Malaysia Whispers Sow Doubts on Najib’s Ability to Win Votes

Shamim Adam

Bloomberg

May 26, 2016

At the 70th anniversary gala for Malaysia’s ruling party this month, Prime Minister Najib Razak raised the party flag on stage as senior leaders cheered him and sang the group’s anthem of unity and loyalty. In the halls outside the venue, the chatter was less upbeat.

Even as party leaders publicly pledge support, some have privately expressed frustration over the scandal-hit premier — and concern that if they say too much they could be ostracized. In the past year, Najib has removed his most vocal opponents from the party and government machinery. While that means he is unlikely to face a challenge soon, the risk may grow as the next election, due by end-2018, draws near.

At stake is the unbroken rule since independence in 1957 of the United Malays National Organisation, the biggest actor in one of the longest-ruling coalitions in the world. Ethnic Malays are the bulwark of that coalition, and Najib needs to keep them onside. UMNO leaders are also keeping a close eye on rank and file supporters for signs of disquiet, even as opposition parties remain weak and in some cases fractured.

Najib, 62, has endured arguably one of his toughest years in four decades in politics, battling graft accusations and fending off a joint campaign by his ex-deputy and a former mentor against him. If anything he has tightened his grip on the party, but there are pockets of dissatisfaction within UMNO that may distract him from addressing slowing growth. It’s the economy that’s the biggest threat to support from voters facing rising costs.

“Homogeneity in UMNO, like all political parties, is a challenge,” said Norshahril Saat, a fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. “It seems Najib still has strong support within UMNO. But Najib needs to ensure he gets the economy moving again. That is the concern of the masses, both in rural and urban areas.”

Najib has denied wrongdoing and was cleared by the attorney general this year of graft over revelations that $681 million appeared in his accounts before the 2013 election. The UMNO-led coalition won that election by its slimmest margin yet, helped over the line by Malay strongholds, and lost the popular vote for the first time. The money was a personal donation from the Saudi royal family and most was later returned, the government said.

Divisional Chiefs

The premier has also been embroiled in probes into the finances of troubled state fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd. While Attorney General Mohamed Apandi Ali cleared Najib of wrongdoing in accepting funds from a company once linked to 1MDB, he also refused central bank requests for criminal proceedings against 1MDB at least twice.

The activities of 1MDB, which has also denied wrongdoing, are under scrutiny in at least four overseas probes, while companies and individuals linked to it have been investigated in at least six others.

Through it all, the UMNO divisional chiefs have publicly backed Najib.

“The continued support for the current leadership is there and it’s strong — there’s no doubt about that,” said Suhaimi Ibrahim, an UMNO committee member for the division of Lipis in central Malaysia, where Najib was born. “I must admit that it is not 100 percent as some members are unhappy about some things.”

‘Normal’ Unhappiness

“The support among division leaders is very strong and I know that for a fact,” said Rubin Balang, division chief for Tenom in the state of Sabah on Borneo island. “It’s normal that some people would be unhappy.”

While Suhaimi and Balang didn’t elaborate, some party officials alluded to undercurrents in UMNO over eroded trust in Najib, asking not to be identified given the risk of repercussions.

“Najib knows he cannot be unseated by UMNO and UMNO knows that,” said a division chief from a northern state. “You cannot take him at face value but he has UMNO support, so you just keep quiet.” UMNO did not respond to requests for comment.

Whether the chiefs remain quiet depends in no small part on the economy, with growth forecast to expand at the slowest pace in seven years in 2016. As a net oil exporter, Malaysia has been hit by a two-year slump in energy prices, while China’s slowdown has cut demand from its second-biggest export market. The ringgit has see-sawed, turning Asia’s best performance in the first three months of 2016 to the region’s worst in the current quarter.

‘Survived’ Threat

“I do think the worst is past” for the prime minister, said Edwin Gutierrez, head of emerging-market sovereign debt at Aberdeen Asset Management in London. “Najib has basically survived the threat,” he said, and Malaysian government bonds offer “some value.”

Najib and other party leaders have spoken often about the importance of unity, and the premier has restated UMNO’s primary agenda as protecting the interests of ethnic Malays.

“UMNO will stand firm to preserve the strength and honor of the Malays,” he said on May 11. “The interests of the race will always be the main agenda in UMNO’s struggle. The party was founded on the awareness for the need of unity and togetherness for the continuity of the race and therefore the spirit should be preserved.”

Politics of Patronage

UMNO has a feudal political culture that may keep the party behind Najib even as the scandals make his leadership appear “untenable,” said Universiti Sains Malaysia political science professor Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid. The party structure also limits any push for real change, he said.

“UMNO politics is the politics of patronage, and as long as they have connections with levers of power, they will not reform,” he said. “Najib’s government is a weak government — in parliament or by popular vote — and they still haven’t reformed. They don’t have to because they can remain in power.”

Najib has continued and in some cases expanded policies put in place by his father — Malaysia’s second prime minister Abdul Razak Hussein — that give preferential treatment to Bumiputeras, the country’s Malay and indigenous people.

‘Very Capable’

The ruling coalition, known as Barisan Nasional, secured a bigger majority in recent polls in Malaysia’s biggest state of Sarawak, which reflects the public’s confidence that BN is delivering, Najib’s press secretary Tengku Sariffuddin told Bloomberg News in an e-mailed comment.

“The landslide result shows that the prime minister is very capable of leading BN into the next general election,” Tengku said. “At a time of uncertainty in the global economy, he remains focused on safeguarding the well-being and security of all Malaysians.”

Two by-elections next month may point to the voter mood on Najib, especially given residual public anger over the implementation last year of a goods and services tax.

There is also upset over the way Mahathir Mohamad, who was premier for 22 years until 2003, and some others were treated for publicly criticizing Najib, some UMNO members say. The party in February suspended its second-in-command and former deputy premier Muhyiddin Yassin for undermining the organization, while Mahathir’s son was replaced as chief minister of a northern state.

‘Great Damage’

“UMNO is still united, but not like before, and to some extent it has lost its fire,” said an official at UMNO’s Kuala Lumpur headquarters, who’s been a party member for about three decades. “Great damage has been done.”

Discontent is not unusual, and a fractured opposition gives Barisan Nasional breathing space, Norshahril said. In the poll in Sarawak, opposition parties fielded multiple candidates in some seats, splitting their vote.

“BN is in a relatively stronger position,” said Norshahril, who has studied Malaysian politics for a decade. With Najib announcing plans to restructure his cabinet, “we can have a better picture. This will give a clue how dynamics within the party is moving.”

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 26 May 2016, 1:22 pm and is filed under
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Singapore shows spine in bank shutdown

Andy Mukherjee

Blooomberg

Singapore Today

May 26, 2016

The adjectives marshalled most often by bankers to describe Singapore’s regulator used to be “pragmatic” and “business-friendly”. To those, a third probably just got added: “No-nonsense”.

By asking BSI Bank to shut its operations in the city-state, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has scored at least two goals and created one group of winners.

Take the achievements. First, the MAS has given itself a leg up over regulators in the United States, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Luxembourg and Malaysia, which are also investigating a multibillion-dollar financial scandal surrounding 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), the troubled Malaysian state fund whose advisory board has been headed by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. (Mr Najib has rejected allegations that he profited from state funds, and 1MDB has denied any wrongdoing.)

While the Swiss Attorney General’s office is just getting around to starting criminal proceedings against BSI, Singapore has sent the bank packing.

BSI said on Tuesday that it has cooperated fully with the investigations into 1MDB by the Singapore and Swiss authorities, and remains well-capitalised.

The unexpectedly harsh move may earn Singapore some respect. It is what the world’s fastest-growing major wealth centre badly covets, but does not always get.

As recently as March, the US Internal Revenue Service sought a showdown over Singapore’s bank-secrecy laws by trying to arm-twist UBS into revealing information about an American citizen’s bank account in the city. It was a rather pointless exercise: Turns out the island’s central bank may be perfectly willing to lift confidentiality to aid criminal investigations.

An additional benefit is the example it sets for other financial institutions in the city. Serious breaches of anti-money laundering requirements, poor management oversight and gross misconduct — the reasons the MAS gave for delivering the fatal blow — could merit punishment more serious than a crippling fine, which is what Western regulators typically mete out to errant banks.

Naysayers could argue that it is easy to come down hard on a small, private bank catering to the wealthy, rather than a deposit-taking institution of any size. Malaysian and international media could claim also, with some justification, that regulators in general have been too slow to act.

To that extent, making BSI the fall guy is great for PR and costs nothing. However, even if that cynical view is correct, banks in Singapore are unlikely to want to test their limits for living dangerously.

That can only mean one thing: The real winners from Singapore’s banishment of BSI will be compliance folks. They might not know it, but their bonus cheque for this year just became a little more substantial. BLOOMBERG

About the author: Andy Mukherjee is a Bloomberg Gadfly columnist covering industrial companies and financial services.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 26 May 2016, 6:25 pm and is filed under
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Special Task Force on 1MDB should be resurrected and representatives from Bank Negara, MACC, Police, AG’s Chambers as well as PAC should be sent to Singapore and Switzerland to learn how they could detect 1MDB money-laundering and corrupt practices running into  billions of ringgit but  which had escaped Malaysian authorities

The end game of Malaysia’s first global financial scandal, the RM50-55 billion 1MDB scandal (which incorporates the RM4.2 billion “donation” scandal) has started with the two-pronged crackdown in Singapore and Switzerland – the closure of the Singapore branch of BSI and the reference of the “top six” of BSI Singapore to the Singapore prosecutor for possible criminal offences and in Switzerland, the commencement of criminal proceedings against the bank by the Swiss authorities over “money laundering and corruption” offences relating to suspected embezzlement of US$4 billion from 1MDB and the liquidation of the 143-year-old Swiss bank.

In Malaysia, the Special Task Force into 1MDB, which  had comprised the Bank Negara, the MACC, the Police and the Attorney-General’s Chambers should be resurrected and send representatives, together with representatives from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), to Singapore and Switzerland to learn how the investigative and enforcement authorities in these two countries could detect 1MDB money-laundering and corruption running into billions of ringgit but  which had escaped multiple and intensive investigations by Malaysian authorities?

It is a supreme insult and blow to the credibility, capability, professionalism,  integrity and authority of the Malaysian investigative and enforcement authorities that the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) could order the closure of the private Swiss Bank BSI for failing to adequately monitor 1MDB funds to prevent money laundering and corrupt practices but its Malaysian counterparts are blissfully ignorant of such serious money-laundering malpractices.

In a statement dated 24 May, FINMA said BSI “executed numerous large transactions with unclear purpose over a period of several years and, despite clearly suspicious indications, did not clarify the background to these transactions.”

FINMA ordered “the disgorgement of illegally generated profits” of CHF95m (£65.4m; €85.8m; $95.6m) from BSI, which  will go to the Swiss Confederation.

On its part, BSI said the fines,  imposed by both Swiss and Singapore  watchdogs –  the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) imposed a fine of S$13.3m (£6.6m) for 41 breaches of its requirements – will be paid from BSI’s General Reserves for Banking Risks.

FINMA said it is also investigating two former top BSI managers, to determine what they knew about these breaches, how they behaved and their individual responsibility in the case. FINMA said it reserves the right to launch further such proceedings.

The regulator said that from 2011 to April, 2015, there were serious shortcomings in identifying transactions involving increased risk. “These failures related in particular to business relationships with politically exposed persons, the origin of whose assets was not sufficiently clarified, and whose dubious transactions involving hundreds of millions of US dollars were not satisfactorily scrutinised.”

The watchdog noted that the bank’s misconduct was the result of a “deliberate management decision” and that on numerous occasions, business relationships relating to 1MDB were discussed at top management level.

Although we may be at the “end game” of the 1MDB global scandal, the “wrap-up” phase is likely to be prolonged and  protracted, which is why paradoxically, this is not the end of the 1MDB saga, but just another beginning.

The Financial Times yesterday reported that a number of other financial institutions in the world  are claimed to have been involved in the web of 1MDB transactions that have spanned the US, Europe and Asia since the fund was set up in 2009, and that  the BSI action by the Singapore and Swiss monetary authorities are unlikely to be the last regulatory sanction over the 1MDB case.

What concerns Malaysians is whether the Malaysian investigative and enforcement authorities, namely Bank Negara, MACC, Police, the AG’s Chambers as well as the Parliamentary Accounts Committee could redeem themselves and restore national and international confidence in their credibility, capability, professionalism,  integrity and authority in the “end game” of the 1MDB saga.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 26 May 2016, 11:27 am and is filed under
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Why is Tunisia’s Ennahda ditching political Islam?

Larbi Sadiki

Aljazeera

25th May 2016

Several months of internal debates have come to full fruition for the reformists within the party.

Tunis –  Is Tunisia’s Ennahda party renouncing ‘Islamism’, its doctrinaire sine qua non and the basis of its foundational identity?

Over a three-day congress, the party’s first since 2012, members discussed the question through heated but pluralist debates. Ennahda, a movement that emerged in the late 1970s as a national political party with an Islamic frame of reference, is now committing to separate the religious (al-da’awi ) from the political (al-siyasi).

A vision that was upheld for more than three decades has ceded to a new brand of civic Islamism. That is, by analogy, a neo-Ennahda has not only edged closer to the notion of a civil state, but also to Turkey’s ruling AK Party and further from Egypt’s standard Muslim Brotherhood or “Ikhwani” model: The former operates politics with minimum ideology, the latter has historically harboured ambitions of Islamising polity.

This is why in one of his interventions during the congress, the party’s president, Sheikh Rachid Ghannouchi, was adopting a new discourse angled at stressing the primacy of the market, economic growth, renouncing the politics of identity, very much part of the fundamentals of his thought for more than 30 years.

But why is Ennahda renouncing political Islam?

First, one of the reasons is the normalisation of Ennahda party with the ‘deep state’, a term coined to refer to the politico-security establishment that has preserved the imprints of late Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba’s political modelling of it a la Francophile: secular in nature.

Tunisia’s society is similarly shaped, manifesting a deeply hybrid personality that reveres Islam but with a bent for civic engagement of all aspects of the horizontal side of life, including politics.

Ennahda is finally being deftly adaptive, seeking a brand of “Tunisification” of its identity as a major political force with a fixed 35 to 40 percent political following.

A second motive for Ennahda is professionalisation. So by defending a new identity that separates the religious from the political, Ennahda has turned an important corner on the way to a fully-fledged civic political party.

The amendments that have all been passed with an absolute majority – 800-plus votes by the conferences – all prove that several months of internal debates have come to full fruition for the reformists within the party.

This includes further empowerment of the party’s Shura Council, of which 100 representatives are directly elected by the conferences, and another 50  by the Council’s elected 100 representatives. Ennahda’s partnering in the troika government, that delivered the country’s democratic constitution in early 2014, provided the party with an invaluable “reality check”, which it used to reflect, revise and adjust.

Third, democratisation via factionalisation: This is a salient feature of maturing political parties anywhere.

One of the most fascinating debates and the first ever in the history of the Ennahda party took place on the morning of May 22. Three leaders, representative of first and second generations of the movement, took to the floor to openly contest and defend their respective views of how the party should be internally organised, led, and administered .

This was unthinkable before the 2011 revolution in Tunisia. Ennahda’s practice of internal democracy has produced a kind of factionalisation, but this in itself is not a bad thing. Perhaps there are ideological factors.

Distinguishing between the fixed (al-thabit) and the mutable (al-mutaghiyr) is one factor that may explain the shift. Politics belongs to the sphere of the changing. There is a question of public utility or “maqasidi framework” at play as well.

Exigencies and necessities of the Tunisian context have influenced this move. Religiously inspired actors in the Muslim world are trying to define themselves in opposition to the likes of ISIL. Ennahda is no exception, with a narrative pitting “moderates” versus “radicals”.

In the Tunisian national milieu, Ennahda is probably responding to the misgivings of its detractors that it is hiding a secret theocratic agenda: That once in power it will impose dictatorship.

The shift is intended also to pre-empt criticisms from liberals and secularists that it does respect Tunisia’s political identity. Ennahda can now claim it is transcending politics of identity.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 26 May 2016, 7:30 am and is filed under
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Bank Negara Governor Muhammad Ibrahim should convene emergency meeting of Bank Negara Board of Directors on whether BNM should remain above the fray of world crackdown on 1MDB money-laundering or should take proactive steps to contact its counterparts in other countries to secure information/intelligence about 1MDB money laundering

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) Governor Muhammad Ibrahim should convene an emergency meeting of Bank Negara Board of Directors under Clause 4 of the Central Bank of Malaysia Act 2009 on whether BNM should remain above the fray of world crackdown on 1MDB money-laundering or should take proactive steps to contact its counterparts in other countries to secure information/intelligence about 1MDB money-laundering.

As 1MDB is the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund, BNM will be exposed to the height of international ridicule and even odium if monetary authorities like the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore  (MAS) are taking actions to close down banks and initiate criminal prosecutions against bank officers for money-laundering and other financial offences connected with 1MDB but Bank Negara Malaysia is blissfully are unaware and unconcerned about these developments swirling around the financial  world.

Even worse, when there are also  investigations into the multibillion ringgit 1MDB financial scandal by regulators in  other countries including the United States, Hong Kong and Luxembourg!

It would appear that although Malaysia has an Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing Act 2013 (“AMLA”), even  top Bank Negara Malaysia officials do not understand the meaning of money-laundering, which is defined in Section 4 of the Act as any person deemed to have committed an offence if he or she:

a)    engages, directly or indirectly, in a transaction that involves proceeds of an unlawful activity or instrumentalities of an offence;

b)    acquires, receives, possesses, disguises, transfers, converts, exchanges, carries, disposes of or uses proceeds of an unlawful activity or instrumentalities of an offence;

c)     removes from or brings into Malaysia, proceeds of an unlawful activity or instrumentalities of an offence; or

d)    conceals, disguises or impedes the establishment of the true nature, origin, location, movement, disposition, title of, rights with respect to, or ownership of, proceeds of an unlawful activity or instrumentalities of an offence.

Otherwise, why are the BNM “big-wigs” unconcerned about 1MDB money-laundering activities overseas, as highlighted by its counterparts in Switzerland and Singapore?

For instance, the Swiss attorney general’s office had  said in a statement that due to suspected “deficiencies in the internal organization of the BSI S.A. bank” “the bank was unable to prevent the commission of offenses currently under investigation in the criminal proceedings relating to” the investment fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhad.

The prosecution arose from an investigation that Switzerland started last year into suspected misappropriation of billions of dollars from 1MDB, and that it has pursued in cooperation with the authorities in Luxembourg, Singapore and the United States.

The Swiss attorney general’s office said that it had started proceedings against BSI, the oldest bank in the Swiss canton of Ticino, as a result of its own investigations into transactions linked to 1MDB and on the basis of an investigation by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority.

In a separate statement on Tuesday, the Swiss financial market authority said that “through business relationships and transactions linked to the corruption scandals surrounding the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1MDB,” BSI had “committed serious breaches of money laundering regulations.”

The authority said that it had ordered BSI to hand over to the Swiss government profits amounting to 95 million Swiss francs, or about $96 million, and had started legal proceedings against two of the bank’s former top managers.

It also approved the takeover of BSI by a Zurich-based private bank, EFG International, on the conditions that BSI be completely integrated into EFG and dissolved within 12 months and that none of BSI’s top management associated with its misconduct take leadership positions in EFG.

The financial market authority said it had investigated 20 other Swiss banks and had started legal proceedings against six of them over transactions linked to either 1MDB or the Brazilian state oil company Petrobras, which has also been a subject of investigation by the Swiss authorities. BSI’s misconduct in its dealings with 1MDB “was particularly serious,” it said.

The Swiss attorney general’s office said in January that it suspected $4 billion earmarked for development projects in Malaysia had been misappropriated from 1MDB, citing cases involving companies in Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, and a United Arab Emirates sovereign wealth fund, “each involving a systematic course of action carried out by means of complex financial structures.”

In its business with 1MDB, the Swiss financial market authority said, BSI handled transactions for several foreign sovereign wealth funds amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars without adequately clarifying the money’s origins and helped to set up intermediate structures for handling the funds intended to increase the confidentiality of the transactions.

The sovereign wealth funds had constituted BSI’s most profitable group of clients, the financial market authority said, and generated fees that were above market rates. BSI’s senior management “did not question why the sovereign wealth funds should use a private bank to provide institutional services and pay excessive out-of-market fees for doing so,” the authority said.

It said the Swiss bank had also failed to apply adequate risk management procedures to business relationships “with politically exposed persons, the origin of whose assets was not sufficiently clarified and whose dubious transactions involving hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars were not satisfactorily scrutinized.”

BSI had “happily accepted” the explanation that one deposit of $20 million was a “gift,” the market authority said, and in another instance it allowed $98 million to be paid into an account with no attempt to identify the commercial basis for the transaction.

“In many cases, there were clear indications of pass-through transactions,” the authority said, citing a case in which a payment of $20 million was shifted through several accounts on the same day before being transferred to another bank. Such transactions were often a clear indication of money laundering, but the bank failed to carry out any checks, the authority said.

How can the new Bank Negara Governor Datuk Muhammad Ibrahim, the Deputy Governors and the BNM Board of Directors fold their arms and do nothing, pretending that these global crackdowns and exposes on 1MDB money-laundering activities did not exist or had nothing to do with the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund in Malaysia?

                This entry was posted on Friday, 27 May 2016, 1:50 pm and is filed under
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Has Bank Negara given  a new deadline for 1MDB to repatriate RM7.76 billion of its funds remitted abroad or can 1MDB now illegally keep them overseas?

The announcement by the Bank Negara governor Datuk Muhammad Ibrahim that Bank Negara has closed its case against 1MDB, at a time when global monetary watch-dogs as in Singapore and Switzerland  have just started to take action against money-laundering and other corruption offences related to 1MDB,  is the first black mark for the new Bank Negara chief.

Where is Bank Negara’s much touted transparency and accountability when it refuses to reveal what was the compound fine which had been paid in full by 1MDB for failing to comply with Bank Negara directives issued under the Financial Services Act 2013 which, among others, include a requirement for 1MDB to repatriate US$1.8 billion (about RM7.76 billion) of its funds remitted abroad following the revocation of the three permissions granted by Bank Negara to 1MDB in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

Why is Bank Negara keeping its compound fines on 1MDB secret, when everybody knows that the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) had imposed a fine of S$13.3 million on the Singapore branch of BSI  for 41 breaches of its requirements while the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) had ordered the “disgorgement” of “illegally generated profits” of US$95.6 million from BSI, apart from the separate orders of the Singapore and Swiss financial authorities for the closure of the Singapore branch of  BSI and the 143-year-old mother bank in Switzerland?

Was the compound fine imposed by Bank Negara on 1MDB RM10,000, RM100,000, RM1 million, RM10 million, RM100 million or more?

Surely, the Malaysian people are entitled to know from Bank Negara what is this compound fine?

Furthermore, as a fully-owned government company, Malaysians are also entitled to know from 1MDB, the Finance Ministry and the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak what is the compound fine 1MDB had to pay Bank Negara, as this payment had to be borne by the Malaysian taxpayers – whether it is RM10,000, RM100,000, RM1 million, RM10 million, RM100 million or more?

Furthermore, Malaysian taxpayers are entitled to know why this Bank Negara fine should not be surcharged to those responsible for the shocking mismanagement and criminal breaches of trust in 1MDB, whether the Finance Minister, or the Prime Minister by virtue of Article 117 of the Memorandum and Articles of Association of 1MDB, the 1MDB Board of Directors or the principal officers of 1MDB management?

In fact, a conscientious and responsible Public Accounts Committee (PAC) after its far-from-satisfactory report on the 1MDB scandal, which only touched on the “tip of the iceberg” of the 1MDB global scandal, should meet in urgent session to consider the question of imposition of a surcharge of the Bank Negara compound fine – whether RM10,000, RM100,000, RM1 million, RM10 million, RM100 million or more – on the individuals  who must bear full personal responsibilities for the 1MDB breaches of Bank Negara requirements.

Instead, we have a “cari makan” PAC Chairman who is avoiding not only PAC but even Parliament after being involved in a conspiracy to tamper unilaterally and arbitrarily with the PAC Report on the 1MDB, which was presented to Parliament on April 7.

Despite promises by Datuk Hasan Arifin, the PAC Chairman, to explain his unilateral and arbitrary tampering with the PAC Report during the two-week meeting of Dewan Rakyat, he seems to have disappeared into thin air.

Hasan has yet to show the mysterious Bank Negara letter of April 6 on the equally mysterious company, Good Star Limited, to other members of the PAC.

Has Bank Negara given  a new deadline for 1MDB to repatriate RM7.76 billion of its funds remitted abroad or does the payment of the compound fine by 1MDB means that 1MDB need not bring back  RM7.76 billion of its funds remitted illegally abroad?

I expect an immediate and prompt response from the new Bank Negara governor.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 27 May 2016, 7:45 am and is filed under
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Malaysian PM Najib Razak strengthens hold on power

Greg Lopez

The Interpreter

26 May 2016

Najib Razak’s term as prime minister of Malaysia is now in its seventh year and there is every reason to believe he will continue to lead Malaysia for a long while yet.

Given his scandal-ridden tenure, this is a remarkable outlook, one enabled by the sidelining of opponents, an illiberal electoral system, a divided opposition, and civil leadership that took a wrong turn.

As unlikely as it seemed when the The Wall Street Journal reported investigations of corruption and malfeasance on a massive scale related to investment fund 1MDB, Najib, through the power of incumbency, has gone from strength to strength while his detractors have lost momentum.

Even if Najib wanted to resign he could not. Unlike former prime ministers, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Mahathir Mohamed, who were forced to quit by their party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the corruption allegations and supporting evidence against Najib are too serious, substantive and too public (everyone knows about them). A face-saving exit strategy could not be designed without compromising its designers.

All powerful individuals who were brave enough to oppose the prime minister have been cut down to size. As demonstrated through the sackings of then deputy prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin, and then minister for rural and regional development Shafie Apda, Najib has systematically separated his detractors from the power, patronage and machinery that would have been required to topple him.

Mahathir Mohamed, Najib’s most vocal opponent, has also been diminished. This has been accomplished in two ways. Firstly, Mahathir’s power and influence has been cut down. His son, Mukhriz Mohamed, was forced to resign as the chief minister of Kedah, Mahathir’s home state. Mahathir was compelled to resign as chair of Proton (Malaysia’s national auto company) after earlier being fired as the chair of Petronas (the national oil company).

Most damaging however, was Najib’s suggestion that Mahathir had betrayed UMNO by working with the Chinese-dominated opposition. This resonated with UMNO supporters. Mahathir’s humiliation was complete when he lost the police escort accorded to former prime ministers.

On the institutional front, two of the four members of the high powered investigation team into the 1MDB are no longer there. Najib sacked the Attorney General Abdul Gani Patail while the Bank Negara (Central Bank) governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz retired. The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Commissioner Abu Kassim Mohammed, appointed by the prime minister has not said much. The Inspector General of Police (IGP), Khalid Abu Bakar is the only top ranking civil servant from that high powered investigation still in favour with Najib.

Similarly, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that had been vigorously investigating the 1MDB issue was severely compromised through the promotion of four of its members to ministerial positions, and the appointment of a new chairperson.

Then there is the electoral system. Bridget Welsh, in her extensive analysis of the recent Sarawak elections, demonstrated the extent to which Najib can rely on the illiberal electoral system to keep him in power.

Some have suggested the Sarawak electoral results would not be replicated on the peninsula. But domestic politics have once again aligned in Najib’s favour as the opposition, civil society and the majority of the Rakyat, united in the general elections of 2008 and 2013, are now again fragmented.

The People’s Justice Party (PKR), which bridges the secular and the conservatives on the peninsula faces leadership transition uncertainty, both within the party itself and the opposition coalition. The party is split between those who support PKR deputy president Azmin Ali for leadership and those who don’t. Other possible candidates for the leadership include PKR vice president (and Anwar Ibrahim’s daughter) Nurrul Izzah, and PKR’s secretary general Rafizi Ramli.

Outside of the opposition coalition, Azmin Ali appears to have a good working relationship with the Islamic conservatives in the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) but this has alienated both the Parti Amanah Negara (PAN), PKR’s newly formed coalition partner (in the new coalition Pakatan Harapan), made up of moderates who were purged by the PAS, and some members of the Democratic Action Party (DAP).

The upshot of all of this is there is no longer a united opposition to UMNO and Najib. In fact, PAS (the largest opposition party by membership) is now actively being courted by UMNO, and its newly chosen conservative leader, Abdul Hadi Awang, has defended Najib on several occasions.

Civil society, in particular Bersih, had been in recent years the champion of principled politics through its efforts to reform Malaysia’s flawed electoral system. However, the recent actions of its leading lights, Maria Chin Abdullah and Ambiga Sreenevasan, who have supported Mahathir Mohamed (albeit in their personal capacities) in his efforts to topple Najib, have sown confusion and discord.

Mahathir Mohamed has made it clear his ‘Save Malaysia’ campaign is primarily focused on toppling Najib and saving UMNO, and much less so on improving governance. One time supporters of the campaign, such as jailed former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, have come to see it primarily as a Mahathir vehicle rather than a genuine reform movement, as made clear in this scathing letter to PKR leaders.

With these formidable challenges crippling the opposition and his detractors, it is difficult to see how Najib can be dislodged.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 27 May 2016, 7:38 am and is filed under
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The greater winner for the unprecedented  hudud motion in Parliament yesterday was Najib and not Hadi

It is generally thought that the winner for the unprecedented hudud motion in Parliament yesterday was the PAS President, Datuk Seri Hadi Awang when in fact the greater winner was the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who never appeared in Parliament House for the past two weeks.

When the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Azalina Othman Said stood up in Parliament after lunch to move a Minister’s motion to give priority to Hadi’s private member bill motion on hudud, she was not doing Hadi’s bidding but carrying out Najib’s directive.

Although PAS leaders are gloating at their political “coup” to get Hadi’s hudud motion presented to the House, it came to nought, for Hadi backed off from a debate and a vote, and the result is that Parliament had not given leave to Hadi to present a private member’s bill to amend Act 355 to amend the syariah court’s jurisdiction.

This means that Hadi’s private member’s bill motion lapses unless two things happen in the October meeting of Parliament: firstly, Hadi  resubmits his private member’s bill motion; and secondly, Parliament  again vote to give priority to Hadi’s private member’s bill as against official government business.

Let us see whether the Barisan Nasional MPs will in October again vote in support of a Minister’s motion to allow Hadi’s private member’s bill motion to get leave from Parliament to amend Act 355 to be debated and voted upon.

Why is Najib the greater winner in the unprecedented hudud motion in Parliament yesterday?

In one stroke, Najib thinks he has achieved two things: (1) to sideline the 1MDB scandal which had been haunting and hounding him again since beginning of a global crackdown against the Malaysian sovereign fund 1MDB for money-laundering on 24th April 2016 – the closure of the BSI in Singapore and reference its top six officers to the prosecutor for possible criminal offences; and the closure of the 143-year BSI mother bank in Switzerland and commencement of criminal proceedings; (2) make hudud the single biggest issue in the Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar by-elections next month completely overshadowing Najib’s premiership and the 1MDB global financial scandal.

Hadi thought he has got the better of Najib, when in fact it was Najib who had got the better of Hadi.

This was why Hadi did not proceed to have a debate and a vote on his private member’s bill motion yesterday, although Barisan Nasional and PAS MPs had united to vote for Hadi’s private member’s bill to have priority over official government business?

Why didn’t Hadi proceed to have a debate and a vote on his private member’s bill motion although it was only around 3.30 pm and Dewan Rakyat did not adjourn yesterday until late last night?

The answer is quite simple – it was the deal Hadi had reached with Najib, demonstrating the untrustworthiness of both.

Najib did not want the 1MDB global scandal to become the  issue in both by-elections, and this tallied with PAS agenda to downplay the 1MDB issue and  make hudud the main issue in the two by-elections.

This will also enable some PAS leaders to trot out their falsehoods that DAP is anti-Malay, anti-Islam and anti-Malay Rulers –  lies repeated recently by former UMNO Information Minister, Zainuddin Maidin (Zam).

Both the voters in the two by-elections in Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar and Malaysians as a whole  must not fall into the Najib-Hadi trap to create the impression that hudud is the issue, as Najib and the 1MDB scandal must remain in the forefront as the premier issues in the country.

(Speech to weekly meeting of Penang DAP MPs/SAs in Komtar on Friday, 27th May 2016 at 3 pm)

                This entry was posted on Friday, 27 May 2016, 5:12 pm and is filed under
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1MDB Probe Widens as Investigators Target Swiss Private Bank

Hugo Miller, Giles Broom, Andrea Tan

Bloomberg

May 24, 2016

Two of the world’s biggest financial scandals deepened Tuesday as investigations stemming from a troubled Malaysian state fund widened to include a private bank being sold by a wounded Brazilian firm.

Swiss prosecutors began criminal proceedings against BSI SA, while in Singapore authorities ordered the closure of the bank’s local unit. At the same time, EFG International AG won approval to buy BSI from Brazil’s Grupo BTG Pactual SA, which is embroiled in the Petroleo Brasileiro SA scandal involving bribes and kickbacks.

The developments mark the latest twist in the saga of criminal probes into 1Malaysia Development Bhd, with allegations of embezzlement. The Monetary Authority of Singapore said it will withdraw BSI Bank Ltd.’s license for breaches of money-laundering rules as the Swiss Attorney General said legal action is being taken against the firm based on information from investigations into 1MDB.

“We’ve made clear over recent years and months that we see money-laundering risk as having risen in our country,” Mark Branson, chief executive officer of Swiss regulator Finma, said on a conference call Tuesday. “We don’t think that’s endemic, but we do think it’s a risk which has increased over time and here is a case that’s a particularly bad example.”

Corruption Scandals

The widening corruption scandals prompted Finma to investigate more than 20 banks and it’s now preparing to penalize six Swiss lenders over their ties to alleged corruption in Malaysia and Brazil, Branson said. He declined to name the banks or say what penalties are being considered.

Prosecutors in Switzerland, Luxembourg, the U.S., Malaysia and Singapore have been investigating at least $4.2 billion of irregular transactions by the Malaysian state fund, whose advisory board headed by Prime Minister Najib Razak is being disbanded. Najib has denied any wrongdoing.

U.S. prosecutors are examining an alleged transfer of hundreds of thousands of dollars from a former employee of the Malaysian fund to Tim Leissner, who was then a senior banker at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Southeast Asia operations, according to people briefed on the matter. More broadly, prosecutors are looking into Goldman Sachs’s role in helping raise more than $6 billion several years ago for 1MDB, according to people familiar with the inquiry.

Billionaire Arrested

BSI’s parent company, Sao Paulo-based BTG Pactual, is selling assets in the wake of a corruption investigation involving state-owned oil producer Petroleo Brasileiro that led to the arrest of former chairman Andre Esteves on Nov. 25. The billionaire, who has denied wrongdoing, was released from prison in December.

BTG and BSI’s previous owner, Assicurazioni Generali SpA, are at odds over indemnities for potential losses tied to BSI’s dealings with the Malaysian fund. BTG will seek compensation from Generali for fines levied on BSI, saying Tuesday the flaws occurred prior to its acquisition of the Swiss private bank last year. Generali declined to comment on BSI and the criminal proceedings.

Branson said Switzerland is not alone in facing this problem and BSI is a good example of the global reach of these kinds of scandals.

“Here you have banks involved with headquarters in the U.K., in the U.S., in the Middle East and in Switzerland,” said Branson, a Briton who worked at Credit Suisse Group AG and UBS Group AG before joining Finma.

Global Issue

“You have transactions that have run chiefly over Singapore, partly over Switzerland and also other financial centers,” he said. “You have multiple continents, you have banks based in multiple jurisdictions, so this is an issue for the financial industry worldwide.”

BSI’s Group CEO Stefano Coduri resigned as the Swiss regulator said it will seize 95 million Swiss francs ($96 million) from the firm and start enforcement procedures against two former bank employees. BSI said Tuesday that it has cooperated fully with the investigations into 1MDB by the Singapore and Swiss authorities.

The Singapore authorities have also referred six senior BSI executives to the public prosecutor, including the private bank’s former chief executive officer in the city state and his deputy. Coduri was not one of the people referred by MAS. The prosecutor will assess if there were any criminal offenses.

BSI “ignored clear warning signals,” about the risk of some of its transactions as it pursued higher-margin returns, Branson said.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 28 May 2016, 6:26 am and is filed under
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Barisan Nasional’s overwhelming victory in May 7 Sarawak GE was reason why Najib could give  green light to Hadi to prioritise his hudud private member’s bill motion in Parliament on Thursday

Barisan Nasional’s overwhelming victory in the May 7 Sarawak state general election was the reason why the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, could give the green light to the PAS President, Datuk Seri Hadi Awang to prioritise his hudud private member’s bill motion in Parliament on Thursday.

Najib could act in  disregard of the views of the other Barisan Nasional component parties and leaders apart from UMNO because Najib believes that there is a a swing-back of support of the Chinese voters to Barisan Nasional in the Sarawak state general election.

The hue-and-cry  by leaders of other Barisan Nasional parties apart from UMNO, whether MCA, MIC, Gerakan or the Sabah and Sarawak parties, protesting their opposition to Hadi’s motion pales into insignificance against the backdrop of three factors:

(1)	The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Azalina Said Othman would not have stood up after the lunch break of Parliament on Thursday to move a motion to give priority to Hadi’s motion ahead of all government business without the directive from the Prime Minister himself.

(2)	The prioritization of Hadi’s hudud motion was a Barisan Nasional decision, as Azalina was a Minister not of the UMNO but Barisan Nasional Government, and this is the first (and clearly not the last time) when the UMNO leaders would decide on behalf of the Barisan Nasional, with or without the consent or knowledge of the other parties in Barisan Nasional.

(3)	As the Cabinet meeting on Friday did not repudiate or reprimand Azalina’s action in Parliament to prioritise Hadi’s hudud motion (actually, there could be no repudiation or reprimand as Azalina was acting under Najib’s instruction), a dangerous precedent has been set establishing the hegemony of UMNO in Barisan Nasional, where the other 13 component BN parties have  just ornamental roles or value.

What happened in Parliament on Thursday also proved three things:

(i)	That UMNO and the other 13 Barisan Nasional component parties have ceased to be trustworthy parties, as they had promised the people that what happened in Parliament on Thursday would never happen, and yet it happened – with no repudiation or reprimand in the Cabinet yesterday against the Minister.

(ii)	Although there are 14 non-UMNO and two independent Ministers in the 35-member Cabinet, the non-UMNO Ministers have no real role or value in the Cabinet as their position in the Cabinet is only of ornamental value. The Najib-Hadi agreement to give priority to Hadi’s private member’s bill motion in Parliament on Thursday provided the strongest proof of this sad political reality in Malaysia.

(iii)	That  UMNO-PAS or to be more exact Najib-Hadi conspiracy to prioritise Hadi’s hudud private member’s motion is being made the  biggest issue in the Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar by-elections, so that Najib’s world financial scandal – the RM55 billion 1MDB scandal – could be downplayed and overshadowed, even though there is a world-wide investigation and crackdown against banks and individuals for 1MDB money laundering and corruption offences.

(Media Conference Statement Komtar, Penang  on Saturday,  28th May 2016 at 12 noon)

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 28 May 2016, 2:44 pm and is filed under
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BSI Singapore shutdown a wake-up call for private banks in Asia

BY LISA JUCCA AND SAEED AZHAR

Reuters

May 25, 2016

HONG KONG/SINGAPORE – Singapore’s drastic move to shut Swiss bank BSI’s operations in the city-state over its dealings with scandal-hit Malaysian fund 1MDB is a wake-up call for wealth managers in Asia, which had been spared the large fines and sanctions seen in the West.

The private bank is the first casualty of money-laundering probes in at least six jurisdictions into state investor 1Malaysia Development Bhd, whose advisory board was chaired by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) did not name 1MDB in a statement on Tuesday announcing it was shutting down of BSI’s business for “serious breaches of anti-money laundering requirements” and “gross misconduct” by some staff.

But details from a Swiss probe into 1MDB accuse BSI of routinely failing to carry out required background checks on large sums deposited.

In one case, according to the Swiss banking watchdog, BSI was happy to take $20 million after being told by a client the sum was “a gift”. In another, it accepted $98 million without any effort to clarify the origin of the funds.

While Western countries, in particular the United States, have censured banks including UBS (UBSG.S), Credit Suisse (CSGN.S), BNP Paribas (BNPP.PA) and Standard Chartered (STAN.L) for lapses on tax evasion or international sanctions, Asian regulators had been slow to bare their teeth.

The MAS move against BSI, however, signals a willingness to act to protect the reputation of key financial centers in the region, lawyers and bankers said.

“Asian regulators cannot sit on the sidelines and deal with the issues quietly because of the increasing global nature of these probes,” said James Comber, a partner with law firm Ashurst in Hong Kong. “No one regulator wants to be seen as failing to take action on its turf.”

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 28 May 2016, 5:59 am and is filed under
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Malaysia letters deepen mystery over fate of 1MDB cash

Michael Peel, Jeevan Vasagar, Anjli Raval and Kara Scannell

Financial Times

May 27, 2016

The fate of more than $1bn paid out by Malaysia’s scandal-hit 1MDB state investment fund has come under a fresh spotlight after leaked central bank letters suggested it went to a mysterious offshore company controlled by a flamboyant young financier.

The company in question is the Seychelles-registered Good Star. It is owned, according to claims in one of the central bank letters, by Jho Low, a 34-year-old Malaysian dealmaker and socialite known for partying lavishly with celebrities such as Paris Hilton.

Mr Low has since emerged as a figure of increasing interest as international investigations on several continents gradually reveal more about a case that Swiss authorities say may involve the misappropriation of $4bn from Malaysian state companies.

US authorities are focusing on the Good Star cash flows, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Meanwhile, BSI, the Swiss private bank that counted both 1MDB and Mr Low as clients, is facing a criminal investigation in Switzerland and the shutdown of its Singapore operation over alleged serious money-laundering breaches in relation to the Malaysian fund.

Neither Swiss nor Singaporean authorities named Mr Low, who has not been accused of any offences. He has always denied any wrongdoing in connection with 1MDB.

The 1MDB payments to Good Star were $700m in late 2009 and $330m in May 2011, according to a Malaysian central bank letter dated March 23 and seen by the FT. The letter from deputy governor Nor Shamsiah Yunus to Hasan Arifin, chairman of the Malaysian parliament’s public accounts committee, relates to a committee investigation into 1MDB. Neither Ms Nor nor Mr Hasan responded to requests for comment.

In a second letter on April 6, Ms Nor said two unnamed foreign authorities had told the central bank that Mr Low seemed to be the beneficial owner of Good Star. The overseas agencies provided the information on condition their identities not be revealed, the letter added.

One of the foreign authorities said Mr Low appeared to be the ultimate controller of both Good Star and a bank account in the company’s name opened at RBS Coutts in Zurich in June 2009, the central bank letter said. Swiss authorities are currently investigating hundreds of millions of dollars of 1MDB payments into this account. The letter did not make clear whether the ownership of either Good Star or the bank account had changed since then.

Mr Low did not respond to a request for comment sent to Jynwel Capital, the Hong Kong-based Low family company where he is chief executive.

In the Seychelles, where Good Star is registered, details of shareholders and directors are not openly available from corporate registries. The archipelago’s financial intelligence unit said last month it was assisting international probes into 1MDB.

The central bank letters are prompting new questions about Good Star’s ownership and appear to be at odds with an account given earlier this week by Malaysia’s prime minister.

Najib Razak reportedly told parliament in a written answer that, according to 1MDB records, Good Star was owned by PetroSaudi International, a Saudi oil company, at the time of the fund transfers. Those transfers, he added, were related to a joint venture between 1MDB and PetroSaudi that lasted from 2009 to 2012.

A Malaysian government spokesman did not respond to a request for further clarification and comment.

The Malaysian central bank’s March 23 letter also alleges 1MDB provided incomplete or misleading information about the transfers to Good Star, which were officially approved on the basis they were investments related to the PetroSaudi joint venture.

An April 6 letter from the bank stated that PetroSaudi had said in a letter last year that Good Star belonged to its group.

PetroSaudi has denied any wrongdoing and has not been accused of any offences. The company has said all funds and transfers related to the 1MDB joint venture were properly accounted for. It maintains it did not misinform 1MDB or any other authority about Good Star.

1MDB, which has previously denied wrongdoing, declined a request for further comment.

Mr Low seems to have kept out of the spotlight as the 1MDB affair has unfolded, in contrast to the jet-setting public life he led before. Jynwel Capital was part of investor consortiums involved in high-profile purchases such as that of EMI Music Publishing in 2012. Mr Low is also director of Jynwel’s charitable foundation, whose global pledges have included $25m for the relaunch of UN humanitarian news agency Irin.

Mr Low, who was educated at the UK’s prestigious Harrow School and Wharton business school in the US, is a long-time friend of Riza Aziz, stepson of Mr Najib and co-founder of Red Granite Pictures, a production company whose credits include the film The  Wolf of Wall Street.

US authorities are investigating New York property deals involving Mr Low and Mr Riza. Both men and Red Granite have denied wrongdoing.

The 1MDB scandal has rocked Malaysia since it emerged last year that Mr Najib received $680m into his personal bank account. The prime minister, who chaired the fund’s advisory board until it was dissolved in May, has denied wrongdoing and said that those payments were not linked to 1MDB.

Malaysia’s attorney-general said the money sent to the prime minister’s account was a donation from the Saudi royal family.

Additional reporting by Emma Dunkley

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 28 May 2016, 6:21 pm and is filed under
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Najib has lost the moral compass to be Prime Minister when he is not concerned whether Good Star Limited was the genesis of the RM55 billion 1MDB global financial scandal and fraud but only whether WSJ had committed an  OSA offence in revealing Good Star Limited was  owned by Jho Low

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak himself announced after the UMNO Supreme Council meeting yesterday  that the new Bank Negara Governor Datuk Muhammad Ibrahim had lodged a police report against The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) for revealing a letter purportedly from Bank Negara to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairperson Hasan Ariffin.

Najib did not  explain whether the Bank Negara Governor had lodged the police report against WSJ on his instruction, but it would be very sad day in the history of Bank Negara Malaysia  indeed if the greatest concern of the new BNM Governor is not the global investigation and crackdown on 1MDB money-laundering and corruption allegations but whether WSJ had committed an offence under the OSA.

Najib  has lost the moral compass to be Prime Minister when he is not concerned whether Good Star Limited was the genesis of the RM55 billion 1MDB global financial scandal and fraud against Malaysia and 30 million Malaysians but only whether WSJ had committed an OSA offence in revealing Good Star Limited was in fact owned by Penang billionaire Jho Low.

I was shocked a few days ago when Malaysia  gained new international notoriety and  the 1MDB financial scandal  was described by a leading world news agency, Bloomberg,  as one of the “world’s biggest financial scandals”.

I have been a Member of Parliament since 1969, but I have never felt so ashamed as a Malaysian when I read of such a  Bloomberg reference four days ago mentioning Malaysia in the same breath as “the world’s biggest financial scandals”!

Where should Malaysians hide their faces?

Shouldn’t the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, the Cabinet and Parliament be mortally ashamed and humiliated for the country to be referred in such a derogatory and contemptible manner because we have allowed the 1MDB scandal to mushroom in a matter of six years to become one of the “world’s biggest financial scandals”?

What is worse, at least six countries are investigating money laundering and corruption allegations connected with 1MDB, with the Singapore and Swiss authorities already launching a crackdown against institutions and individuals implicated with 1MDB.

Yesterday, for instance, the former wealth manager of troubled Swiss private bank BSI was denied bail by the Singapore High Court and will await his trial in prison for two of the nine charges that are part of the city-state’s investigations into money laundering related to illicit money transfers linked to 1MDB.

The Malaysian government and the Malaysian regulatory authorities, in particular Bank Negara Malaysia, are however blissfully ignorant or unconcerned about the chips about the 1MDB global scandal  falling into place as a result of such foreign investigations and crackdowns.

Is Malaysia an integral part of the global society of finance and instant information or have we walled ourselves into a “hermit state” which could ignore international perceptions, opinions and expectations?

The Good Star Limited is a test case whether Malaysia is prepared to be a responsible member of the global community or trying to be a “hermit state” to cut off the country from the  international flow of events.

The question whether WSJ has committed an offence under the  OSA in revealing a Bank Negara Malaysia  letter  to the PAC Chairman confirming that Good Star Limited was owned by tycoon Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low must not be allowed to overshadow an even greater public interest issue: that the government had lied to Malaysians when it continued to pretend that Good Star Ltd, which has since been dissolved, belonged to former 1MDB joint-venture partner PetroSaudi International when in fact it belonged to Jho Low.

The status of Good Star’s ownership is important because it will determine whether 1MDB’s funds had been siphoned away or that it was indeed used for investment.

1MDB had sent US$1.83 billion abroad for its joint-venture activities with PetroSaudi but US$1.03 billion of this sum was diverted to Good Star.

The diversion would not be an issue if Good Star was owned by 1MDB’s joint-venture partner PetroSaudi, as claimed by the government, but would raise serious concerns if it is owned by individuals or entities unrelated to the joint-venture – in this case, Jho Low, as claimed by WSJ.

If the WSJ revelation is true, that Bank Negara had confirmed that US$1.03 billion (RM4.06 billion) in 1MDB funds had been transferred to an offshore company owned by a close associate of Najib, Jho Low, it would have tallied with the money-laundering and corruption investigations and crackdowns launched by six countries on 1MDB, and why 1MDB had catapulted Malaysia into the  stratosphere of  corrupt global nations with one of the “world’s biggest financial scandals”.

In these circumstances, Malaysians are entitled to demand a reset of national priorities and that the Najib Government should give top priority to render full and satisfactory accountability and responsibility for the 1MDB scandal over all other concerns, including whether WSJ has committed an offence under the OSA.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 28 May 2016, 9:17 am and is filed under
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Singapore court revokes bail decision for ex-BSI wealth manager

A. Ananthalakshmi

Reuters

May 27, 2016

A former wealth manager of troubled Swiss private bank BSI was denied bail by the Singapore High Court on Friday and will await his trial in prison for two of the nine charges that are part of the city-state’s investigations into money laundering.

The case is related to illicit money transfers linked to 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), which is being investigated by at least six jurisdictions.

Judge Chan Seng Onn said prosecution and defense should try to expedite the trial for the two offences of perverting the course of justice.

The prosecution had challenged the S$600,000 ($436,681) bail granted by a district judge for Yeo Jiawei, a 33-year-old Singaporean who is facing charges including forgery and money laundering. He has already served more than 40 days in remand.

It was not immediately clear when Yeo will be tried for the remaining charges.

Yeo, who was present in the court, did not make any remarks.

Prosecutor Kwek Mean Luck presented fresh evidence from the white-collar crime unit of the police, saying it had good reason to believe that Yeo had earned secret profits of around $18 million through illicit transactions.

The prosecutor had earlier accused Yeo of cheating BSI, by concealing from his former employer that he would be receiving $1.6 million a year from Brazen Sky Ltd, a financial vehicle owned by 1MDB which was holding fund units at an account with BSI Singapore.

In an unprecedented move this week, Singapore’s central bank ordered the closure of BSI’s operations in the city-state, while Switzerland began criminal proceedings against the private bank, in the biggest international crackdown on financial entities dealing with 1MDB.

Yeo was one of five former employees of BSI whom Singapore’s central bank has referred to the public prosecutor for possible criminal charges.

(Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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Call for Joint Royal Commission co-chaired by a Sabahan and a  Sarawakian to inquire into full implementation of the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) especially with regard to autonomy powers for Sabah and Sarawak

The month of Tadau Ka’amatan or Harvest Festival this year had not been as carefree as in recent past, with a dark shadow casting over both Sabah and Sarawak in Malaysia.

This shadow is highlighted by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of national unity, Tan Sri Joseph Kurup, when in a most uncharacteristic warning going against his very portfolio of national unity, he cautioned Putrajaya that Sabahans and Sarawakians may demand to split from peninsular Malaysia if the proposed amendments to Shariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965 are passed in Parliament.

What is most sad is that the Ministerial motion to give priority to PAS President Datuk Seri Hadi Awang’s private member’s bill motion in Parliament on Thursday was proposed without the consent of the other non-UMNO parties in the 14-party Barisan Nasional coalition, the seconder of the Ministerial motion is a Sabahan Deputy Minister.

The time has come for a Joint Royal Commission co-chaired by a Sabahan and a Sarawakian  to inquire into the full implementation of the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) especially with regard to autonomy powers for Sabah and Sarawak.

On the occasion of Tadau Ka’amatan 2016, Putrajaya must be reminded of the 54-year guarantees and undertakings immortalized in the Keningau Batu Sumpah to uphold religious freedom, land and native rights and customs.

The three key pledges in the Keningau Batu Sumpah were guarantees that Sabahans would have freedom of religion, their native land would be safeguarded by the state government and the federal government would respect and protect Sabah local customs.

Are these promises still being respected and honoured?

This should be one of the terms of reference of the Joint Royal Commission on the full implementation of Malaysia Agreement 1963.

What the Ranau Council of Churches said in its Ka’amatan Message should also be given serious attention by Putrajaya and the Joint Royal Commission on the full implementation of  Malaysian Agreement 1963.

Commending the Sarawak Government for “taking a public stand in declaring its commitment to seek for the realignment of the Federal Constitution and national laws with MA63″, the Council recalled that the covenant of the Malaysian Agreement was based on certain principles, viz. fairness and justice, and equal opportunities for development for the Borneo States.

Several areas were particularly negotiated and agreed on by all parties concerned, which include religious freedom, education, representation in the Malaysian Parliament, the position of the indigenous races, immigration, citizenship and the Constitutions of the Borneo States.

It said: “Today however, our abundance in natural resources is not reflected in our economic growth and the standard of living of our people.

“The harvest is poor.

“Today, we voice out our innermost desire for the spirit and truth of MA63 to be brought to light and restored in its entirety.”

These deepest concerns of Sabahans, as well as Sarawakians, must be addressed, and there is no better way to do so than by way of a Joint Royal Commission on the full implementation of the  Malaysia Agreement 1963.

Such a Joint Royal Commission on the full implementation of the Malaysia Agreement 1963 will also be proper forum to deliberate on the outcome of the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on Illegal Immigrants in Sabah Report, or whether the Report is just gathering dust when the four decades-old  issue of illegal immigrants in Sabah cries out for resolution.

(Pesta Kaamatan 2016 Message on Sunday, 29th May 2016)

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Liow and Mah should demand Prime Minister to restore status quo ante,  sack Azalina and Rosnah as Minister and Deputy Minister for unilaterally prioritizing Hadi’s bill and Cabinet  repudiation of  their motion in Parliament on Thursday

MCA president Liow Tiong Lai and Gerakan president Mah Siew Keong have threatened to resign from the Cabinet if PAS President, Hadi Awang’s  hudud bill is passed.

Liow is the Transport Minister while Mah is Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department.

Liow said: “I’m trying to stop it, I’m trying to get all the (BN) component parties to stop it.

“I am urging both sides of the political divide to come together and stop this Bill.”

Instead of making meaningless statements after the horses had bolted, Liow and Mah should restore the status quo ante before the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said, stood up in Parliament after Thursday’s lunch break to propose the Ministerial  motion to give priority to Hadi’s hudud motion, which was listed as Item 15 in the Order Paper, leapfrogging 14 other items including five items of official business.

Azalina’s motion was seconded by  the Deputy Works Minister Datuk Rosnah Abdul Raashid Shirlin.

Two actions must be taken to restore the status quo ante –  firstly, the sacking of Azalina as Minister and Rosnah as Deputy Minister for unilaterally proposing and seconding the motion in Parliament, which had violated both the spirit and commitment of Barisan Nasional that such a motion would not be supported by BN MPs and secondly,  the Cabinet repudiation of the Ministerial motion by the Azalina and Rosnah on Thursday.

Hadi’s hudud private bill member motion would lapse in the October meeting of Parliament unless there is another Ministerial motion to give it priority for parliamentary debate and vote ahead of government official business.

The best way to ensure that there would be no repetition of the Thursday farce would be a clear-cut stand by the Barisan Nasional government to restore status quo ante, with the sacking of Azalina and Rosnah as Minister and Deputy Minister respectively and the Cabinet adopting a resolution repudiating Azalina’s Ministerial motion in Parliament last Thursday.

If  Liow and Mah are not prepared to restore  the status quo ante before Azalina’s Ministerial motion on Thursday, they would not have much credibility even if they make all sorts of  promises and threats.

Threats of quitting the Cabinet makes news headlines, but how credible are they?

Why  Liow or Mah are not heard making threats that they will quit the Cabinet if the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak fails to give prompt, satisfactory and full accountability and responsibility for the nation’s first global financial scandal, which had catapulted  Malaysia as one of the world’s foremost corrupt nations – especially with the crackdown and prosecutions being initiated by other countries against institutions and individuals connected with 1MDB money-laundering and corruption?

Or  have Liow and Mah come to accept that there is no way to prevent Malaysia from becoming notorious as a nation associated with  global corruption or to demand responsibility and accountability for the  1MDB global financial scandal?

In any event, both Liow and Mah should explain what they had done to stop Azalina from moving the Ministerial motion in Parliament after lunch on Thursday, as by Thursday morning, it was virtually an open secret known even to the media that Azalina was slated to move the Ministerial motion to give priority to Hadi’s private member’s bill motion.

In fact, a day earlier on Wednesday, a Minister and head of a Barisan Nasional component party from Sabah had written an urgent letter to the Prime Minister, Datuk  Seri Najib Razak expressing the opposition of the MPs of his party to any proposal to prioritise Hadi’s hudud  private members’ bill motion as it was against the consensus of all Barisan Nasional leaders at a meeting in March 2015,  as well as against the Cabinet decision the previous week on 20th May 2016.

What did Liow and Mah do in the 24 hours before Azalina moved the Minister’s motion to give priority to Hadi’s private member’s bill motion on Thursday after lunch?

Lets wait for their answer as well as whether they are prepared to restore status quo ante which is the surest guarantee that the Barisan Nasional spirit, commitment and brand are still trustworthy, honest and credible.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 29 May 2016, 11:55 am and is filed under
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Why are Ministers  so prone to lie when it comes to the RM55 billion 1MDB global financial scandal?

The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said has been caught red-handed telling another lie about the RM55 billion 1MDB global financial scandal in Parliament, raising the question why Ministers are so prone to lie when it comes to  the RM55 billion 1MDB global financial scandal.

In her written parliamentary reply to the DAP MP for PJ Utara, Tony Pua on Wednesday, Azalina insisted that Good Star Limited, the firm which received US$1.03 billion from 1MDB, belonged to PetroSaudi International, and was owned by PetroSaudi at the time the payment was made.

Azalina’s untruthful reply is doubly inexcusable for two reasons:

Firstly, it flies in the face of the Bank Negara letter to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Datuk Hasan Arifin on April 6 that “Bank Negara Malaysia had been informed voluntarily by the authorities of that country that Good Star Limited is a company owned by an individual that has no links to PetroSaudi Group” – and it  was Azalina who cited this when defending  the unilateral and arbitrary deletion by Hasan of this line  in the PAC Report on 1MDB on the ground that this Bank Negara information was confidential and not meant for publication.

How could Azalina one day tell Parliament that Good Star Limited was not a company owned by PetroSaudi International but this information is confidential, and yet on the following week, blatantly lie that Good Star Limited was owned by PetroSaudi International – contradicting what she had said only a few days earlier?

What  Ministerial standard is Azalina observing, telling one thing one day but a totally opposite thing a few days later?

In such circumstances, what credibility do Ministerial statements, speeches and assurances command whether in Malaysia or the international community?

There is another reason why Azalina’s lie is completely inexcusable. This was because as far back as March last year, the DAP MP for PJ Utara, Tony Pua and the DAP MP for Puchong, Gobind Singh Deo had lodged police report on exactly on this issue.

Fourteen months ago, Pua and Gobind lodged police report at the Damansara police station on a “conspiracy” to defraud 1MDB  of at least US$700 million (RM2.553 billion), following the surfacing of documents and email communication which showed how various  parties, including Penang billionaire Low Taek Jho and his associates, had “attempted to bring about the joint venture between 1MDB and PetroSaudi Ltd”, where the US$700 million was withdrawn into an account owned by Good Star Limited, which is also controlled by Low.

PetroSaudi was supposed to inject US$1.5 billion of assets into the joint venture but these assets were not there.

Did the Police and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission conduct any investigations into  Pua and Gobind’s police report that the transactions involving Good Star Limited and PetroSaudi International were a massive scam, and in particular on whether Good Star Limited was beneficially owned by Jho Low and not owned by PetroSaudi International?

A conscientious, diligent and responsible Minister would have learnt of Pua and Gobind’s police report on Good Star Limited in March 2015, and would be very careful in her Parliamentary answer instead of contradicting her own answer the week earlier as well as ignoring Pua and Gobind’s police report on Good Star Limited 14 months ago.

In fact, there was another police report on Good Star Limited and 1MDB lodged by the then PAS Vice President and Kelantan State Assemblyman Datuk Husam Musa on March 9, 2015 who asked the police to  conduct an investigation into the US$700 million (RM2.575 billion) payment made by the debt laden company to Good Star Ltd in Seychelles.

The police report lodged by Husam Musa was under Section 405 of the Penal Code for criminal breach of trust, especially as the payment did not get the approval of the 1MDB Board of Directors.

Last month, after the PAC Report on the 1MDB, the Seychelles Government announced that its Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) is joining US, Switzerland, Singapore, Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates in investigations into 1MDB financial transactions relating to corruption and money laundering in international offshore jurisdictions and tax havens.

Although  the  Seychelles authorities have repeatedly said that  the archipelago is “not a jurisdiction where money laundering or other illegal activities are allowed to go undetected”, I am reminded of a recent Aljazeera television documentary where undercover journalists exposed how easy it was to set up hard-to-trace “shell companies”  in Seychelles and hide the identity of who was really behind it by creating a labyrinthine ownership structure, putting “a company inside a company inside a company.”

The undercover journalists were told that  the Seychellois company would be controlled by a company in Dominica, which would be controlled by a company in Belize, and so on – and  anyone trying to discover the real owner would never be able to follow the paper trail around the world.

Surely, when the Good Star Limited is registered in one of the world’s most remote offshore havens, which had  gained a reputation as a magnet for Arab princes,  pirates, fugitives, mercenaries, mobster and outlanders who want to hide their money or disguise their business activities, this should strike a warning with the Malaysian financial regulatory authorities, and when Pua, Gobind and Husam lodged their police reports in March 2015 calling for investigation into the billion ringgit 1MDB payments to Seychelles-registered Good Star Ltd, action should have been immediately taken by the authorities concerned, whether police, MACC or Bank Negara.

It is most incredible that until this late stage, the PAC Chairman Hasan Arifin could come out in defence of Jho Low, denying The Wall Street Journal’s report claiming that the Bank Negara letter proves Good Star Limited was owned by tycoon Low Taek Jho, or better known as Jho Low.

Hasan said this was because Bank Negara Malaysia’s information provided to the PAC was ‘intelligence grade’.

He said: “The PAC is not an intelligence body and the information received must be verified and true.

“Because the information was intelligence grade, the PAC cannot include the information (in its final report) as it would contradict our duties and responsibilities, as well as could create prejudice against various parties.”

So Hasan is changing the story as to why he had unilaterally and arbitrarily  tampered with the PAC Report on 1MDB – not because the information provided by Bank Negara was “confidential for the purpose of intelligence only and not for court usage or public consumption”, but because  it was of “intelligence grade”, meaning presumably of low-quality credibility value!

Hasan has taken more than a month to think of an excuse to justify  his unilateral and arbitrary deletion of the PAC Report on 1MDB without the knowledge or consent of the PAC members from both sides of the political divide but the reason that the Bank Negara information  is of  “intelligence grade” and therefore of low credibility value does not pass muster.

Firstly, nobody understand what Hasan means when he categorizes the Bank Negara information as  “intelligence grade” and cannot be accepted as true unless “verified”.

Isn’t it the job of the PAC to verify the truth of Bank Negara’s information by summoning relevant witnesses, including Jho Low and even Datuk Najib Razak not only as chairman of the 1MDB Board of Advisers but as the sole person under Article 117 of the 1MDB Memorandum and Articles of Association who must give written consent for any major 1MDB decision or transaction?  Why was this not done?

Malaysian taxpayers would not grudge Hassan and the PAC flying out to Seychelles, the emerald-green archipelago in the Indian Ocean, if the PAC could come back with positive answer as to who was the beneficial owner of Good Star Limited, which plays so central a role to the nation’s first global financial scandal.

Hasan has failed as PAC Chairman but also the test of “intelligence grade” when he unilaterally and arbitrarily rejected Bank Negara’s information from financial watchdogs of other countries that Good Star Limited did not belong to PetroSaudi-International, and even worse, failed to commission PAC hearings to delve into Bank Negara’s information.

Hasan’s latest denial has only fortified the belief that there is a high-level “cover up” conspiracy concerning Malaysia’s first global financial scandal affecting the nation’s sovereign fund 1MDB.

Malaysians want the government to focus on rendering full responsibility and accountability for the 1MDB scandal instead of dissipating national resources and energies on less important matters – like the  Bank Negara governor Muhammad Ibrahim’s police report against the Wall Street Journal over the Bank Negara letter to the PAC Chairman dated April 6, 2016.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 29 May 2016, 9:03 am and is filed under
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I am prepared to meet Liow Tiong Tai and find out whether it is true that Najib never told him in advance about Azalina’s Ministerial motion to give priority to Hadi’s private member bill in Parliament last Thursday

I am prepared to meet with MCA President and Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai, to find out whether it is true that the Malaysian Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak never told him beforehand about the Ministerial motion by the  Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in Parliament after lunch-break on Thursday to give priority to PAS President Datuk Seri Awang Hadi’s hudud private member’s bill motion.

However, if  Najib had told him beforehand about Azalina’s Ministerial motion, Liow should explain what he had done to stop Azalina from proceeding with the Ministerial motion, which not only violated the Cabinet decision the previous week but also the consensus of the  Barisan Nasional leadership in March last year.

Liow’s professed ignorance of Azalina’s Ministerial motion last Thursday is a great political mystery, as a day earlier on Wednesday, a Minister and head of a Barisan Nasional component party from Sabah had written an urgent letter to Najib expressing the opposition of the MPs of his party to any proposal to prioritise Hadi’s hudud  private members’ bill motion.

Liow has said that Azalina’s Ministerial motion prioritizing Hadi’s private member’s bill is against the Barisan Nasional spirit, warning that if Hadi’s hudud amendment bill is passed in Parliament, there will be a constitutional crisis, while the MCA Deputy President and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong had as good as described  Azalina’s motion as “an attempt to disrupt the country’s diversity” which should be “opposed to the end and there should not be any grounds for ambiguity”.

Will Liow, when he meets Najib before Friday’s Cabinet meeting, impress on  the Prime Minister on the importance and urgency of ensuring that there should not be any grounds for ambiguity on Hadi’s motion?

Before the occurrence of the  constitutional crisis referred to  by Liow, there is clearly already an Barisan Nasional crisis on a fundamental issue affecting the constitutional basis and the political future of the country.

Has the MCA President requisitioned  an emergency meeting of the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council before the Cabinet meeting on Friday to resolve the BN crisis caused by Azalina’s Ministerial motion in Dewan Rakyat last Thursday?

Would the MCA President table a resolution at the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council emergency meeting before Friday’s Cabinet meeting  for the restoration of the status quo ante before Azalina’s  Ministerial  motion in Parliament last Thursday by sacking Azalina as Minister and Datuk Rosnah Abdul Raashid Shirlin (who seconded the motion) as Deputy Works Minister and  a Cabinet repudiation  of the Ministerial motion by the Azalina and Rosnah in Parliament last Thursday.

I am prepared to meet Liow any time. Just name the place, date and time.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 30 May 2016, 3:19 pm and is filed under
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Is Hadi’s bill about hudud punishments?

Wong Chin Huat

Malaysiakini

Published 28 May 2016, 3:11 pm

To save BN’s non-Malay components from the embarrassment of letting Hadi’s Private Member’s Bill on syariah court’s criminal justification to complete its first reading, Prime Minister Najib Razak reportedly denied that bill was about hudud law.

“I would like to clarify that the amendment (bill) is not hudud law, it is just to enhance the punishment from six times (of the rotan) to a few times, depending on the offences,” he said.

He also said, “It also involves the syariah courts and only involves Muslims. It has nothing to do with non-Muslims.”

Najib could be right about the second point as this bill now seems to be governing offences involving only Muslims.

But is this not about hudud?

No hudud law, only hudud punishments and offences

There is no such thing as hudud law. Hudud refers to punishments and offences.

Take the Kelantan Syariah Criminal Code II (1993) 2015 for example. It metes out three types of punishments:

i. Hudud (fixed) – applicable on theft, robbery, adultery, false accusation of adultery, sodomy, intoxication, heresy (called “hudud offences”)

ii. Qisas (retaliatory) – applicable on homicide and causing bodily injuries (called “qisas Offences”)

iii. Ta’zir (discretionary) – residual punishment in the forms of imprisonment and diyat (blood money) for hudud and qisas offences when the hudud or qisas punishments cannot be meted out because of evidence or circumstantial reasons.

Najib-Hadi’s gradualist approach

Kelantan’s (and also Terengganu’s) syariah criminal codes cannot be implemented because of two obstacles.

The first lies in the ninth schedule of the federal constitution, which places criminal justice in the federal list and syariah court as item 1 in the state list.

In Item 1, the power of the syariah court includes “creation and punishment of offences by persons professing the religion of Islam against the precepts of that religion, except in regards to matters included in the federal list”.

The second lies in the Syariah Court (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965 (Act 355). Section 2 of the Act imposes the so-called 3-5-6 limit on punishments meted out by syariah courts: imprisonment up to three years, fine up to RM 5,000 and whipping up to six lashes.

Hadi tabled a similar Private Member’s Bill last June. Both his bills last year and this year wish to remove the 3-5-6 cap. But Hadi’s bill this year is less ambitious.

First of all, “death penalty” is kept out of syariah court’s reach. This immediately takes out stoning for adultery by married offenders.

Secondly, while both bills make reference to tem 1 in state list of the ninth schedule, reference – presumably “except in regards to matters included in the federal list” – is used to exclude offences already covered by the federal law. That excludes the hudud offences of theft and robbery – which imposes amputation – and also interestingly sodomy, which is outlawed as unnatural sex under the Penal Code.

Last year, such exclusion was not heard off. Even doctors supportive of hudud punishments offered to perform amputation.

Caution however must be taken when one looks into the description (
huraian
) of the bill.

Paragraph 3 reads, “
… Pindaan ini bertujuan untuk memperjelas bidang kuasa jenayah Mahkamah Syariah ke atas orang yang menganut agama Islam bukan hanya terhad kepada kesalahan terhadap perintah agama tetapi termasuk apa-apa kesalahan lain yang berhubungan dengan apa-apa perkara yang disebut dalam Butiran 1 Senarai Negeri yang dinyatakan dalam Jadual Kesembilan Perlembagaan Perseketuan
“.

If the description (which might have been copied from the 2015 bill) reveals the real intention of the bill drafter, then Hadi actually hopes to change the constitutional provision that confines syariah offences to the violations of “precepts of religion” (perintah agama) by a normal bill.

However, the Najib-Hadi pact seems to pursue a gradualist approach in expanding syariah rule.

Not only the most controversial hudud punishments of amputation and stoning are taken out, the non-Muslims are also now excluded by excluding offences of theft, robbery, homicide and bodily injuries, where non-Muslims might be victims or witnesses to crimes committed by Muslims.

This makes Najib-Hadi’s agenda of syariah expansion look more reasonable and acceptable amongst the Muslims.

Some but not all hudud punishments enabled

What are the outcomes if Hadi’s bill is retabled and passed in the next parliamentary session?

Based on the restrictive interpretation, three hudud offences in the Kelantan’s code – theft, robbery, sodomy – and all qisas offences – homicide and causing bodily injuries – are excluded because they are already covered by the Penal Code.

Four offences – adultery (zina), false accusation of adultery (qasaf), intoxication (syurb) and heresy (irtidad dan riddah) – will be enabled but one more hudud punishment – stoning for married offenders – is excluded because it means to cause death.

This means that five more hudud punishments under the Kelantan Syariah Criminal Code II (1993) 2015 [KSCC II] would be enabled:

i. for adultery by unmarried offenders, whipping of 100 lashes

ii. for false accusation of adultery, whipping of 100 lashes

iii. for intoxication, whipping of 40-80 lashes

iv. for heresy, forfeiture of property

v. for heresy, imprisonment for an unspecified period in the hope of the offender’s repentance (the constitutionality of last two may be contested (see table below)

Hadi’s bill is therefore about some hudud punishments – whipping is clearly one – albeit not all. Najib lies. Will his BN allies buy his lie as explanation?

Opening the floodgate

If Hadi’s bill is passed, it will affect not only Kelantan and Terengganu, which have in place virtually suspended syariah law that provides hudud punishments.

Other states may follow suit. Remember that proposals to expand syariah rule were made by Umno lawmakers in Selangor and Johor?

Also, the punishments may also be expanded.

For example, it will not make sense for unmarried offenders to be whipped with 100 lashes while married offenders go unpunished because they cannot be stoned.

How many lashes will married offenders get if the principle of heavier punishment for married offenders than the unmarried ones is to be followed?

The passing of Hadi’s bill – if it happens in October – it concerns more than the Kelantan’s code. It is a question of floodgates.

Just last December, two university students in Aceh were whipped in the public for “close proximity” (khalwat). The girl collapsed and was rushed to hospital after receiving five lashes.

Malaysians need open and respectful dialogues and debates on whether we want to see such scenes – for example 80 lashes for drinking, 100 lashes for adultery – in Kelantan and beyond. We need to hear each other out.

In these dialogues and debates, we must remember that Malaysia was founded in 1963 and her foundations are the Malaysia Agreement and the Inter-Governmental Committee (IGC) Report, which make her a secular federation.

____

WONG CHIN HUAT is a Research Fellow with Penang Institute, the state government think-tank on public policy.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 30 May 2016, 1:18 pm and is filed under
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Liow should meet Najib on three-point agenda: Cabinet meeting on 20th May rejecting Hadi’s private member’s bill,  whether Hadi’s private member’s bill was about hudud and  to restore status quo ante by sacking Azalina and Rosnah

There is a chorus of MCA, Gerakan and MIC Ministers threatening  to resign from the Cabinet over Hadi’s hudud  private member’s motion which was given priority in Parliament on Thursaday as a result of the Minister’s motion moved by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Azalina Othman Said and seconded by the Deputy Works Minister, Datuk Rosnah Abdul Raashid Shirlin.

This chorus was  started by the MCA President and Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai and followed  up by the Gerakan President and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Mah Siew Keong, MIC President and Health Minister Datuk S. Subramaniam, MCA Deputy President and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Wee Ka Siong.

Liow has said that he will meet Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to convey MCA members’ concerns over Hadi’s private member’s bill.

What Liow should do is to meet the Prime Minister on a three-point agenda and inform the Malaysian public the outcome of his meeting with Najib.

The three-point agenda are:

Firstly, on  the Cabinet at its meeting on May 20, 2016 which  decided against Hadi’s private member’s bill motion, and why Azalina moved the Ministerial motion after lunch in Parliament on Thursday giving priority to Hadi’s motion which was contrary to this Cabinet decision as well as the consensus of all the Barisan Nasional leaders at a meeting in March 2015.

Secondly, Najib’s statement on Friday night after the UMNO Supreme Council meeting that it was merely a misunderstanding  to regard Hadi’s private member’s bill was on hudud, which is in stark contrast to the MCA, Gerakan and MIC positions.

Liow described Hadi’s bill as unconstitutional while his deputy president, Wee rejected claims that Hadi’s bill “is not a hudud bill”, insisting that Hadi’s bill will lead to hudud and encroaches on the civil legal system.

Was the Prime Minister right in claiming that Hadi’s bill was not  on “hudud” or were the Ministers who threaten resignation right in declaring that Hadi’s bill will lead to hudud?

Thirdly, restore the status quo ante before Azalina abused her powers in moving a Minister’s motion to give priority to Hadi’s private member’s bill motion by   sacking Azalina as Minister and Rosnah as Deputy Minister and Cabinet repudiation of the Ministerial motion by the Azalina and Rosnah on Thursday.

Hadi’s hudud private bill member motion would lapse in the October meeting of Parliament unless there is another Ministerial motion to give it priority for parliamentary debate and vote ahead of government official business.

The taking of these three measures, in particular the sacking of Azalina and Rosnah from the Cabinet, would ensure  that there would be no repetition of the Thursday fiasco in Parliament.

It is no use Liow and others threatening resignation from the Cabinet at the end of the year if Hadi’s bill is passed, if Liow and other Ministers are not prepared to restore the status quo ante with the sacking of Azalina and Rosnah from the Cabinet.

(Speech at the DAP ceramah in Sekinchan on Sunday, 29th May 2016 at 8.30 pm)

                This entry was posted on Monday, 30 May 2016, 2:45 am and is filed under
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