”, a citizenship-for-votes initiative in the 1980s that has been blamed for the illegal award of identification cards to foreigners.

But during his testimony to the RCI last year, the former prime minister blamed this on “government officers” and said that he had never heard of such an initiative “until recently”.

During the RCI’s proceedings, which started in January last year, testimonies from Filipinos and other immigrants revealed how they received their blue identification cards or the MyKad — which is proof of citizenship — in just a few years after arriving in Sabah and how they had also voted in elections.

“While it is well known that the Umno-BN government will never own up to its failings, we would have expected at least a modicum of contrition followed by a resolve to make good the errors and misdeeds of the past,” Anwar said.

“Sadly, there is nothing to show for that and Malaysians are once again treated to another farcical display of chest thumping and proclamations of grandeur reminiscent of the recently concluded Umno general assembly,” he added.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 6 December 2014, 7:45 am and is filed under
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Germany jails Islamic State jihadist Kreshnik Berisha

BBC News

5 December 2014

A German man has been jailed for three years and nine months for joining Islamic State (IS) militants, in the first trial of its kind in Germany.

A court in Frankfurt convicted Kreshnik Berisha of membership of a foreign terrorist organisation.

Berisha avoided the heaviest sentence of 10 years after admitting he spent six months with IS in Syria last year.

German authorities believe more than 500 German citizens have travelled to fight for IS in Iraq and Syria.

The domestic intelligence agency estimates that 60 have died there in combat or suicide attacks, and 180 have returned to Germany, according to the AFP news agency.

Berisha, 20, was arrested at Frankfurt airport last December after returning from Syria.

He was accused of having been with IS fighters in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, where rebels are fighting against forces loyal to the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad.

IS fighters pictured in photo from UK Home Office / Met police Hundreds of European citizens are thought to be fighting for IS

He was put on trial in September and was offered a deal by prosecutors, where he would receive a lighter sentence in exchange for confessing.

Prosecutors also suggested the deal would include receiving information from Berisha about the inner workings of the group.

Berisha was born in Frankfurt to a family from Kosovo.

IS is thought to have attracted hundreds of recruits from European countries in its battle to establish what it describes as a “caliphate”, spanning a borderless stretch of Syria and Iraq.

The US launched air strikes against the militants following their seizure of several towns and cities in northern Iraq this summer.

Separately, Britain has jailed its first citizen to be convicted of involvement in terrorism in Syria.

Mashudur Choudhury, who was convicted in May, was sentenced to four years imprisonment.

He was one of a group of six men from Portsmouth who are known to have gone to fight in Syria. Four of them have been killed.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 6 December 2014, 12:04 am and is filed under
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Has 30pct bumi equity target been achieved?

By
Little Stars

Malaysiakini

COMMENT At the outset, we wish to make it abundantly clear that we fully support the New Economic Policy (NEP) objective of eradicating poverty irrespective of race and we completely agree with the 30 percent bumiputera equity ownership target.

In a multiracial country, social engineering using affirmative action to uplift the economic status of a lagging community is necessary. We do not doubt the noble intention of the founding fathers of NEP and we believe the objectives can be achieved if right policies are formulated and implemented.

Government in any part of the world is usually quick to claim credit for any success. However, in the case of Malaysia, with regard to the achievement of 30 percent bumiputera equity ownership target, the government seemed to be more inclined to declare “failure”.

Was it an honest admission of failure or just a convenient pretext to justify the continued implementation of programmes to benefit certain well-connected elites?

The overriding objective of the NEP is national unity. However, after so many years of NEP, it is unfortunate and saddening that some influential figures in the three major ethnic groups are unhappy with the results of NEP. The reasons for their dissatisfaction can be directly opposite to one another, something like below:

Unsuspecting Malays who take the government’s official data on equity ownership as the whole truth and are thus dissatisfied that bumiputeras who constitute 65 percent of the population own only 24 percent of share capital of limited companies in the country whereas the minority groups (and foreigners) own 76 percent.

Chinese are frustrated that despite the fact that major shareholders of many large corporations are already bumiputeras and/or government controlled, fingers are still pointing at them for allegedly being unwilling to share the economic pie with bumiputeras.

Indians feel marginalised because despite their very low share of equity ownership in limited companies in the country, insufficient effort is made to uplift their economic position.

The truth about equity ownership must be revealed so that the dissatisfaction and frustration which create division and distrust among citizens of the country can be erased and national unity can be achieved; any misconception of non-achievement of the 30 percent bumiputera target should be rectified and NEP-related policies that led to cronyism and blatant inefficiency should be discontinued.

The government’s data on equity ownership cover all limited companies in the country, including companies listed in Bursa Malaysia (known as Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange, KLSE, before 2005) as well as private limited companies (“Sendirian Berhads”) which are not listed. This article examines the same companies as the government did.

Our basic approach is to rely on official sources available in the public domain, in particular the various Malaysia Plan documents. Particular attention is given to 2000 because of data availability in the Eighth Malaysia Plan document. For the sake of transparency and to facilitate the readers’ convenient verification, details of the official sources are provided wherever relevant.

When new estimates are made, they are basically derived from or guided by official data and reliable sources and we always have a fundamental principle in mind: be prudent and use conservative assumptions.

As our estimates are derived directly from government data, anybody who challenges our estimates is actually challenging the government data. On the other hand, if our estimates are criticised because of our conservative assumptions, we would like to point out that more liberal assumptions will support our conclusion even more strongly.

The government is in the midst of preparing the 11th Malaysia Plan (11MP) scheduled to be released mid-2015. We are hopeful that the minister in the Prime Minister’s Department responsible for the preparation of 11MP, Abdul Wahid Omar, who was a former CEO of several government-linked companies and a distinguished banker and accountant, will understand our points of view, prepare to consider and accept constructive suggestions.

Two fundamental flaws

The various tables in Malaysia Plan documents that show ‘Ownership of Share Capital of Limited Companies’ categorically state:

1. “Par value” was the basis of valuation of share capital; and

2. They “exclude shares held by federal and state governments”

While the government’s transparency in this regard should be applauded, these two aspects cannot be treated lightly. The use of par value, instead of market price, and the exclusion of government shareholding from the computation of equity ownership make the government’s methodology irrational and incomplete.

These two flaws create serious doubt as to whether the official data really reflect a true and fair picture of equity ownership among the various ethnic groups in the country. The government’s methodology and estimates are not sacred cows and should be subject to scrutiny. Hopefully, when the two flaws are brought to the attention of key decision-makers, they will respond positively and will change the methodology in due course.

We concur with the government that all companies registered with the Companies Commission of Malaysia (CCM) should be included in the computation of equity ownership and not just confined to listed companies. This is because there is a big difference in the number of listed companies and number of unlisted companies; for instance, as at end 2005 there were about 720,000 companies registered with CCM, of which only about 1,000 were listed in Bursa Malaysia. About 719,000 of them were unlisted.

For unlisted companies (“Sendirian Berhads”), we agree with the government that par value should be used as the basis because their shares are not traded in the open market and, therefore, their market prices cannot be determined. But for listed companies, we are of the opinion that the valuation should be based on market price which is a better indicator of the true value of shares.

Many listed stocks have low par values but their market values can be higher by many times because of their good business performance; on the other hand, there are stocks which have market price below par value. It is nonsensical to argue that for the sake of consistency, the valuation of both listed and unlisted companies should be based on par value.

The government may argue that the use of par value in the computation of equity ownership started in the 1970s. During that time, there was hardly any computerisation in the country, valuation of equity ownership and monitoring changes in share ownership based on market price was extremely difficult. The use of par value instead of market price for listed companies at the initial stage of the NEP should only be regarded as a stopgap measure.

The government gave another reason why market price was not used to compute equity ownership. On Nov 7, 2006, in a winding-up speech at the committee stage of Budget 2007 in Parliament, Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Abdul Raman Suliman said it was because market prices were always changing and influenced by factors such as window dressing and speculation activities in the share market.

Such argument is far from convincing because the so-called problem can be easily overcome or minimised by using a nine-month average market price, excluding the three months of November, December and January during which window-dressing activities are usually performed.

To illustrate the irrationality of using par value for listed companies, let us compare Malayan Banking Berhad (Maybank), a listed company, with a small unlisted company XYX Sdn Bhd; both companies have a par value of RM1.00 per share.

On Nov 17, 2014, the closing market price of Maybank was RM9.55 per share. Definitely, any rational person will not think that since both companies have the same total par value of RM10,000, he or she will happily exchange his or her 10,000 shares of Maybank (market value of RM95,500) with 10,000 shares of the unlisted XYZ Sdn Bhd with unknown market value.

To further illustrate the irrationality and possible distortion caused by using par value, let us take a look at the case where both companies are listed in the stock exchange: Tenaga Nasional Berhad (a government-linked company) and Berjaya Corporation Berhad (a company controlled by well-known tycoon Vincent Tan).

The par value of both companies is the same, RM1.00 per share, but their closing market prices on Nov 17, 2014 were RM13.50 and RM0.475 per share, respectively. Tenaga’s market price is 13.5 times higher than its par value, but that of Berjaya is below its par value.

According to the government’s methodology, ownership of 10,000 shares of Tenaga and 10,000 shares of Berjaya is the same because they have the same par value of RM10,000. Any investor in his right mind will not exchange his 10,000 Tenaga shares which have a total market value of RM135,000 with 10,000 Berjaya shares which worth only RM4,750!

Privatised vs non-privatised companies

We now move on to illustrate the irrationality of using par value to compute equity ownership for all companies listed in Bursa Malaysia. For most listed stocks, generally their market values are several times higher than their par values. This fact is convincingly reflected in official data as shown in Table 1 (below).

As at December 2000, on the average for all listed companies, their market price was three times higher than their par value. More revealing was the fact that for privatised entities, their market price was 7.2 times higher than their par value; but for other listed companies not associated with the government’s privatisation policy, the differential was only 2.4 times.

The distortion in share ownership caused by the use of par value in the government’s methodology can be significant if the investment portfolio (basket of shares in privatised and non-privatised companies) of the various communities differ substantially.

As shown in Table 2, for privatised entities, the share owned by government was almost 50 percent. The share of bumiputeras (25.6 percent, in terms of par value) was higher than that of non-bumiputeras (14.0 percent). Coupled with the fact that the differential between par value and market value for privatised companies is substantially higher than that of ‘Other Listed Companies’ (7.2 times versus 2.4 times, as shown in Table 1), the overall equity ownership by ethnicity measured in terms of market price and par value will differ significantly.

The above examples and explanations clearly show that valuation methodology based on par value is totally unacceptable. Since par value neither reflects the true value of shares nor the companies’ performance, it is a fundamental flaw in the government’s methodology to use it to compute share ownership.

Part 2:
Major flaw in computing bumi equity target

__

LITTLE STARS is pseudonym of a group of professionals.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 6 December 2014, 9:42 am and is filed under
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If Tunku is alive today, instead of being the “happiest Prime Minister” he would be  the “unhappiest Malaysian”

On this day 24 years ago, Malaysia’s first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman passed away at the age of 87.

If Tunku is still alive today, instead of being the “happiest” Prime Minister which had been his greatest wish, he would have been the “unhappiest” Malaysian in the country.

Together with the third Prime Minister, Tun Hussein Onn, Tunku’s efforts to form UMNO Malaysia when UMNO was deregistered in 1988, was sabotaged and quashed by the then Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir who set up his own UMNO Baru which Tunku refused to join, questioning its legitimacy and integrity to his last breath.

Tunku would have been horrified at the proceedings of the recent UMNO Baru General Assembly where race-baiting and religious incitement based on the primordial politics of fear, hate and lies were given free rein, with delegates made to believe that after 57 years of UMNO government and six UMNO Prime Ministers, Malays are under siege and Islam under threat, causing  one delegate to declare that Malays have become “slaves in our own land”, another to call for the use of “1 Melayu” instead of “1 Malaysia slogan”, while a third to demand that UMNO elect MCA, Gerakan and MIC leaders into the Barisan Nasional supreme council.

But what would have most shocked Tunku even more would have been the political cowardice of the UMNO national leadership in failing to repudiate the  irresponsible and dangerous politics of fear, hate and lies by the likes of former Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Dr. Datuk Mashitah Ibrahim who concocted the incendiary lie that the Chinese in Kedah had burnt the Quran “page by page in a prayer ritual” and the Penang UMNO delegate, Datuk Mohd Zaidi Mohd Said who incited inter-racial hate, tension and conflict with the allegation that the success of Penang was because of the illegal businesses and crimes in “broad daylight” of the Chinese in the state.

Although the Prime Minister had promised to be fair in the enforcement of the laws after reneging on his pledge to repeal the Sedition Act  and the Home Minister Datuk Ahmad Zahid Hamidi had publicly swore that there would be police action “within 24 hours” of any police report against any individual who impinged on sensitive issues. Mashitah and Zaidi continued to enjoy immunity and impunity from the sanctions of the law for their hate crimes.

Corruption would be an area  which would make Tunku very uncomfortable with present-day Malaysia.

It has  been narrated that Tunku had to sell his row of houses in Penang, one by one, to finance UMNO and he himself often said he retired as Prime Minister in 1970 as “a pauper”.

Is Tun Dr. Mahathir a “pauper” today?  Yesterday, Tun Dr. Mahathir even lamented that political parties are becoming increasingly corrupt, and that “if you become a politician or become a leader in a political party, especially the party in power there are opportunities to make money”.

This curse of money politics in ruling political parties started during Mahathir’s 22-year premiership, when UMNO and to a lesser extent the other Barisan Nasional component parties, were regarded as “passports to fortune” – which would be a total anathema to the first three Prime Ministers of Malaysia, Tunku, Tun Razak and Tun Hussein.

Tunku would find no joy in Malaysia’s improvement in the ranking in Malaysia’s  Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2014, moving up to 50th spot among 175 countries from the 53rd position last year.

This is because Najib’s TI CPI 2014 ranking and score are not only lower than the two previous Prime Ministers, Tun Mahathir and Tun Abdullah, but also because Malaysia is one of the worst peforming countries in the 20-year annual TI CPI series since 1995.

Corruption in the past three decades has got from bad to worse,  a far cry from the administration of the first three Prime Ministers when corruption was never a major problem and was well under control.

When can Malaysia return to the moderation and public incorruptibility of leaders in the first two decades of the nation’s history?

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 6 December 2014, 3:17 pm and is filed under
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Is Umno the true guardian of Malay rights?

Hamzah Nazari

The Rakyat Post

Dec 6, 2014

Malays have now acquired a new sense of political awareness. And it’s causing alarm bells within the Umno establishment, said Raub MP Datuk Mohamad Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz. — TRP file pic

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 6, 2014: Vocal Raub MP Datuk Mohamad Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz has, in his blog Sakmongkol AK47, questioned the Umno political party’s role as a guardian of ethnic Malays.

“That idea, dear readers, is a blatant lie that has been shoved down our throats for a long time, by the Umno bourgeois elite. It is the Great Lie that all right thinking Malaysian must expose.

“That idea, that notion of a supra entity guarding our interests, flies against the concept of the free man that we are,” wrote Mohamad Ariff Sabri.

He claimed that those guarding rights were not political parties but instead people collectively acting through a government, pursuing their collective legitimate interests and rights.

Shifting gears, Mohamad Ariff Sabri then went on to talk about a settlement in his constituency called Kampung SC, the last two letters of which stand for “Special Constabulary”.

“This was a group of gendarmes created by the British to fight communists and their sympathisers.

“There are about 100 houses there, consisting of homes built on land given to former special constables and ex-servicemen,” he said.

People had built their homes here on plots of about half an acre each or less, he said, people who had defended the nation against communist terrorists and other bandits.

“I would have thought the BN government would pay special attention to these people,” said Mohamad Ariff Sabri, adding that ex-servicemen today could be found scrounging a living as bank guards, odd-jobbers or working in workshops, among others.

However, he said this particular settlement had gained some sort of notoriety.

“Since 2006 this place has suffered from the lack of water supply. Before 2013, Raub has been the bastion of BN.

“They have done nothing to alleviate the problem. Nothing, other than assigning blame to the Opposition,” he said, adding that DAP had only recently gained control of the area which has an ethnic Chinese majority.

“All the previous MPs, since 40 years ago have been from BN all the time; the seat is reserved for the Ketua Wanita MCA or a prominent leader from that wing,” he said.

“Last week, the people of Kampong SC, without the agitation of anyone, took up it upon themselves to demonstrate against the government for the lack of water supply.

“As usual, the DAP was blamed for the demonstration. Except, in this case, the blame could not hold water because all the demonstrators were Malays.

“It’s impossible for Raub Malays to become stooges of DAP — a Chinese chauvinist, racist, communist party! Impossible.

“These are Malays, ex-security people, sworn enemies of any organisation remotely related to communist terrorists! They rose up in defiance unable to contain the lies that have burdened them since 2006,” said Mohamad Ariff Sabri.

He said parents had to tell their children not to come back for Hari Raya because due to a lack of water supply and dried up rivers due to the National Service camp that was built nearby.

“The inhabitants endured the poor dismal water supply patiently since 2006. You see, this is the difference between Malays and non-Malays when faced with this kind of problem.

“Any housing estate peopled by non-Malays would be up in arms if they don’t have water for more than a day.

“But Malay villagers would endure these shortages in good faith attributing the miserable water supply as a vicissitude of nature.

“But now the Malays of Kampung SC has acquired a new awareness. There is nothing natural about prolonged breakdown in water supply. The prolonged disruption is simply caused by mismanagement, bad policies and human interference.

“Nothing to do with nature. Malays are challenging the narration given by Umno. Malays have now acquired a new sense of political awareness. And it’s causing alarm bells within the Umno establishment,” he said.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 6 December 2014, 3:55 pm and is filed under
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Major flaw in computing bumi equity target

By
Lucky Star

Malaysiakini

Part 1:
Has 30pct bumi equity target been achieved?

COMMENT At the initial stage of the New Economic Policy, privatised entity and government-linked companies (GLCs) were almost non-existent.

Khazanah Nasional Berhad, the main institution through which the federal government controls GLCs, only came into existence in 1993. Therefore, before 1990, the exclusion of government shareholding owned by Khazanah was a non-issue.

But, when the privatisation policy was vigorously implemented after the publication of the ‘Privatisation Master Plan’ in 1991, the exclusion of government shareholding in privatised entities and GLCs had a significant distorting effect on equity ownership by ethnic group.

Musa Hitam, in an exclusive interview in August 2014 with the Malaysian Insider said, “But the government does not take GLCs into account when they point out that the present bumiputera equity ownership is 24 percent. We are deluding ourselves by continuously pointing a finger at the Chinese.” As a former deputy prime minister and chairperson of a GLC, Musa definitely knew what he was talking about.

For the purpose of showing bumiputera equity ownership, government data are divided into three categories of bumiputera, namely:

1) Bumiputera individuals

2) Bumiputera institutions

3) Bumiputera trust agencies

Bumiputera institutions and bumiputera trust agencies include Permodalan Nasional Berhad,  Amanah Saham Mara, Lembaga Tabung Haji, Lembaga Tabung Angkatan Tentera, Koperasi Polis, Bank Pembangunan Malaysia Berhad, Perbadanan Usahawan Nasional Berhad and the various state economic development corporations. (Please refer to various tables in Malaysia Plan documents that show ‘Ownership of Share Capital of Limited Companies’.)

It should be noted that Khazanah Nasional Berhad, Minister of Finance Incorporated, Menteri Besar Incorporated and State Secretary Incorporated were not included in the three categories of bumiputera.

The federal and state governments hold shares in privatised entities through these institutions. (Please refer to Page 190, Eighth Malaysia Plan.) According to the government’s definition, shares of listed and unlisted companies held by these institutions were excluded from the government’s equity computation methodology.

Not all GLCs are listed in Bursa Malaysia. For the listed GLCs, the government’s controlling stake in a GLC is usually more than 30 percent of share ownership. Controlling stake does not necessary mean majority ownership, but the government’s ability to appoint key members to the board of directors, senior management and make strategic decisions.

Some examples of GLCs controlled by Khazanah are privatised companies such as Telekom Malaysia and Tenaga Nasional. Apart from that, Khazanah has substantial stake in GLCs which are not associated with the government’s privatisation policy such as CIMB Group. There are other GLCs controlled by state governments, for example, Kumpulan Darul Ehsan Berhad under the Selangor state government.

Besides GLCs, there are other government-linked entities such as the Malaysia Venture Capital Management Berhad (Mavcap), a wholly-owned subsidiary of MoF Incorporated established in 2001. Mavcap is one of Malaysia’s largest venture capital companies with investments in the information communication and technology sector and other high-growth industries.

As at December 2000, the listing of privatised entities on Bursa Malaysia (known as Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange, KLSE, before 2005) contributed RM131.1 billion or 30 percent of total market capitalisation (Source: Page 193, Eighth Malaysia Plan) and government’s ownership in privatised entities was 49.5 percent. (Source: Table 7-7, Page 191, Eighth Malaysia Plan). Therefore, it can be seen that the quantity of shares excluded from the government’s computation of equity ownership in 2000 was substantial.

According to a Khazanah press statement dated Nov 4, 2014, market capitalisation of 20 major GLCs tripled from RM140 billion in May 2004 to RM435 billion as at end October 2014. It should be stressed that the abovementioned figures refer to 20 major GLCs only; they did not cover all government shareholding. For instance, Khazanah itself has investments in over 50 major companies, both in Malaysia and abroad.

About one-third of the 20 major GLCs’ shares are held by Khazanah and the like. Thanks to the transparency of Khazanah, it is now known that as at October 2014, the total quantity of government shareholding excluded from the computation of equity ownership was more than RM140 billion. The amount excluded from the government’s computation methodology is substantial indeed.

Based on Khazanah’s data, the 20 major GLCs collectively accounted for almost 25 percent of the total market capitalisation of Bursa Malaysia in October 2014. (RM435 billion / RM1,770 billion x 100 percent = 24.6 percent)

In line with our conservative approach, we assumed that GLCs collectively accounted for only 20 percent of total market capitalisation of KLSE in 2000. Another conservative assumption was that government shareholding in listed GLCs averaged 30 percent, although in reality it was more than 30 percent.

We maintain that as the government holds the shares on behalf of the people, the government shareholding should be distributed to all Malaysians. To those bumiputeras who believe that the 30 percent target has not been achieved, some of them may feel a sense of deprivation if less than 100 percent of the government shareholding is allocated to bumiputeras.

Nevertheless, as we were conservative in making our estimates, we allocated 65 percent of the government shareholding to bumiputeras, reflecting their share in the population.

With the above assumptions, we estimated the additional bumiputera equity for year 2000 if the previously excluded government shareholding were now included in the computation. Consistent with the government’s methodology of including all companies registered with the Companies Commission of Malaysia, we included both listed and unlisted companies in the denominator. The details are given below.

As shown in the last row of the table above, our conservative estimate of bumiputera shareholding in listed GLCs as a percentage of total share capital of all limited companies (listed and unlisted) in year 2000 was 2.7 percent.

Conclusion and recommendation

It is undeniable that the present methodology of equity computation used by the government contains fundamental flaws. Official data stated that for year 2000, bumiputeras’ shareholding was 18.9 percent. But, as it was based on par value and excluded government shareholding, the validity of 18.9 percent was questionable.

In order to have a better appreciation of the question “Has the 30% bumiputera equity ownership target been achieved?” and consistent with remedying the two fundamental flaws in the government’s present methodology, the following points should be noted:

1. Bumiputera institutions and bumiputera trust agencies are institutional investors.

According to official data, together they held 4.7 percent in 2000. Compared with non-institutional investors, the investment portfolio of institutional investors has a stronger preference for blue chips. As market prices of blue chips are generally higher than those of non-blue chips, when par value is replaced by market price, the equity percentage held by bumiputera institutions and trust agencies will certainly go up.

2. Foreigners and nominees are basically institutional investors too. Their shareholdings in 2000, according to government data, were 31.3 percent and 8.5 percent, respectively. Likewise, when par value is replaced by market price, the equity percentage held by foreigners and nominees will go up, affecting equity ownership by ethnicity.

3. The equity ownership tables in Malaysia Plan documents put nominees as a separate category.  However, the implicit assumption in the government’s methodology, or at least the interpretation, that none of the nominees’ shareholding belonged to bumiputeras was far-fetched.

4. Government’s own data acknowledged that bumiputera equity ownership for all limited (listed and unlisted) companies improved by 3 percentage points between 2004 and 2008 (from 19 percent to 22 percent) and in recent years by another 2 percentage points to 24 percent. The total increase of 5 percentage points was on the basis of par value.

Due to improvement in investment portfolio during the 2000s, if the valuation is based on market price, the increase in bumiputera equity ownership would logically be higher than 5 percentage points.

5. Government shareholding in unlisted “Sendirian Berhads” held through Khazanah, MoF Incorporated, Menteri Besar Incorporated and State Secretary Incorporated should also be included. Their quantity is not as large as government shareholding in listed companies, but it has to be accounted for.

6. Additional bumiputera equity resulting from allocation of government shareholding in listed GLCs in proportion to population. A conservative estimate for this additional equity for year 2000 was almost 3 percentage points. Khazanah stated that between 2004 and 2014, market capitalisation of 20 major GLCs tripled. Thus, the additional equity for bumiputeras during the period 2004-2014 would be higher than 3 percentage points.

The government acknowledged bumiputera equity ownership figure now is 24 percent (par value). A correction of 1 percentage point here and 2 percentage points there will easily push the figure of 24 percent to above 30 percent.

Considering the various factors above, therefore, with a new methodology using market price and including government shareholding, a highly logical inference is that, to date, the bumiputera equity ownership target of 30 percent has been achieved.

The above inference, strong and logical it may be, stands to be corrected. Similarly the government’s methodology and conclusion that the bumiputera equity ownership target of 30 percent has not been achieved should not be regarded as sacrosanct and indisputable.

To get to the bottom of the big question “Has the 30 percent bumiputera equity ownership target been achieved?” we recommend the following:

1. A special task force headed by the well-respected Securities Commission (SC) should be set up to do a professional valuation for all listed companies for 2013/2014.

2. Other members of the task force should consist of representatives from relevant and competent organisations such as Bursa Malaysia, Malaysian Institute of Certified Public Accountants and Malaysian Institute of Accountants.

3. The valuation must include government shareholding and be based on market price, if necessary 12-month or nine-month average market price.

4. For the unlisted “Sendirian Berhads”, the Companies Commission of Malaysia (CCM) should be entrusted to do an updated computation.

5. Since the Eleventh Malaysia Plan is scheduled to be published mid-2015, for the results to be incorporated into the preparation process of the 11MP, the task force and CCM should complete their valuation as soon as possible.

6. The results of the valuation should be announced by the SC and CCM directly without interference from any quarter.

In order to uplift the bumiputeras’ equity position to 30 percent, the government should transfer 65 percent of shares held by GLCs to bumiputeras. However, in no way this implies that bumiputeras’ ownership in limited companies should be increased to 65 percent or more.

In the future, bumiputeras’ share ownership may be 65 percent or higher, but, it must be achieved through fair competition and not through a quota system or preferential treatment.

It will be totally unwise for the government to increase the bumiputeras’ equity target to 70 percent just because by the year 2020 bumiputeras will constitute 70 percent of the population. The big question is what will be the implications of such a new policy on the economy?

Likewise, it is irresponsible to shift the goal posts established by the founding fathers by attempting to introduce new terms such as “effective control of equity” or “effective equity ownership”.

We must always remember the wisdom of our founding fathers that Malaysia being an open economy could not practice xenophobia or chauvinism.

Part 1:
Has 30pct bumi equity target been achieved?

__

LITTLE STARS is pseudonym of a group of professionals.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 6 December 2014, 9:46 am and is filed under
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Oil slide threatens Malaysia’s fiscal progress

By Andy Mukherjee

Reuters

December 3, 2014

 The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Just when Malaysia was beginning to plug the holes in its public finances, the prospect of a sharp reduction in oil revenue is threatening to undermine fiscal progress and weaken the currency.

Petronas is playing spoiler. The state energy company recently warned that its contribution to the government’s exchequer – in the form of dividends, taxes and royalties – could slide 37 percent next year from an estimated 68 billion ringgit ($20 billion) in 2014.

Such a shortfall in the main source of government’s oil-and-gas revenue would easily exceed 2 percent of GDP. That would wipe out the 1.7 percent of GDP in annual savings the government hopes to achieve by scrapping domestic fuel subsidies from Dec. 1.

The fiscal hit could be even larger if oil prices next year remain below the $75 a barrel on which Petronas based its forecast. That would threaten the government’s target of reducing the budget deficit to 3 percent of GDP, from an estimated 3.5 percent this year.

The finance ministry is refusing to give up on the 2015 target just yet. It may hope that Petronas can be persuaded to make a less drastic cut in its dividend payment.

Investors, though, aren’t taking any chances. The Malaysian ringgit has weakened almost 3 percent against the dollar since Nov. 27, amidst concerns that the government will be forced to cut public expenditure, dragging GDP expansion in the commodity-exporting economy well below the current consensus of 5 percent-plus growth.

The currency slide may extend – with tacit approval from the central bank. At 2.8 percent, the annual inflation rate is tame. A weaker currency could lift the prices of imported goods, giving Malaysia’s overburdened household debtors some relief from unexpected disinflation. A 6 percent goods and services tax, which Malaysia plans to introduce from April 1, might also boost consumer prices temporarily.

In the long run, the GST will lower the government’s overdependence on oil and gas revenue from ageing fields. Getting rid of wasteful fuel subsidies will protect the budget from any future spike in world energy prices. But in the short run, oil’s slide is not good news for Malaysia. The sweet fruits of hard-won fiscal progress have soured rather suddenly.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 6 December 2014, 6:18 am and is filed under
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