What is the reason for Najib’s five-month silence on whether the sacking of Gani Patail as Attorney-General has anything to do with preparation of  corruption charges by Attorney-General’s Chambers against him as  the Prime Minister?

It was exactly five months ago that the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak purged the government by sacking the Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, a senior Cabinet Minister, Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal and the Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail and unleashed  forces which resulted in “nine days of madness” in Putrajaya dissolving not only the high-powered multi-agency Special Task Force into the RM55 billion 1MDB scandal headed by the then Attorney-General but also the  arrest or  immediate transfers of recalcitrant officers in various investigative and enforcement agencies like the Police, the Attorney-General’s Chambers, Bank Negara and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Agency (MACC), as well as the derailing of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) investigations into the 1MDB scandal for more than three months  until the election of a “cari makan” PAC Chairman.

Many strange and extraordinary things happened in these five months and one of them is Najib’s silence on whether the sacking of Gani Patail as Attorney-General has anything to do with the preparation of corruption charges in the Attorney-General’s Chambers against him as Prime Minister.

Najib is a seasoned politician and he cannot be  unaware of such prevalent talk, not only in the country but worldwide, that he saved his premiership and  political life by the skin of the teeth with the sudden and pre-emptive sacking of Gani Patail as Attorney-General exactly five months ago, or he would have found himself in the dock answering corruption charges.

Will Najib clear the  air on the sacking of Gani Patail as Attorney-General  before the year 2005 ends in four days’ time, as nobody gives credence to the official reason of health given for Gani Patail’s termination of service  – especially as Gani looked very healthy and well in his three public appearances after his summary sacking: twice in September in  connection with the murder of  DPP Kevin Morais  and  third time at the Bar Council forum on “Sosma: Wolf in sheep’s clothing” in early November.

The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Departmnet, Datuk Paul Low, is right – it is a stigma that the Najib Cabinet is not “God-fearing” when not a single Cabinet Minister, including Low, had dared to voice any protest or even query as to the propriety for the sudden and pre-emptive sacking of Gani Patail as Attorney-General  three months before his retirement!

Leaving moral judgement aside for the moment, recognition is due to Najib for a world  feat for Malaysia in securing the biggest donation for a general election campaign, as no other world leader is known to have secured such a  gargantuan donation for a general election campaign – although under Malaysian law, the sum of RM2.6 billion is more than 26 times  the total amount legally permissible to be spent by all the 222 Parliamentary and 505 State Assembly candidates  which UMNO/BN fielded in the 13th General Election!

If  an opposition party or individual had received RM2.6 billion donation from foreign sources for the 13th General Election, all the enforcement and investigative  authorities in the country will be crawling all over the opposition party or individual concerned, but clearly, this is not the case with Najib.

Why is Najib unable to break the silence about the real reason  for Gani Patail’s sudden sacking?

Five  fundamental questions about Najib’s RM2.6 billion “donation” scandal are still waiting for Najib’s answer, viz:

Firstly, who donated the RM2.6 billion – whether one donor or more, and which foreign country did the donation come from;

Secondly, who had benefited from the RM2.6 billion donation for the 13GE campaign, the identity of  UMNO/BN leaders, including Ministers and MPs, who had received monies, and how much;

Thirdly, what is left of the RM2.6 billion donation, and where is it now?

Fourthly, what is the motive for the RM2.6 billion “donation:”; and

Fifthly, why Najib had not put the RM2.6 billion into UMNO accounts?

Never mind about legal suits filed by UMNO members in connection with the RM2.6 billion “donation” meant for UMNO but channelled into Najib’s personal bank accounts,  or even the outcome of various investigative agencies inside the country, doesn’t Najib  owe a duty to 30 million Malaysians to demonstrate that as Prime Minister, he is not guilty of any criminal breach of trust with  regard to the RM2.6 billion “donation” for the 13GE campaign?

Najib’s fitness as Prime Minister immediately comes into question if he cannot see that as Prime Minister, he owes  a responsibility to give a swift and satisfactory accounting of the  twin mega scandals, and not to go through the charade of a promise to answer all questions about the RM2.6 billion scandal and then reneging on the undertaking on the last day of the 25-sitting budget parliamentary meeting on Dec. 3?

Despite the statement by the MACC special operations director Bahri Mohd Zin that MACC will submit the findings of its investigations into the RM2.6 billion “donation” scandal and the former 1MDB subsidiary SRC International to the Attorney-General next week, nobody entertains any hope or belief that justice can  be done  within the existing bureaucratic framework unless  a genuinely  independent commission is established to investigate Najib’s twin mega scandals.

By MACC’s past records including those of its predecessor, all claims by MACC that it could investigate Najib’s twin mega scandals “freely, transparently and professionally” is nothing but “hot air”.

If Malaysia is to start anew to believe in the credibility and ability of the various enforcement and investigative agencies to carry out their tasks efficiently and professionally without “fear or favour”,  let Najib start with a full statement to explain his role and the status of various government investigations into the twin mega scandals to date.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 29 December 2015, 6:39 am and is filed under
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A virtually impossible feat – Najib’s twin mega scandals entering new year in  36 hours with even more questions than answers

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s twin mega scandals – the RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM55 billion 1MDB – have performed a virtually impossible feat,  entering the new year in some  36 hours with even more questions than answers.

This, despite  being the subject of multiple investigations inside the country – at one time, even by the  highest-powered multi-agency Special Task Force under four “Tan Sris”  led by the then Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail himself  until Gani  was summarily sacked in a government purge on July 28 whose victims included the Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and the Special Task Force dissolved  – and the target of separate investigations by at least seven foreign countries, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Hong Kong,  Australia and United States.

How could this happen?

On Monday (Dec. 28), Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi urged the people not to fall for the latest report by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) which cited an unknown source in explaining how US$850 million was transferred from 1MDB to a phantom offshore entity.

In its Dec 17 report, the US-based daily said 1MDB fund was sent to “Aabar Investments PJS Ltd”, which closely resembles the name of Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Investment Co’s (IPIC) subsidiary – Aabar Investment PJS.

WSJ reported the news based on documents reviewed by the publication and those familiar with the matter.

However,  on Monday, Zahid made no effort to deny or admit the authenticity of the news.

If Zahid is in the know about the  matter of the US$850 million 1MDB transfer, he should either deny or admit the authenticity of the WSJ Report.

If Zahid had no idea whatsoever  about the transfer of  US$850 million to phantom offshore entity, he should stay completely out of the 1MDB ring, instead of trying to be a smart aleck to make comments on things he knows nothing about.

Less than 24 hours after Zahid’s advice to Malaysians to suspend judgment and belief in mass media reports about Najib’s twin mega scandals until the outcome of the various Malaysian investigations, WSJ dropped what has been described as
“WSJ’s Last Bombshell For The Year”
 (finance twitter) – that Najib’s US$700 million (then RM2.6 billion but now RM3 billion due to ringgit depreciation) sudden swelling in his private banking accounts in March 2013 came from 1MDB.

The WSJ report
“1MDB and the Money Network of Malaysian Politics”
carried a number of allegations, including the following Malaysiakini write-ups:

*“Najib sacked former 1MDB auditors, says WSJ editor”.

*“WSJ claims 1MDB board jittery over probe, feared CBT charge”.

*“Jho Low helped disburse BN election spending”.

*“WSJ: 1MDB prioritised political spending despite insufficient funds”.

Instead of a point-by-point rebuttal, whether outright denial, clarification or justification, to the various allegations in the WSJ report, 1MDB under its CEO Arul Kanda Kandasamy hewed  to the guideline enunciated by the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi to generally dismiss  all the allegations on grounds that they are “unproven allegations” and/or from unverified sources.

Wouldn’t 1MDB, and by implication the Prime Minister, have gained in greater credibility if in the past six months they had diligently  responded to all the allegations, whether by denying or explaining its actual circumstances if taken out of context,  leaving the various pending investigations to confirm whether the 1MDB responses are true, instead of taking the high but shaky ground of dismissing all the allegations as unproven and/or unreliable as coming from unverified sources?

For instance, in the allegations in the WSJ Report yesterday, couldn’t 1MDB  respond specifically whether the following events had taken place:

1. 1MDB’s former auditors Ernsts & Young and KPMG were fired by Najib after both of them had questions about accounting relating to the treatment of investments relating to the 2009 PetroSaudi joint venture.

2. Board members of 1MDB had been jittery over police  investigations in December last year after an unnamed Umno politician lodged a police report claiming financial mismanagement in the company, with one board  member worried whether they could be charged with ‘criminal breach of trust’.

3. 1MDB Board Chairman had suggested at the Board meeting in December last year convening in the future outside of 1MDB’s offices to ‘reduce the risk of bugged meeting rooms’.

4. Business tycoon Jho Low  brought into 1MDB to help handle election-related spending although  Low  did not hold any formal title within Umno or Barisan Nasional. Low acted as a senior BN strategist for Penang in the 2013 GE,  where he told BN candidates that if they needed money for their campaigns, they could request from him and he would deliver the funds ,  and money were spent to paint voters’ houses, give out free food and other favours – when “money was flowing like hell”.

5. 1MDB continued prioritising  political spending despite its insufficient cash flow to repay its heavy debt, alarming directors  by the poor financial state that they expressed their fears at a board meeting on Dec. 20 last year whether  they had landed in hot water and whether the police would launch a probe on the firm.

6. Najib had gathered a group of Umno leaders in July when he was under pressure to resign, with him reminding  the Umno leaders that they had benefited from the RM2.6 billion political donation, where Najib was quoted as saying: “I took the money to spend for us.”

Or is 1MDB wary of any  point-by-point rebuttal, whether denial or explanation of the actual circumstances, because there is   considerable truth in the allegations and for fear of being tripped up by more expose  of facts and truths from a controversy over these  allegations?

Najib’s twin mega scandals are not going to fade and vanish, but will grow and multiply both in scale and intensity and  the list of questions are going to  lenghthen relentlessly and completely overwhelm the few unsatisfactory answers that are forthcoming from the Prime Minister and 1MDB – like the  questions in the eight-part series on the 1MDB scandal by Malaysiakini and Kinibiz for their end-of-the-year coverage.

Najib may survive   the  immediate adverse consequences of the twin mega scandals, but the nation and the 30 million Malaysians will be the  casualties, in terms of economic growth and the national trajectory towards a united,  competitive, progressive and prosperous Malaysia that will be blighted by the  open and festering national wounds represented by the RM2.6 billion donation and RM55 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals.

The greatest national service Najib can do to the country is to lay both these twin mega scandals to rest by giving a full and satisfactory accounting of his role in the RM2.6 billion donation and RM55 billion 1MDB scandals.

Can Najib perform such a national service in the Special Parliament he will convene on Jan 26 and 27 to approve the TPPA?

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 30 December 2015, 1:19 pm and is filed under
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Ahmad Maslan wins Crown of Clowns 2015?

By Martin Jalleh

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 30 December 2015, 11:58 am and is filed under
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How 1MDB overpaid for its power assets

BY
KHAIRIE HISYAM
 | Kinibiz

DECEMBER 20, 2015 10:30AM

On Nov 23, 2015, 1MDB announced that it has signed a deal with China General Nuclear to sell its power assets in return for RM9.83 billion in cash. This sale at a massive loss brings full circle its questionable purchases of the power assets while paying grossly inflated figures several years ago.

________________________________________________________________________

Most of 1MDB’s power assets were acquired within a 16-month time frame between March 2012 and July 2013. The spending spree raised many questions at the time, which remain unsatisfactorily unanswered as at writing time.

The underlying logic of buying over independent power producers (IPPs), as understood by market observers, would likely be the strong cash flow.

In simple terms, IPPs have a steady stream of cash flow by virtue of their power purchase agreements (PPAs), which are iron-clad agreements that guarantee a steady stream of money in exchange for a steady level of power generation as stipulated in the agreement.

This helps with 1MDB’s growing pile of debt at the time as strong cash flow would enable the company to service its obligations. Having issued a RM5 billion bond in 2009, 1MDB later issued more debt papers and by March 31, 2012, when its 2012 financial year ended, 1MDB’s total borrowings came to RM7.93 billion.

However, its trail of acquisitions raised eyebrows for the wrong reasons – the market at the time was abuzz with how the company strangely paid a generous premium for the power assets.

By conservative estimates, the company, forking out RM12 billion or so overall, overpaid by some RM3 billion.

First acquisition: Tanjong

The first acquisition was made in March 2012 when 1MDB paid RM8.5 billion to buy over tycoon Ananda Krishnan’s Tanjong Energy Holdings, which is now known as Powertek Energy Group.

However, this raised eyebrows at the time as just two years prior Ananda had taken the Tanjong Group private at a valuation of RM8.8 billion. While the valuation seems similar, an important point was the original Tanjong Group comprised not only power assets but also gaming and other businesses.

After the privatisation, Ananda then sold off the gaming components for RM2.1 billion to a consortium which, among others, comprised businesspeople William Cheng of Lion Group, Quek Leng Chan of Hong Leong Group and Lim Kok Thay of Genting Group.

Simple arithmetic meant the power assets under Tanjong must have been less than RM6.7 billion in value and closer to RM6 billion as Tanjong had other assets besides gaming and power, compared to what 1MDB paid.

In other words, for its first acquisition 1MDB would have overpaid by at least RM1.8 billion and by as much as RM2.5 billion.

Second acquisition: Genting’s assets

Five months after the deal to buy Ananda Krishnan’s Tanjong assets, 1MDB announced it was buying Genting Group’s power assets held under Mastika Lagenda Sdn Bhd for RM2.3 billion. However, at the time this also raised concerns as the power supply concession for the power assets was expiring by February 2016.

This sparked questions of whether this is another overpriced deal. In a separate announcement, Genting stated it expects to “record a one-off nett gain of approximately RM1.9 billion from the proposed disposals”.

While the power supply concession for the Genting power assets had since been extended by 10 years to 2026, it is unclear whether 1MDB had prior knowledge of this when undertaking the acquisition.

Industry sources say the terms for extension of the concession were made at a low purchase price for power which would have cut the Genting power assets valuation to about RM1 billion, implying an overvaluation of RM1.3 billion.

Third acquisition: Jimah

Nearly one year after buying over Genting’s power assets, in July 2013 1MDB announced its acquisition of a 75% stake in Jimah Energy Ventures Holdings for RM1.23 billion.

Most market observers agree, however, that this particular acquisition seem priced at fair market value.

In any case, the premium paid for the power assets showed in 1MDB’s annual reports. For the financial year ended March 31, 2013, during which it bought the Genting and Jimah power assets, 1MDB recorded some RM1.2 billion in impairment assessment for goodwill, though it did not specify to which acquisition in particular.

Taken together, the emerging picture is 1MDB generously overpaid by RM3.1 billion to RM3.8 billion when it should have paid between RM 8.2 billion and RM8.9 billion for the three acquisitions collectively instead of RM12 billion.

This is particularly glaring after 1MDB announced on Nov 23, 2015 that it is selling the power assets to China General Nuclear for a total sum of RM9.83 billion in cash – the shortfall is roughly a little more than RM2 billion.

Valuing the power assets

To be fair, however, after the three acquisitions between 2012 and 2013, 1MDB subsequently built on its acquired track record to bid successfully for two new power plant concessions.

The first, won in February 2014, was codenamed Track 3B and entails two coal-fired power plants in Jimah, Negeri Sembilan with total generation capacity of 2,000MW.

However, liquidity issues, which cast doubt on its capability to undertake the project, forced 1MDB to sell its 70% stake in Track 3B to Tenaga Nasional for RM47 million, a transaction completed in July this year. Its partner Mitsui & Co, however, retains its 30% stake in the project.

The second is codenamed Track 4B, which was reportedly awarded in August 2014. To be located in Malacca, the facility would have a generation capacity of up to 2,400MW.

Therefore, in considering the power assets it bears mentioning that the RM9.83 billion that China General Nuclear is paying also includes ownership of Track 4B, which is yet to be built. In other words, since there would also be some value attached to this particular project, the shortfall from the disposal of the three power assets 1MDB originally bought would have been slightly bigger than stated above.

It is tricky to put a valuation on a power plant that has not yet been built – it would depend crucially on what the PPA will be. Sources say the power purchase price has not been determined yet but it could be based on the price for what Tenaga Nasional got for the Prai power plant.

If that is used as a benchmark, the value of the project may not be that high. Recall that Edra sold 70% of 3B to Tenaga Nasional for RM47 million.

If we were to be generous and put a value of RM1 billion on 4B, the range of value for 1MDB would rise to RM9.2 billion to RM9.9 billion. And it could come in lower if we were to take into account that most of the concession periods have been shortened by several years since 1MDB purchased them. The analysis, however, excludes debt of RM8 billion in Edra.

This, however, is a very simplistic analysis in the absence of further technical details which would only be available to parties privy to the PPAs, which fall under the Official Secrets Act. Depending on what is disclosed, these details may impact the true valuation of the assets.

What remains exceedingly clear, however, is that 1MDB grossly overpaid by several billion for its power assets between 2012 and 2013 – an uncharacteristic generosity – by undertaking debt to do so and is now selling them at a loss to repay those debts back.

Yesterday:
The RM7 bil PetroSaudi caper

Tomorrow:
1MDB’s love affair with the Arab world

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 30 December 2015, 12:05 pm and is filed under
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1MDB’s love affair with the Arab world

By
Khairie Hisyam
 | Kinibiz

DECEMBER 21, 2015 8:00AM

From its first ever deal seven years ago, controversial 1MDB has had a persistent association with parties from the Arab world. The pressing question, on account of its mysterious and self-harming decisions while benefitting these friends, is why.

________________________________________________________________________

When it was first set up as Terengganu Investment Authority (TIA) in early 2009, 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) set out to drive strategic development of national interests. After it was taken over by the federal government by mid-2009, however, the meaning of “strategic” seems to have taken an Arabic flavour.

The company’s board of advisors, for starters, count two prominent Middle Easterners as advisors – former Qatar prime minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jabr Al-Thani as special advisor while advisor Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak is CEO of Mubadala Development Co, an investment company owned by the Abu Dhabi emirate in the United Arab Emirates.

And then there is also the dynamics brought by businessman Low Taek Jho, who is known for close connections both to the Middle East rich as well as to the prime minister’s family.

While Low, more commonly known as Jho Low, had never had any official role nor received remuneration from 1MDB in any form according to both his representatives and 1MDB, he seems intimately involved and instrumental in putting together 1MDB’s maiden joint venture – the first of many decisions linking back to the Arab world.

PetroSaudi and the departed billions

In September 2009, 1MDB hastily formed joint venture with privately owned conglomerate PetroSaudi International Ltd, inking an agreement just days after CEOs from both sides were introduced.

 It was a strange circumstance considering Jho Low has no official role at 1MDB beyond offering advice by invitation of the company up to the point it ceased to be TIA and was renamed, his representative said previously.

Meanwhile, the entire joint venture raises questions on the strategic value in lending money to a privately owned foreign company after a short-lived joint venture which in itself remains opaque (please see Part 6 of this issue for more about this deal).

The important players involved add an interesting dynamic to the perplexing deal. PetroSaudi is led by Tarek Obaid, a businessman who is known to be close to Saudi royal Prince Turki, the seventh son of the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

This royal connection seems to be played up during the rushed negotiations in the run-up to the hasty signing by end-September. In his email introducing the CEOs from both sides to each other on Sept 15, two weeks before they signed the joint venture, Jho Low invoked the name of the Malaysian prime minister as well as the Saudi prince.

“I am pleased to confirm as per YAB Prime Minister’s discussions with HM King Abdullah Al-Saud on furthering Saudi-Malaysia bi-lateral ties, together with YAB PM’s discussions with HRH Prince Turki Al-Saud, PetroSaudi and 1MDB is on track with respect to your USD2.5b JVC partnership. YAB PM has confirmed that he looks forward to the signing ceremony on 28 September 2009 to be attended by HRH Prince Turki Al-Saud [sic],” wrote Jho Low in an excerpt of the email published by Sarawak Report.

However, this deal is essentially a private one between 1MDB and PetroSaudi, the latter being a fully private entity with no real ties to the Saudi government, raising questions on why Jho Low’s email gives off a vibe that it was a government-to-government arrangement. It is not.

Questions also arise on how much influence the Saudi side had over the entire deal.

Leaked documents and emails published by Sarawak Report – which had not been refuted as false by any party involved – indicate that talks were led by Jho Low and his associates, with 1MDB officials playing catch-up throughout. In turn talks began when Tarek introduced Jho Low to a UK businessman named Patrick Mahony who would later on join PetroSaudi as an employee.

These aspects of the deal paint a disturbing picture, given the shenanigans involved before and after the deal was inked, that the joint venture itself was perhaps conceived and planned by parties who are not officially part of the 1MDB organisation – which only raises questions on what their motivations were in devising the deal.

This also adds a shade of curiosity as 1MDB seems inclined towards more questionable deals with Middle Easterners in the years following this deal.

Billions to Aabar for nothing

Following the dodgy deal with PetroSaudi, in 2012 1MDB issued two US dollar bonds totalling US$3.5 billion to finance its power asset purchases (see Part 3 and Part 7 of this issue). Here 1MDB again went against its own interests involving a Middle Eastern outfit.

The bond issuances were co-guaranteed by the International Petroleum Investment Co (IPIC), which is an Abu Dhabi government investment vehicle set up to invest in energy and energy-related industries globally.

This raised eyebrows as, being wholly owned by the Ministry of Finance (MOF) and by extension the Malaysian government, 1MDB already had sovereign backing for the bonds.

In any event, for the co-guarantee IPIC received two things in return. First, it was allowed to keep RM4.25 billion of the nett bond proceeds as refundable security. That comes to 38% of the RM11.67 billion raised.

Second, its subsidiary Aabar Investments PJS was granted options to subscribe for up to 49% equity stake in Powertek Investment Holdings, which houses the power assets 1MDB bought from businessman Ananda Krishnan (see Part 7 of this issue).

Since the options expire after 10 years, one viable option would have been to wait out the period if 1MDB did not have any urgent reason to extinguish them. It would be reasonable to presume that Aabar would give prior notice if it ever intends to exercise these options, giving 1MDB some time to decide what to do in that scenario.

Abu Dhabi and TRX

After the bond issuance and the options granted to IPIC’s Aabar, 1MDB sealed another deal with the Abu Dhabi investor in 2013. As with the co-guarantee and the Aabar options, the deal seemed unnecessary, adding to the mysterious intimacy of Middle Eastern interests in 1MDB dealings.

On March 12, 2013, Malaysia and Abu Dhabi announced a partnership worth RM18 billion to promote new economic initiatives to spur billions of ringgit in sustainable, long-term investments in Malaysia.

“The partnership will focus in investments in important high-impact projects vital to the long-term economic and social growth of Malaysia,” read a press statement on 1MDB’s website dated March 12.

“Separately, Abu Dhabi is moving ahead to provide the required capital for the multi-billion ringgit Tun Razak Exchange (TRX) development, making it the first major multinational anchor investor for Malaysia’s new growth nucleus,” it said further.

1MDB previously estimated TRX will generate some RM26 billion in gross development value (GDV) and create 40,000 new job opportunities for knowledge workers. It is expected to further create up to half a million new jobs via multiplier effect by the time it is fully completed.

That 1MDB needed Aabar to anchor TRX and provide capital is strange. 1MDB had previously acquired the TRX land cheaply from the government and seems awash in cash at the time, based on its annual accounts, following its previous borrowing spree.

For example its annual accounts for the 2014 financial year ended March 31, 2014 (FY14) show a cash pile of nearly RM4 billion deposited with various banks, earning a meagre interest of 0.68% per annum. In FY14 1MDB also invested RM13.4 billion in borrowed money at various places including the Cayman Islands for only 3.3% annual return.

The returns from these roughly RM17 billion pale in comparison to 1MDB’s borrowing costs, with interest rates ranging from 5% to as high as 18%.

In turn the question arising is why 1MDB did not put its billions to work at TRX instead, where development returns would likely be more lucrative. This way it need not have brought in a foreign investor who would be taking away some of its potential profit in exchange for investment.

And the underlying question is why 1MDB needed to bring in Aabar to provide capital when it clearly had the cash to provide capital itself.

Is 1MDB chief conflicted?

In the trail of events involving the Aabar options, an interesting connection emerges that raises the question of potential conflict concerning 1MDB chief Arul Kanda.

Arul joined 1MDB from Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, where he was an executive vice-president and also head of its investment banking division. The same bank is reportedly among the five foreign lenders for 1MDB’s US$975 million loan as the second tranche of payment to extinguish the Aabar options.

Notably when 1MDB took the US$975 million loan from the consortium of banks that included Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Arul was still employed at the bank. The question that arises is whether Arul was involved in Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank’s part of the loan to 1MDB.

Casting complications on the matter is that Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank is majority owned by a unit of the Abu Dhabi government while IPIC is wholly owned by the Abu Dhabi government.

This poses more questions on whether Arul was involved in dealings related to 1MDB before he joined the latter and whether his intimacy to the Abu Dhabi side would hurt 1MDB’s interests, given the various deals in place between both sides.

IPIC, from partner to white knight

Interestingly part of Arul’s strategy to turn things around at 1MDB insofar as its debt pile goes has seen involvement with IPIC again. In essence, IPIC is assuming a sizeable chunk of 1MDB’s debt in exchange for assets in a deal expected to reduce 1MDB’s debts by RM16 billion, said Minister Of Finance II Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah on May 29, 2015.

This followed the signing of a binding term sheet by IPIC, its subsidiary Aabar, 1MDB and the MOF on May 28, 2015, according to IPIC’s filing to the London Stock Exchange (LSE) on June 10, 2015 which disclosed the terms of the binding term sheet.

Following the signing, IPIC extended US$1 billion to 1MDB which the latter used to repay a bridging loan of US$975 million, which was taken out to extinguish options granted to IPIC’s Aabar as examined earlier in this article. The loan was originally due in September but jittery lenders requested early settlement.

This US$1 billion is not a loan nor will it involve 1MDB assuming further debt, said Arul on May 30, 2015. “It is an initial payment as part of a broader agreement to comprehensively address the various financial asset and liability transactions between IPIC, Aabar and 1MDB,” he said.

Other terms of the binding term sheet stipulate that from June 4, 2015 onwards, IPIC will assume all interest payments due under two 1MDB loans amounting to US$3.5 billion, which were guaranteed by IPIC in exchange for 38% of the proceeds and the options.

IPIC is also to receive a transfer of assets equivalent to US$1 billion in value by June 30, 2016, after which IPIC will directly take liability for all payment obligations under the two 1MDB loans as well as forgive certain financial obligations of 1MDB to IPIC.

Tony Pua

In a previous statement, Petaling Jaya Utara member of parliament Tony Pua claimed that through the deal the Malaysian government has provided a guarantee of US$4.71 billion (RM17.7 billion) to IPIC. “In the event 1MDB is unable to fulfil its obligations to transfer assets worth the same value to IPIC by June 30, 2016, the government will indemnify IPIC by assuming the obligations.”

However, in a separate statement 1MDB denied that the government has provided a guarantee through the deal.

According to IPIC’s filing to the LSE, “1MDB and MOF have agreed to perform the obligations contemplated in the binding term sheet and to indemnify IPIC and Aabar for any non-performance, and vice versa”. At the time of writing the nature of these assets remain unclear.

Undue Middle Eastern influence?

Tracking 1MDB’s various deals with Middle Eastern interests over the years brings to light a number of troubling concerns. And they lead to one pressing question: why is 1MDB apparently acting against its own best interests in these deals?

In this respect the 2009 joint venture with PetroSaudi stands out. The deal was concluded in such a hasty manner that one cannot help but wonder why there is such urgency. Even more alarming is the fact that US$700 million of the US$1 billion 1MDB committed to the joint venture was transferred into an unrelated bank account.

There are also questions over why 1MDB subsequently decided it was a moneylender and lent more money to PetroSaudi after the joint venture was terminated. These have also gone unanswered, as have questions on why the joint venture ended as quickly as it was put into motion.

It stretches the imagination to see strategic value in lending borrowed money to a foreign entity when the borrowings were taken for strategic development purposes in the first place.

Viewed in light of the power assets options unnecessarily granted to Abu Dhabi’s IPIC in 2012 and subsequently cancelled at the cost of billions, these dealings appear in the best interests of the Middle Eastern entities while running against 1MDB’s own. That current chief Arul has intimate ties to Abu Dhabi adds to the perplexing situation.

And the emerging, troubling question now is why the Middle Eastern folk are so mysteriously alluring to 1MDB that it bends over backwards to include them in its investment decisions, even when the company does not seem to need them at all.

Yesterday:
How 1MDB overpaid for its power assets

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 31 December 2015, 11:50 am and is filed under
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Shame of shame – Malaysia named among world’s  six “worst corruption scandals of 2015”

It is  a shame of shame – Malaysia named among the world’s six “worst corruption scandals of 2015” by the international website,
foreignpolicy.com
, which is published daily online by the Slate Group, a division orf Washington Post Company.

A report uploaded on Dec. 29 (Washington time), entitled
“The worst corruption scandals of 2015”
 said that “massive corruption scandals embroiled world leaders, high court judges, and the men who run the world’s soccer industry, among many others” in 2015.

Heading the list of infamy was the FIFA (the Federation Internationale de Football Association) corruption, followed by Nigeria, with Malaysia  in a dishourable third place.

The rest were taken up by Honduras and Guatemala which took fourth place, Ghanian judges and the UN General Assembly fifth and sixth places.

The infamous plaque of dishonour for Malaysia  cited as follows:

“When U.S. President Barack Obama visited Malaysia in November, he had the pleasure of arriving in the middle of an awkward corruption scandal. Four months earlier, theWall Street Journal reported that some $700 million of state funds had ended up in Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s personal bank account — which was not where they were supposed to go. That tied Razak directly to a probe into the 1Malaysia Development Berhad, a government-owned development company that was supposed to turn Kuala Lumpur into a thriving financial hub. Najib has disparaged the Journal’s reports as inaccurate, claiming instead that the money in his account came from personal donations. But the reports came after the fund had already fallen behind on its payment schedule. Obama claims he raised the question of corruption in a private meeting with Najib, but publicly said only that the government should aim to be ‘more accountable, more open, more transparent, to root out corruption’.”

Citation for FIFA’s first placing for corruption in 2015  are as follows:

“Soccer’s world-governing body is so entangled in a massive web of corruption that it’s hard to pinpoint where it begins or ends, or even just how much money is involved. In May, after a lengthy U.S.-led investigation, the American Justice Department indicted 14 FIFA associates and officials, both current and former, who the FBI believed to be involved in “rampant, systemic, and deep-rooted” corruption. Seven months later, in December, another 16 officials were charged with involvement in bribery and corruption. On top of all that, FIFA president Sepp Blatter and Union of European Football Associations President Michel Platini were both given eight year suspensions from soccer activities this month over $2 million paid to Platini by Blatter in 2011. The U.S. investigation was initially intended to figure out whether FIFA officials took bribes to allow Russia and Qatar to host upcoming World Cups. But as evidence mounted, the inquiries expanded into a much more expansive probe, revealing what prosecutors say are years of corrupt practices, including bribery and game-selling, from officials in Europe, North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean.”

This is the citation for the second-ranking Nigeria:

“When Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari took over the presidency in May, it didn’t take him long to announce that he estimated some $150 billion had gone missing in Nigeria over the past ten years. The former military leader vowed he would do his best to find out where that money ended up, and in November he claimed to have traced at least a small fraction of it back to his predecessor’s administration. On Nov. 17, he ordered the arrest of Sambo Dasuki, former President Goodluck Jonathan’s national security advisor, for dipping his hands into the defense budget and allegedly stealing some $2 billion from the country’s fund to fight Boko Haram, the extremist group terrorizing Nigeria’s northeast. According to Buhari, Dasuki awarded phantom contracts for military supplies, including helicopters, fighter jets, bombs, and ammunition. But the equipment never arrived, and the new Nigerian administration is convinced Dasuki pocketed the money.”

 Can Malaysians expect the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who has brought such  unprecedented dishonour at the global level to Malaysia, fully defend himself in his  2016 New Year Message tonight?

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 31 December 2015, 11:57 am and is filed under
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The UMNO Rednecks and their Cohorts

Sakmongkol AK47

December 30, 2015

Who is the typical UMNO redneck? The answer is- he or she is someone who blames the Chinese forever as the source of their unhappiness.

The other favourite bete noire is Dr Mahathir. On this I am really surprised. If the UMNO people can turn on their own while he is still UMNO, this speaks volumes on the morality of UMNO people. Suddenly he is also the cause of all the problems. Najib has merely inherited the problems. The lopsided contracts with IPPs, the ERL, KLIA , Proton etc.etc.

Where is the cut-off point? Najib was preceded by Pak Lah. Pak Lah’s tenure ought to have extinguished all links to Mahathir. Najib should take responsibility over his tenure because the people gave him the mandate. They did not give to Dr Mahathir.

In any case, people are asking about 1MDB, the RM2.6 billion into his private account while in his public capacity as UMNO president and PM, the money from SRC. These issues are the makings of Najib. So how is the link to Mahathir established?

But here is a moot point. If present day UMNO is the receptacle of all that is rotten, why should we vote in BN? What kind of record then can the BN government show to the people? Therefore if the BN has been responsible for all the wrongs, why should the people continue to vote in an incapable and corrupt government? There is nothing good to speak of about the BN government.

Najib is cast from the same mould. He is equally responsible for past wrongs because he was also a member of Mahathir’s cabinet.  He made hay while the Mahathir sun shone.

Its not like we are seeing a new Najib.

The grim reality is, the person on public trial now is Najib. The side-winding attempts to demonise Mahathir , do not take our sights off Najib. He is the person running the country now. Not Mahathir.

He has told us nothing. When confronted he will offer us serpentine answers and blurts out some pieties to show off some of deep-seated religious convictions. Remember when he was asked about Altantuya? – he swore the sacred vow that he did not know the woman.

Nobody believes what he says any longer. He is better off holding his peace instead of speaking about Islam, or Christmas or anything moral. We are not looking at a new najib just as the Americans ought to have realised they were not looking at a new Clinton then governor of Arkansas who was widely known then to prey on women, saying let bygones be bygones for the mistakes he has done. Only then people realised that the governor wanted to offer himself as a presidential candidate and it was necessary to wipe his slate clean.

It’s the same with Najib.

Getting back to the blame game, the narrative is that the reason why the cost of living is high is because it’s caused by the rapacious greed of Chinese business people. The Chinese are selling fake hand phones. The Chinese are behind the Christian crosses being incorporated in house and airport designs. The Malays who open their windows at 9 am in the morning after forfeiting the dawn prayers, and see a cross across the street, will protest vehemently that their faith is being challenged.

But the more preposterous statements explained the Chinese are behaving that way because they are influenced by the DAP of course. Suddenly DAP is the cause for many wrongs committed and imagined. The DAP which can never form the federal government for instance,  will build a military base for Israel if Pakatan Harapan comes into power.

That would assume that the partners in Pakatan Harapan, our military and police are all in a vegetative state and will let that  happen. It would also have to assume that DAP is run by lunatics.

If PAS were to countenance such a statement given by those on the lunatic fringe, this only serves to remind us the people, we must never allow this country to be run by cerebrally-challenged religious scholars.

The typical UMNO redneck is someone who has a short fuse. He/she believes the DAP is a communist party. The DAP is anti-Malay, anti-Islam and anti-Malay rulers. The UMNO redneck will announce that this year’s Malaysia Day celebrations Pahang Chapter are held in Raub because the opposition MP of Raub has been neglecting the people of Raub.

But what the government MP done for Raub over the umpteen years they were in control of Raub? Every other day, the people of Raub suffer from water outage; affordable housing needs are never met; land distribution has been done unfairly. The people staying at Kampung Sungai Petaling in Gali Hilir has only now seen clogged up drainage systems being cleared after we have sounded the District officer and JPS. That has been done after over 40 years?

What have the government people done?

I will tell you. Hundreds of acres of Malay reserve land in Teras, Sang Lee ad Sungai Chetang have been farmed by MCA people with the connivance of UMNO leaders. Land grab has occurred widely mainly by MCA people and those linked to them. These are Chinese- so why hasn’t the UMNO leadership sounded the alarm? Where have the UMNO rednecks retreated to?

Come to think of it- where has the money derived from the gold mines of raub gone to? We haven’t seen a single monument celebrating Raub as a gold mining town.

And Pahang for that matter. As far as I can remember- Pahang has always been known as a state rich in timber resources. Why have we not seen a single monument celebrating the achievements of the timber industry in the state?

How much have we collected in the form of tax and other charges from the timber industry? Where has the income been applied to?

The DAP is a surrogate of the PAP so that when it comes to power, the Malays will be Singaporised.  Singaporised means they will have no protection whatsoever, no special privileges and so forth. They will be marginalised.

That despite the fact that 90 over % of the civil service is Malay; the legitimate coercive forces are Malay, the Malay rulers are Malay, the GLCs are almost always controlled by Malays, the PM’s post  and important ministries are always controlled by Malays. Despite all these entrenched safeguards, the UMNO rednecks are worried about the DAP.

Because it works for them- to be able to continue massaging the fears, suspicions and natural rejection of any other person not of the same stock as Malays. It pays to have DAP around, because that provides the UMNO rednecks a default button to trigger Malay aggression.

They are worried because the DAP brings a simple message to the Malays and the rest of the Malaysian citizens. Free yourselves from the mental bondage that UMNO has wielded all this while.

The Malays are backward because they don’t want clever people to lead them. They want UMNO rednecks to lead. It’s very easy to pick a fight, mobilised martial groups. That only requires emotional appeal. To reason out why Malays need not fear any government that comes into power requires reasoned arguments. That’s too taxing on the intellectual portion of the brain it seems. On the other hand, emotional outbursts which are responded by equally emotional support, requires a single spark which is easily accomplished by manipulators and instigators.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 31 December 2015, 6:35 am and is filed under
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Time has come for realignment of progressive political forces to save  Malaysia and to keep faith with the vision of an united, inclusive, moderate, democratic and prosperous Malaysia

(2016 New Year Message on 31.12.2015)

Twenty-eight years ago, many DAP leaders and Members of Parliament, including the late Karpal Singh and P. Patto, the Penang Chief Minister, Lim Guan Eng, the Deputy Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Dr. Tan Seng Giaw and I were incarcerated under the infamous Internal Security Act in Kamunting because we opposed the “shits” (to use the colourful vocabulary of the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi) of the lopsided highway  privatisation contract which the then Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Mahathir Mohamad wanted to impose  not only on Malaysians but future generations as well.

Today, while railing against these “shits” of the past UMNO administrations, of which the present top UMNO leader were themselves  party to but had done nothing to ameliorate, the incumbent UMNO leadership is trying to impose even worse “shits” on the present and future generations of Malaysians through major betrayals of trust  like the RM2.6 billion “donation” and the RM55 billion 1MBD twin mega scandals.

To fight the worse “shits” of the present, all forces and contributions are welcome, including those who were responsible for the “shits” of the past, like Tun Mahathir Mohamad.

The year 2015 had indeed been an “annus horribilis” for Malaysia.

Even up to the last few days of the year, Malaysia has not been spared from being haunted and hounded from five Najib government scandals of the year, viz

1.The scandal of the RM2.6 billion “donation” in Najib’s personal banking accounts.

2.  The RM55 billion 1MDB scandal.

3. The National Security Council Bill which usurped the powers of the Yang di Pertuan Agong, the Cabinet and the 13 State Governments and paved the way for a Prime Ministerial dictatorship.

4. The implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) adding to the hardships of low-income Malaysians, already sandwiched between rising costs of living and falling incomes.

5. Worst racial and religious polarisation in nation’s history, highlighted by the divisive, racist and chauvinist Red Shirts Rally on Sept. 16; the appointment as new CEO of Global Movement of Moderates a person who should be the last Malaysian to be associated with any notion of “moderation” and yesterday’s Court of Appeal decision by 2-1 rejecting the high-profile and long-standing legal challenge of  Hindu mother M. Indira Gandhi to reverse the unilateral religious conversion of her three children by her former husband after he embraced Islam.

In the sixth decade of our nationhood since the achievement of Merdeka in 1957 and the formation of Malaysia in 1963, Malaysia has lost its way.

I still remember the heady days of Merdeka in 1957, when I was in secondary school, when the people in the country had high hopes and ambitions.

When Malaysia was formed 52 years ago in 1963, our country was second in Asia after Japan in terms of economic development, prosperity and per capita income, wealthier than other Asian countries including South Korea and Taiwan which were poorer and more backward at the time.

But over the decades, Malaysia lost out in the race of economic competitiveness and educational excellence and by the nineties, Malaysia had been left behind with the emergence of the Asian economic tigers comprising Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan while Malaysia could only aspire to be the next Asian tiger.

But these hopes of Malaysia to become the next economic tiger were never realised with the Asian financial crisis in the 1990s – and today, Malaysia is even further behind the economic tigers as well as risk being taken over by other countries both in Asia, Africa and South America.

Today, bogged down with a multitude of crises which had been described as the coming of a “perfect storm” to hit the country, Malaysians have lost the self-confidence to re-make the world that they had displayed in earlier decades.

Malaysia must get out of this rut we have been stuck in the past few years, which the RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM55 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals  (with the latest bombshell from Wall Street Journal two days ago) have combined to pull us down deeper and deeper into the abyss.

Malaysians must find and restore our self-confidence to compete with the rest and the best in the world. We must rediscover our greatness as Malaysians.

The time  has come for a realignment of progressive political forces to save Malaysia and to keep faith with the vision of an united, inclusive, moderate, democratic and prosperous Malaysia

The resolution of the five Najib government scandals of the year should be a starting point for the re-alignment of progressive political forces in Malaysia.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 31 December 2015, 9:28 am and is filed under
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WSJ’s Last Bombshell For The Year – Najib’s $700 Million Came From 1MDB

financetwitter.com

29 Dec 2015

If 2014 was the year of Malaysia Airlines where it lost two Boeing 777s, one disappeared while another shot down; the year 2015 is definitely the year of Prime Minister Najib Razak. The prime minister’s multi-billion dollar scandals easily eclipse any other financial scandals one could imagine in the history of the country, including Mahathir’s.

The Wall Street Journal dropped another bombshell (*yawn*) yesterday, Dec 28, 2015, linking the highly explosive RM42 billion 1MDB scandal with PM Najib Razak’s private banking account, which had suddenly swollen with US$700 million (then RM2.6 billion but now RM3 billion due to ringgit depreciation) from some unknown generous donor(s).

Najib had called and met a group of senior (UMNO) leaders in July to remind them everyone had benefited from the money. A cabinet minister who was present claimed the prime minister said the US$700 million funds weren’t used for his personal enrichment, but channelled to politicians or into spending on projects aimed at helping the ruling party win elections in 2013.

According to minutes from 1MDB board meetings seen by The Wall Street Journal, hundreds of millions of unreported political spending were made possible because of 1MDB (1Malaysia Development Berhad), a state investment fund controlled by PM Najib Razak. Therefore, it’s safe to presume that 1MDB was setup merely to suck taxpayers’ money to political party UMNO.

That explains why despite Najib’s repetitive drumming about 1MDB making good investments and profits, it has registered more than US$11 billion in debt instead. That also explains why the prime minister had tried to convince, without much success, that the US$700 million found in his private banking account wasn’t from 1MDB.

In a meeting on Dec. 20, 2014, 1MDB board members discussed what to do about police who came to investigate allegations of financial irregularities, according to the minutes. The 1MDB fund also transferred at least US$14 million (then RM42 million but now RM60 million due to ringgit depreciation) to politicians through Ihsan Perdana Berhad.

Ihsan Perdana Berhad, a company formed in 2011 but exempted from filing financial statements, sent the US$14 million in cash to Najib Razak’s personal accounts but received the money from SRC International Berhad, a company controlled by Malaysia Finance Ministry, of which the prime minister himself heads.

According to a Malaysian cabinet member interviewed by The Wall Street Journal, the prime minister signed checks from his personal accounts to lawmakers, who used the money as they saw fit. Until today, Najib Razak hasn’t explained where the US$700 million in his accounts came from or how it was used.

The best explanation offered by senior UMNO politicians, perhaps after brainstormed and agreed by prime minister himself, was that the money was a political donation from an unnamed Middle East donor. Surprisingly, former Attorney General Gani Patail was relieved of his duty as he was allegedly drafting a warrant of arrest for PM Najib Razak.

The Malaysian prime minister had chosen to hide himself from the 16th International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC) held from 2-4 September in Putrajaya. Instead, he sent two low ranking Ministers – Paul Low and Abdul Wahid – to shield him from potential humiliation by the international delegates, numbering 1,000 from 130 countries.

Unfortunately, Najib’s “chickening out” didn’t stop the Transparency International chief Jose Ugaz from grilling him over the US$700 million scandal, openly asking the Malaysian prime minister to explain who paid the money, why, and what happened to it. And it’s not hard to see why – the 1MDB scandal has attracted investigations in at least 6 countries.

U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I) is looking at assets owned by Mr. Najib and his family, including luxury real estate in New York and Los Angeles. The F.B.I. is also looking at the funding of a film-production company – Red Granite Pictures – which was set up by the prime minister’s stepson, Riza Aziz, and produced “The Wolf of Wall Street” starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Although Mr. Najib and 1MDB executives said the fund was supposed to attract investment in energy, real estate and tourism, people are not convinced simply because Malaysia already had a sovereign-wealth fund pursuing similar aims – Khazanah Nasional Berhad (KNB). So, why should 1MDB be created and put under his personal control?

Najib Razak told parliament that his stewardship of 1MDB was to ensure it spurred economic development and foreign investment so that wealth “can be distributed equally regardless of race and ethnicity, but for 1Malaysia.” However, under his stewardship, 1MDB couldn’t even serve interest on its loans, including from Deutsche Bank and required bailouts.

Najib regime also couldn’t explain why out of a US$1 billion investment from 1MDB, approximately US$700 million moved to another company’s bank account – Good Star Ltd – a Seychelles-based firm owned by Low Taek Jho, the architect of 1MDB and acted as a director in 2013 election spending, who happens to be Mr. Najib stepson’s good friend.

How 1MDB trumpets its profits is equally amusing. It bought land from the government at extraordinary cheap prices. It was like getting each unit of iPhone at US$10 a pop when the actual value is much higher. In the financial year ended March 31, 2011, the fund revalued the land by 426%, even though it had neither sold nor developed it.

The fund also borrowed heavily. Goldman Sachs Group helped it raise US$6.5 billion in bond issuances in 2012 and 2013. At least US$3 billion of bond money was diverted elsewhere when it should be used to fund development of the Kuala Lumpur financial centre. The 1MDB fund also financed free trips to Mecca for more than 1,000 village headmen before the 2013 election.

After the 2013 general election, to which UMNO lost the popular vote for the first time, let alone recapture its two-thirds majority, 1MDB was left with US$20 million in cash and US$10 billion in liabilities. It got so bad that one board member worried whether they could be charged for “criminal breach of trust (CBT).”

The board’s chairman suggested convening in the future outside of 1MDB’s offices to “reduce the risk of bugged meeting rooms.” But why should Najib Razak and his board of warriors worried about it at all if they haven’t done anything wrong, legally? Those politicians may have taken millions of ringgit from their boss but how much has Najib personally taken?

Considering that 1MDB has accumulated US$10 billion in debt right after the 2013 election, money flashed personally by Mr. Najib to his politicians for the election may not have come from the US$700 million discovered in his personal account at all. The money could be still intact because if Sarawak Report’s revelation is true, he had transferred US$650 million back into Falcon Bank in Singapore on August 30, 2013.

Therefore, the myth that the US$700 million found in his private account was a political donation from an unnamed Middle East donor meant for 2013 election does not hold. How Mr. Najib could received US$700 million and transferred out US$650 million, thus spending only US$50 million on the election?

The educated guess is at least US$3 billion in bond money had been spent to the last penny, and the remaining US$3.5 billion from the total US$6.5 billion raised by Goldman Sachs Group before the 2013 election could be utilised, hidden somewhere or simply gone missing. If there’s one thing people are convince, that is –
Mr. Najib Razak is a billionaire.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 31 December 2015, 3:57 pm and is filed under
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Does Najib really believe that all Malaysians wake up this morning fully relieved that the twin mega scandals have disappeared into thin air?

If Malaysians wake up this morning with the feeling, hey presto, the  1MDB scandal has disappeared into thin air, then Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak would be fully vindicated with his  upbeat 2016 New Year Message that he had delivered what he had promised in June last year  that all the problems facing 1MDB will be resolved by the end of 2015.

If a poll is conducted among Malaysians, I dare say that there is not a single person who in the past year had been haunted and hounded by the 1MDB issue would feel on waking up this morning of being  fully relieved of the pressures of the accountability, transparency, good governance and integrity  dimensions and implications of the scandal.

In fact, the reverse is the case.

Najib’s twin RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM55 billion 1MDB mega scandals have by the end of the year become even bigger and more  overwhelming than at  any time of last year, as both mega scandals have achieved the virtually impossible feat of accumulating like a snowball  even more questions than answers with each passing month!

This is why Malaysia has  the dubious honour of being ranked third in the world’s “worst corruption scandals of 2015”  by Washington Post’s foreignpolicy website, after FIFA and Nigeria, beating Honduras, Gautemala and Ghana, shortly after Wall Street Journal dropped its “last bombshell for the year” for Najib, with its report that Najib’s RM2.6 billion donation came from 1MDB.

Before delivery of his 2016 New Year Message, Najib would have known of the Wall Street Journal’s “bombshell” and the Washington Post’s “roll of dishonor” of  third place to Malaysia for the world’s “worst corruption in 2015”, making the  RM2.6 billion and 1MDB twin mega scandals top international corruption issues.

Why then did Najib make the claim in his New Year Message that  1MDB controversy had finally been put to rest – something even nobody in UMNO/BN camp would believe?

Najib could not be so naïve or cut off from the realities on the ground as to  believe for a moment that the twin mega scandals could be completely laid to rest without full and satisfactory accounting or that  there is no need for any more government explanation, accountability or responsibility?

Otherwise, Najib would be the world’s  No. 1 delusionist or illusionist, putting David Copperfield to shame.

Unless Najib could offer an answer, this is a question Malaysians should be asking and pondering.

Yesterday, I had asked whether Malaysians can expect Najib to fully defend himself for bringing such unprecedented dishonour at the global level to Malaysia for being ranked third in the world’s “worst corruption in 2015”  in his 2016 New Year Message.

This issue was completely ignored by Najib in his New Year Message.

Should Malaysians blame Najib or his speech writers for such a conspicuous omission, making Najib’s New Year Message a classic case of a  government belabouring under a most debilitating denial syndrome.

Or is it because Najib has simply no decent answer to give to Malaysia’s third placing in the world’s “worst corruption in 2015” list?

                This entry was posted on Friday, 1 January 2016, 1:46 pm and is filed under
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Ramadi residents describe their nightmare escape from Islamic State

By Mustafa Salim

Washington Post

December 31 2015

HABBANIYAH, Iraq — Residents of the Iraqi city of Ramadi who escaped the recent battle there are describing the horrors of life under the Islamic State and their relief at being rescued by the Iraqi army when it recaptured most of the city earlier this week.

Many of the families had made a brave dash for safety across the front lines to escape attempts by retreating Islamic State fighters to take them as human shields.

But the men who got away have now been detained by Iraqi security forces for investigation, in a reminder of the deep suspicion with which those who have been living under Islamic State rule are regarded by the Iraqi government.

The Iraqi army launched a new offensive on Thursday to recapture the remaining Ramadi neighborhoods still held by the Islamic State. Iraqi military officials estimate that around a quarter of the city is still in militant hands, and U.S. officials say as many as 400 to 700 Islamic State fighters are still holed up in the Ramadi area, including in the city center.

“It’s tough to determine the current enemy head count remaining in downtown Ramadi at this point, given the dynamic nature of the last few weeks,” said Col. Steve Warren, the U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, in an email.

The Islamic State does not have the ability to recapture the city, but fully securing it could “take some time,” he said. “Every house is potentially booby-trapped and must be checked.”

There is also unexploded ordnance strewn around the streets, and water and electricity facilities are badly damaged, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), meaning it could be even longer before it is safe for residents to return.

Sabah Karhot, the head of Anbar’s provincial council, said as much as 80 percent of Ramadi has been destroyed in the battles. Ramadi has been continuously fought over for the past two years, since the Islamic State swept into parts of the city in January 2014. They captured all of it last May.

The Iraqi army retook most of the city on Monday, including the compound housing the provincial government, in a big boost for Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi and for the demoralized government security forces.

Most of the 400 or so people who managed to escape the fighting are being sheltered at a camp for displaced people in the Anbar town of Habbaniyah, which is under the control of Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government. Islamic State fighters are Sunnis.

Aysha Mohammed, 31, described how Islamic State fighters came to her neighborhood as the Iraqi army closed in and ordered families to accompany them as they retreated to another part of the city.

“They knocked at the door and told my husband to prepare for us to leave with them, because the Rawafidh and infidels are coming to kill us all,” she said, using a derogatory term for Shiites.

So close were the advancing Iraqi army soldiers, however, that Mohammed and her family could hear the voices of the soldiers, shouting through loudspeakers and urging residents to escape. They decided to make a run for it.

“We waited until ISIS went to another alley, and we all left together. Me, my husband and my children were running together with other families, around 15 in all,” she recalled, using an acronym for Islamic State. “We ran for about 10 minutes. We were afraid that ISIS would shoot us, but they didn’t see us.”

After they reached army positions, the men were separated from the women and children and taken away — 76 from among the 400 or so people housed at Habbaniyah, according to Iraqi officials.

“I just want my father to come back to us. He is not Daesh,” said Zaid, Mohammed’s 7- year-old son, using another acronym for Islamic State. He said his family had hated living under the militants.

“I saw them whipping people in the market. It made me afraid,” said Zaid, who stopped studying after the Islamic State took over last May because they closed all the schools. “They cut off someone’s head in front of people. I didn’t see it, but I heard about it.”

[In the Islamic State, life is filled with fear and brutality]

Souad Salih, 19, said she and her husband had been yearning to leave for months, but the Islamic State refused to allow anyone to depart from the town.

“They treated us like prisoners, she said. “When we heard the Iraqi army was coming, we were very happy, but at the same time afraid because of the war. We were praying that ISIS would just run away and leave us alone, but they tried to take us with them.”

“I am very happy right now. Even though I am living in a camp, at least I am not among the savages,” she added. “I just hope my husband will join me soon.”

Falih al-Issawi, the deputy head of the Anbar provincial council, said he was personally supervising the interrogation of the detained men. He promised that “all of those who are innocent” will be released.

Not all are, however, he added, describing how an 8-year-old boy had informed on his father, telling authorities the man had been working with the Islamic State.

And not all of the families in Ramadi managed to escape. The Islamic State is still holding more than 200 families as human shields, Karhot said. One group of people tried to escape on Wednesday, but Islamic State fighters saw them and opened fire, killing many of them, he said.

According to Hamid al-Dulaimi, the mayor of Ramadi, the families still being held hostage are “the main obstacle” to recapturing the rest of the city. “They are being used by Daesh as human shields,” he said.

Liz Sly in Beirut contributed to this report.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 1 January 2016, 10:19 am and is filed under
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West Grapples for a Response to Islamic State

by Yaroslav Trofimov

Wall Street Journal

Dec. 31, 2015

Finding a strategy to defeat Islamic State will be the focus of political debate in the West

Feeling the pressure on its home turf in Syria and Iraq, Islamic State has taken the war to its enemies’ homes by launching terrorist attacks overseas—and promised more such carnage in 2016.

How to respond to the threat is becoming the focus of political debate on both sides of the Atlantic — with consequences that shape the future of the Middle East and the West.

In the main goal of terrorism — to terrorize — Islamic State has already succeeded. Security has become the main issue for the presidential campaign in the U.S., where a recent poll found that more people fear an imminent terrorist attack now than either right after Sept. 11, 2001 or any time since. France has lived in a state of emergency since Islamic State killed 130 people in November in Paris. In Egypt, the struggling tourism industry collapsed after the October downing of a Russian airliner.

This anxiety feeds, to a large extent, on a sense of impotence. A year and a half since the U.S. began military action against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, leading a coalition of 65 nations, the extremist group has managed to retain the bulk of its territory while spawning new affiliates around the world.

The entrance of Russia and France into the campaign against Islamic State in Syria in recent months has, so far, produced only limited results.

In Iraq, where local forces have managed to recapture most of the city of Ramadi that they lost to Islamic State in March, much of the Sunni heartland remains under the extremists’ sway.

Such an ability to “persist and advance,” in the words of Islamic State’s motto, has allowed the group to grow in the public imagination into a multi-headed monster of near-mythical strength — an image that simultaneously attracts recruits and fuels bigotry in the West.

Considering the indiscriminate nature of Islamic State’s targets, it would be nearly impossible to stop all its terrorist attacks unless the group is physically eradicated from the vast territory it controls in Syria and Iraq — an area that attracts thousands of foreign volunteers and serves as a training ground for future terrorists. Even that ground war would only mitigate, and not completely eliminate, the threat—especially by self-radicalized “lone wolves.”

These independent operators, however, generally inflict only a fraction of the damage caused by Islamic State-directed efforts. And as long as Islamic State maintains access to the industrial base and resources of eastern Syria and western Iraq, it can develop a capacity to launch truly catastrophic attacks, terrorism experts warn.

“The learning curve facilitates their operations,” said Bruce Hoffman, director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University and a former U.S. government adviser on counterterrorism. “They have the former engineers and scientists and military officers. The longer they have the sanctuaries and the safe havens, the closer we tip toward the potentiality of them using nonconventional weapons.”

Despite Iraq’s recent success in Ramadi, by now it is also increasingly apparent that no regional Muslim coalition could dislodge Islamic State from its safe havens in Raqqa and Mosul anytime soon without significant military involvement by the U.S.

Many Arab countries say they would be ready to join such a broad coalition, along the lines of the one President George Bush assembled in 1990 to liberate Kuwait. So far, however, the Obama administration has been steadfast in its determination to avoid a new ground war in the Middle East, though it increased the tempo of air operations in Iraq and sent small numbers of special-operations forces to Iraq and Syria.

In the administration’s calculations, the cost, including in lives, of any conventional invasion still far outweighs the potential damage that Islamic State could cause to America. Whether that is true depends on one thing: how successful the U.S. and allies will prove in thwarting Islamic State’s overseas plots in the months to come.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 1 January 2016, 10:32 am and is filed under
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What Twitter really means for Islamic State supporters

Amanath Amarasingam

War on the Rocks

December 30, 2015

Abu Ahmad, one of Islamic State’s most active supporters online says he has had over 90 Twitter accounts suspended, but is not planning to slow down. He is a trusted member of what has come to be called the Baqiya family, a loose network of Islamic State supporters from around the world who share news, develop close friendships, and help each other when members get arrested or come under law enforcement surveillance. Abu Ahmad, as with all Baqiya members, agreed to talk to me on the condition that his real name and location not be published.

While Islamic State social media accounts used to flourish, Twitter has now been suspending the accounts of fighters and supporters alike. Scholars and analysts continue to debate whether this is effective and worthwhile.

For over two years now, I have co-directed a study of Western foreign fighters based at the University of Waterloo and have been interviewing — on Skype and various text messaging platforms — several dozen fighters and members of this Baqiya family. A few things are clear: First, while Twitter suspensions certainly disrupt their ability to seamlessly spread information, they have developed innovative and effective ways of coming back online. Second, these youth receive an enormous amount of emotional and social benefits from participating in their online “family.”

This online network is important for spreading the new Twitter accounts of individuals coming back from suspension. Watching Abu Ahmad’s accounts, for instance, I have been amazed at how quickly he is able to re-acquire his followers. At times, his new accounts are only active for a day or two before getting suspended again, but he manages to get most of his 1,000-plus followers back every time. “I follow people, and they follow me back. We do shout outs,” he told me during an interview last month; “we also have secret groups online which don’t get suspended, and we share our new accounts on there.”

All of it seems terribly time-consuming and exhausting — the online equivalent of some Sisyphean saga. But he disagrees. “It is our obligation to call people to our cause and explain it to them,” he responds, “to debunk lies by the mass media about jihad and the mujahideen. We are rewarded for our efforts by Allah azza wa-jal [the Glorious and exalted].” Various members of this Baqiya family have told me they concur; their work online brings ajr, or reward from Allah for performing a good deed. Other members wouldn’t go that far. “It’s very silly to think you’re gonna get super ajr for creating a Twitter account,” Umm Hafida, another trusted member of the Baqiya Twitter family, tells me laughing.

When I ask Abu Ahmad whether he ever gets tired of constantly having to create new accounts, I wasn’t expecting his response. “I don’t create new accounts,” he tells me, “my friend steals inactive accounts for me.” A bit confused, I asked him and other Baqiya members what this meant. “We used to hack accounts a lot,” Umm Hafida says. “The choice of account was related to how weak the password was. We then change the password and clean the account. We change the profile picture, the cover picture, and delete all the old tweets. Then the account sits on a list until someone needs it. I used to spend the night doing that.”

In addition to hacking, Baqiya members also create accounts for others, sometimes for fighters in Syria and Iraq. “Depending on your IP location, you can’t create a Twitter account without a phone number,” Umm Hafida says, “So if you are in a country that doesn’t require a phone number, you would create a bunch of accounts for other people. Some of us would create two or three accounts every day and just keep it inactive until someone needs it.”

Getting suspended is also an important way for members of the Baqiya community to know that you are trustworthy, that you have paid your dues. “There was a time when everybody wanted to get suspended. Even I thought, ‘ah must be cool to get suspended and receive all that support from friends,’” Umm Hafida tells me. “When I got suspended, lots of people were saying, ‘welcome to the Baqiya family!’” She went on: “It is considered as a kind of shahada [martyrdom]. That’s why we say, my Twitter account just got shahada, Alhamdulillah! Suspensions show others that we are on the right path, and spreading the truth.”

While analysts spend a lot of time examining Islamic State “narratives,” and law enforcement types expend a lot of energy developing “counter-narratives,” they are missing a key element of why Twitter is important to these individuals: It gives them a sense of community.

Media reports are littered with concerns that ISIS recruiters are “brainwashing” youth or that young Western women are being “lured” online. These statements always struck me as a bit strange since I was directly talking to many of these fighters and supporters associated with the Islamic State or Jabhat al-Nusra. Many of these youth did not seem to fit the stereotype we were peddling. They were not brainwashed or seduced. In fact, most were quite articulate and intelligent, and believed in a cause they felt to be of utmost importance. They were true believers. They also cared for each other, celebrated the birth of children, respected online boundaries of marriage and gender (“I’m married, no DMs from brothers please”), developed relationships and got married, expressed condolences at the loss of a fighter, shared news, and served as a support group for youth who are undergoing hardship thousands of miles away. Everything we do in our community, on and offline, they did as well.

As Howard Rheingold states in his groundbreaking book The Virtual Community, a book with timely insights even though it was published in 1993, “I care about these people I met through my computer, and I care deeply about the future of the medium that enables us to assemble. … [It was like] discovering a cozy little world that had been flourishing without me.”

Getting a sense of the emotional and social benefits these youth receive from being part of this online community helps to see them as people, and helps us understand the choices they make and the risks they are willing to take. If we continue to focus simply on the content put out by the Islamic State and, I’m sure, future jihadi movements, we are overlooking a major part of what is going on.

“Trust me, I’ve never felt like I belonged anywhere until I met the brothers and sisters online,” Abu Abdullah, another trusted Baqiya member, told me during an interview earlier this year. “Baqiya Twitter is one place I felt at home. The Internet keeps us connected. Keeps us as a family.” I think I understand, I tell him. It’s about belonging. “Yes,” he says, “sometimes it’s like the person online is the real you.”

Amarnath Amarasingam is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellow and co-directs a study of Western foreign fighters based at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. Follow him on Twitter: @AmarAmarasingam

                This entry was posted on Friday, 1 January 2016, 10:08 am and is filed under
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Senior political leader who lied about the DAP being offered RM1.2 billion in exchange for  an Israeli naval base in Port Dickson will have to pay the heavy price in court  for making false and defamatory statement

There is recently a culture of political desperation in the country.

This could be seen from the New Year Message by the Prime Minister,  Datuk Seri Najib Razak yesterday claiming that his twin RM2.6 billion and 1MDB mega scandals are no more, when they are never more alive and kicking, growing ever bigger in scale and impact,  that  Malaysia has  just been  “crowned” as the world’s third most corrupt country  – thanks to Najib’s twin mega scandals!

What beggars the imagination is how Najib could make such an outrageous claim when he himself could not possibly believe it, unless he has left the real world of politics and entered the world of make-believe!

Another example of such political desperation is the regurgitation of wild and reckless allegation by a senior political leader of another political party about the DAP’s ties with Israel, and the preposterous allegation that the DAP was offered RM1.2 billion by Israel if we win the general elections in exchange for the building of an Israeli naval base in Port Dickson.

Senior political leaders from other political parties who lied about the DAP, like the one who made the preposterous allegation about the DAP being offered RM1.2 billion in exchange for an Israeli naval base in Port Dickson, will have to pay the heavy price for such baseless and reckless allegations in  the courts.

All political leader must learn the hard lesson that they cannot just get away with lies or the most preposterous allegations, or seek refuge for their nefarious and dastardly deeds by claiming they were merely recycling such lies and falsehoods by “men of straw”  or some insubstantial characters!

According to Al-Quran, slander is a crime worse than murder.

I expect  DAP lawyers to initiate legal proceedings in a day or two.

Malaysia is entering the new year  of 2016 with issues of corruption, integrity and good governance becoming  even bigger and more central than  at any time in the nation’s history.

We all miss the leadership and guidance of Tok Guru Nik Aziz, former PAS Mursyidul Am and Kelantan Mentri Besar, for if he is still with us today, his voice would be heard loud and clear denouncing the rampant corruption, widespread injustices and abuses of power as represented by Najib’s RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM55 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals and calling for national reform.

It is sad that instead of being important lessons to underline the urgency to unite all progressive Malaysian forces against the worst corruption and injustices in the nation’s history, the twin mega scandals are used to  justify propping up a Prime Minister and a coalition government tottering under the weight of national and international criticisms for such rampant corruption, widespread injustices and nation-building failures.

I am very impressed by the success of  “Semangat Kelantan in Kuala Lumpur” dinner organized by AMANAH Kelantan, which illustrates that Parti Amanah Negara, together with DAP and PKR in Pakatan Harapan, are prepared for the challenge to give Malaysians a new hope that change in the political landscape in Malaysia with a new Pakatan Harakan government in Putrajaya in the 14th General Election is possible, doable and achievable.

(Speech at the “Semangat Kelantan di Kuala Lumpur” Dinner  organised by  AMANAH Kelantan at MPPJ Civics Centre on Friday, 1st January 2016 at 11pm)

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 2 January 2016, 7:44 am and is filed under
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DAP and Pakatan Harapan prepared to  work and co-operate with disaffected UMNO leaders, branches and members in a new political realignment to “Save Malaysia” from rampant corruption, widespread socio-economic injustices and nation-building failures

The start of the new year 2016 has not been an auspicious one – with the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s most disappointing New Year message claiming that his RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM55 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals are no more issues in the country, as if by a magician’s wand, they have disappeared into thin air!

This is the worst example of denial syndrome in the nation’s history, where the Prime Minister is openly denying the existence of a problem and scandal which he himself could not possibly believe in.

In fact, just three days ago, Malaysia was catapulted into the stratosphere when we won the international dishonour of being named the world’s third most corrupt nation in 2015 thanks to Najib’s twin mega scandals.

Just now, we made history for Malaysia when the people of Kluang displayed the placard “Mana RM2.6 billion?” as a reply to Najib’s New Year Message, not only on behalf of Kluang but of Malaysia, that the RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM55 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals remain very alive and are the leading issues of the nation for this year, and that Malaysians expect Najib to address them and not to continue to run and hide.

2015 had been a very bad year for Malaysians, and 2016 is unlikely to be better, with  Malaysians still haunted and hounded by the very same scandals which hit the country in 2015, in particular:

1. Worsening racial and religious polarisation, with the escalation of the politics of lies, hatred and fear as a desperate attempt to UMNO leaders to keep themselves in powler;

2. The baneful effect of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) compounding the economic woes of low-income Malaysians sandwiched between low incomes and ever-rising prices;

3. Continuing assault on the  constitutional rights of Malaysians to democracy, the rule of law and human rights with the National Security Council Bill rushed through both Houses of Parliament last month posing the greatest threat to Malaysians;

4. The RM2.6 billion “donation” scandal; and

5. The RM55 billion 1MDB  scandal, despite spurious claims that the Prime Minister has delivered his promise last June to resolve the 1MDB problem by the end of the year.

The year 2016 is a year of political realignment in Malaysia where the greatest challenge is not how to save an individual, whether Najib, or a political party, whether UMNO, but how to save Malaysia from continuing with the policy disasters leading Malaysia to a failed and rogue state.

DAP and Pakatan Harapan  are prepared to  work and co-operate with disaffected UMNO leaders, branches and members in a new political realignment to “Save Malaysia” from rampant corruption, widespread socio-economic injustices and nation-building failures.

(Speech at the DAP Kluang forum on “Cabaran Malaysia 2016: Mampukah Rakyat Di Bela?” held at Cincin Restaurant, Kluang on Saturday, 2nd January 2016 at 3 pm)

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 3 January 2016, 8:42 am and is filed under
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Is pro-BN NGO alliance seriously suggesting that IGP Khalid should be disciplined for police negligence in failing to act on the allegations that DAP was offered RM1.2 billion by Israel in exchange for a Israeli naval base in Port Dickson?

Is the pro-Barisan Nasional (BN) non-government organisations (NGO) alliance seriously suggesting that the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar should be disciplined for police negligence in failing to act on the allegations that DAP was offered RM1.2 billion by Israel if we win the general elections in exchange for the building of an Israeli naval base in Port Dickson?

This would appear to be the case, as the Pro-BN NGO alliance president Zulkarnain Mahdar wants police to investigate allegations by the PAS Research Centre director Mohd Zuhdi Marzuki that the DAP was offered RM1.2 billion by Israel in exchange for an Israeli naval base in Port Dickson, on the ground that if these allegations were true, it would be a huge disaster for Malaysia that should not be left ignored as it involved national security and sensitivities o the Muslims.

I would fully agree with Zulkarnain and go one step further, that if the allegations were true, it would highlight a serious and inexcusable police negligence as such allegations were first made some four years ago, and Khalid should explain why the Police had been guilty of such a grave dereliction of duty  in the past four years in  its failure to protect the security interests of the country.

I do not want to comment on the intellectual, moral, religious and political  credibility of a senior political leader who could believe in such lies and falsehood as to now recycle them, when for the past four years, he and his political “soul mates” had no problems with such “security” and “Muslim sensitivity” concerns as none of them had  once asked the DAP about such wild allegations when they were with the DAP in the same political coalition.

I leave it to Malaysians to judge on the intellectual, moral, religious and political scruples and credentials of a political leader who could so mechanically switch on and off his “security” and “Muslim sensitivity” concerns depending on which side his “bread is buttered”, which is the best example of downright hypocrisy at its worst.

I have had a lot of differences with the police and am greatly concerned about  increasing political interferences with police professionalism, but I have no qualms in admitting that the Special Branch has so far been  very professional in discharging its task to protect the security of the country.

Have the police failed in its professional duty to protect the security interests of Malaysia, in particular with reference with the wild allegation that  Israel had offered RM1.2 billion in exchange for an Israel naval base in Port Dickson?

Was there any basis in the wild allegations first made some four years ago by a “man of straw” and most insubstantial character?

Let the PAS Research Centre director and the Pro-BN NGOs Alliance president prove their case or be  exposed and condemned for the fools they have made of themselves.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 3 January 2016, 7:35 am and is filed under
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Zahid’s claim that Malaysia wants to be top 30 of some 200 countries by 2020 as non-corrupt country busted  by Najib’s twin mega scandals, causing Malaysia  to be ranked third among the world’s “worst corruption scandals in 2015”

Malaysia has  this week achieved the dubious international dishonour of being named the third most corrupt country in the world because of Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s RM2.6 billion donation and RM55 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals.

This has busted  Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi’s claim that Malaysia wants to be the top 30 by 2020  as a non-corrupt country, as with Malaysia ranked third with the world’s “worst corruption scandals in 2015”, as nobody believes that the goal of Malaysia becoming the top 30 out of some 200 countries   in the world in 2020 in terms of being least corrupt is within the realm of reality or practicability.

When Najib became Prime Minister in 2009, one of his major policy initiatives was  the National Transformation Programme in which anti-corruption was one of the primary agendas.

Some seven years later, Najib’s National Transformation Programme  proves to be a great failure when it suffered an irreparable damage as Malaysia was named third place in the ForeignPolicy website ranking of the world’s “worst corruption scandals in 2015”.

One of the National Transformation Programe’s efforts   in its anti-corruption programme is the “Name and Shame” project, and as of last year, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has displayed  over 700 people convicted of corruption on its database, which is accessible to the public on the MACC website under “Name and Shame”.

Not a single one of the over 700 names  on the MACC’s “Name and Shame” website, however, could have caused Malaysia to be named in the third place of the world’s “worst corruption scandals in 2015”.

This means that the person who should lead off the MACC’s “Name and Shame” website is none other than the Prime Minister because of his twin mega scandals, which have brought unprecedented shame and dishonour to Malaysia.

Will MACC rectify its website and add Najib’s name into its “Name and Shame” listing – in fact, placing Najib at the very top of the list, as no one in Malaysia  could come  near him in terms of the scale and magnitude of the corruption scandals, with not only national but international dimensions as well?

Furthermore, Najib has also the dubious reputation as the only Malaysian Prime Minister to be investigated by the US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) under the US Kleptocracy Assets Recovery Initiative 2010!

(Speech at the DAP Kulai ‘kopitiam ceramah” at Bandar Putra, Kulai on Sunday, 3rd January 2016 at 12 noon)

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 3 January 2016, 3:43 pm and is filed under
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