26 Apr 2024, 14:21 Kuching
26 Apr 2024, 07:21 London
Failed politicians, not civil servants, are the ones who should resign.
This is according to Iskandar Puteri MP Lim Kit Siang who was responding to PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang who had asked civil servants who refuse to support the Perikatan Nasional government to resign.
“I do not agree with Hadi as I believe that it is the political leaders who have failed in their duties, like those in the bloated Muhyiddin cabinet who, in the national interest, should resign.
“I do not fault civil servants who are not prepared to see the Malaysian civil service deteriorate into a kakistocracy,” Lim said in a statement today.
Last Sunday, Hadi said those who do not support the government of the day are morally bound to resign.
Hadi is the ‘religious’ leader who time and again displays a total lack of moral understanding.
Given he has only achieved office through betraying and trampling on democratic principles and making close if often secret relationships with corrupt kleptocrats such as Najib Razak and now the raiders from PN, it is no surprise that he has now demonstrated this view that civil servants should abandon their duty of objectivity in the public interest in favour of slavish support for political bosses.
What makes his demand that civil servants sign up to the ruling party even worse is that the present coalition to which he belongs is only in government thanks first to a seizure of power through the back door in defiance of the majority of the electorate, followed by bogus ’emergency’ provisions after losing its fleeting majority of bought MPs.
That a man with such appalling lack of principles should now hold office, after years of being rightly shunned even by BN’s calculating kleptocrats, is a sign of just how low Malaysia’s situation has become: moving, as described by the veteran observer Lim Kit Siang. from a thieving kleptocracy to governance by the least qualified and competent (kakistocracy).
Four law firms have filed a plethora of 22 civil suits to claim billions of US dollars on behalf of state-owned 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) and its former subsidiary SRC International Sdn Bhd.
The firms of Rosli Dahlan Saravana Partnership (RDS), Skrine & Co, Lim Chee Wee Partnership and Shearne Delamore filed the suits last Friday in the High Court in Kuala Lumpur and the Sessions Court in Shah Alam.
Various claims were made against individuals like former premier Datuk Seri Najib Razak, his stepson Riza Aziz, former 1MDB office bearers like Tan Sri Che Lodin Wok Kamaruddin, and former chief executive officers (CEOs) of 1MDB Datuk Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi, Arul Kanda Kandasamy and Mohd Hazem Abdul Rahman.
Also named in the suits are fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho (Jho Low), his father Tan Sri Larry Low Hock Peng, sister Low May Lin and Jho Low’s close associate Eric Tan Kim Loong.
Foreign financial institutions like Deutsche Bank (Malaysia) Ltd, as well as Swiss-based Coutts & Co Ltd and JP Morgan (Switzerland) Ltd were also named, along with PetroSaudi International Ltd and its founder Tarek Obaid.
All in all, 1MDB and SRC are seeking a total in excess of US$23 billion (about RM94.43 billion) and another RM300 million against those alleged domestic recipients of siphoned funds from SRC and 1MDB.
A source familiar with the suits told The Edge that the suits were filed after achieving settlement with Goldman Sachs, AmBank and Deloitte to show that the government is serious about pursuing the recovery of the money siphoned from 1MDB.
Deloitte in March settled for US$80 million (about RM324 million) with Putrajaya.
Meanwhile, Malaysia received US$2.5 billion from Goldman Sachs in August last year, and a promise that the US-based financial institution would help recover another US$1.4 billion guaranteed return of 1MDB assets seized by various authorities around the world in exchange of Malaysia dropping its charges against the bank.
AmBank in February agreed to pay RM2.83 billion with regard to its role in 1MDB’s RM5 billion bond issue in 2009.
… “These latest civil cases will show we are serious … these wrongdoers will not get off so easily.”
Once again the personal lawyer to the ’emergency’ prime minister has been put in charge of squeezing yet more settlement money out of whomsoever they reckon they can.
It is to be recollected, should anyone have forgotten, that the present administration relies on the votes of the very parties who denied wrongdoing over 1MDB right up the day they were thrown out of office by the electorate and that it seized power only by a combination of betraying the electors and buying over MPs.
Having lost even that shoddy majority this government has continued in office only thanks to a bogus declaration of emergency which is being contested by the parties who won that election and who actually campaigned against the corruption over 1MDB.
Meanwhile, this PN government has declared its settlement with Goldman Sachs to be an official secret and has failed to disclose adequate details of any of the other settlements amidst widespread suspicion and concern by the other parties who are demanding due transparency, scrutiny and oversight of the negotiations handled by a lawyer who simultaneously has been representing the prime minister over his personal libel action and other private matters.
This is a government that has been haemorrhaging public money at a time of massive Covid 19 borrowing on non-transparent initiatives of dubious urgency (see the vast sums spent on 5G) and raiding trust funds whilst promoting endless ministers to non-jobs to buy their loyalty.
Having let Goldman Sachs off the hook along with a number of local criminal cronies such as Musa Aman and Riza Aziz, the PM’s lawyer and his team have gloried in hammering easy money out of vulnerable local based institutions such as AmBank and Deloitte Malaysia, so the hunt is on for ‘low hanging fruit’ elsewhere who might surrender up cash to make 1MDB go away.
They may find the foreign institutions less pliable however. Not least because of the principle that money from a kleptocratic theft should not return to a government comprising many of those same thieves, including Najib himself nor indeed a government without a legal majority to rule.
The lawyers’ own statement sums up the scurrilous intent in admitting that the crooks from PetroSaudi have indeed been in KL in recent weeks, as suspected, in order to bargain a parcelling out of the 1MDB related spoils that they are seeking to get their hands on from Venezuela (loot that a present DOJ action is aiming to prevent falling into their hands).
PN’s lawyers have now made clear they were happy to cut such a deal that would have left the criminally charged Tarek Obaid with a chunk of Malaysia’s stolen money… however the cut being offered by the Saudi playboy was not sufficient. So they are deciding to sue instead.
Of even more concern to the Malaysian public should be the utter failure of this bunch of ‘legal eagles’ led by the PM’s personal friend to so far obtain a bent cent out of the biggest player in this 1MDB fiasco, namely Abu Dhabi.
A legal suit in London where Abu Dhabi was starting to flounder had put the pressure on the Kingdom to do the right thing by Malaysia, whom its royal backed IPIC/Aabar wealth funds had defrauded together with Najib, not once but twice. However, one of the first things the PN government did following the backdoor coup supported by the new Agong in KL was to suspend that law suit.
As an old friend of the Crown Prince Malaysia’s new Agong apparently was of the view he could reach a friendly settlement. But now, a year later, as all these new cases open up (promising vast legal fees to lawyers) not a cent has been obtained of the at least $6 billion Malaysia rightly claims from Abu Dhabi, if only as a reversal of the present settlement brokered by Najib which committed Malaysia to pay that sum to Abu Dhabi in return for covering up their joint 1MDB crime in the first place.
Syed Hamzah – Posing with police report and in happier days with his company director wife in their luxurious home.
[translated] Datuk Seri Syed Hamzah Syed Paie will take legal action against Sarawak Report and two Facebook account owners over allegations linking him to Entrepreneur and Cooperative Development Minister (Medac) Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar over granting approval to his wife’s company, Azzahra Product Sdn Bhd.
The Political Secretary to Wan Junaidi, said he had lodged a report at the Sekama Police Station at 9am today …..
“I have also instructed my lawyer in Kuala Lumpur to take legal action against Clare Rewcastle in London as the editor of Sarawak Report over the defamation leveled against me and Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi,” he said in a statement today.
Earlier, Syed Hamzah explained that the SME Corp grant amounting to RM338,950 approved to his wife’s company, Azzahra Product Sdn Bhd, had nothing to do with Wan Junaidi as Medac minister, including himself as Political Secretary to Wan Junaidi.
He said the grant was approved by SME Corp on October 10, 2017, while he and Wan Junaidi started working at Medac on April 22, 2020.
“How could Wan Junaidi and I have been involved in grant approval in the last four years when we started serving at Medac in 2020,” he said.
In this regard, Syed Hamzah said the facts were contrary to the allegations of Sarawak Report and the two Facebook account owners involved.
Strangely, when Syed Hamzah and his departmental media team and boss Wan Junaidi were contacted in advance of publication for comment by Sarawak Report none of them responded to the allegations in our article.
The political secretary, who is also nephew to Wan Junaidi, is now complaining that Sarawak Report alleged something it did not. Our article, which is online for all to read, made it quite clear that Syed’s company (which he mainly owns, but is directed by his wife) received its grant before his boss took over the Department concerned – we made clear that in 2017 their fellow PBB colleague Naroden Majais was the minister instead.
The issue that Sarawak Report related as having been passed as a complaint to the MACC was that the equipment purchase cited by his company as a core reason for the application for a BEEP grant had been made from a related party – namely a company owned by Syed’s own brother and sister.
The complaint stated that this was naturally against the rules and that grantees should not apply for public money to make purchases via family members.
If Syed Hamzah wishes to address this allegation, and indeed to address our query as to why he markets his expensive juice product as means of preventing buyers from contracting Covid-19, Sarawak Report remains ready and willing to publish his comments on our site.
Artist and activist Fahmi Reza was arrested this evening for alleged sedition.
His lawyer Yohendra Nadarajan said police arrested him at his home at 7pm before taking him to the Dang Wangi police district headquarters in the capital.
As of 9pm, he was still being questioned and will be detained overnight in the police lockup.
“Remand (hearing) is tomorrow at 10am at the Dang Wangi police station itself,” Yohendra told Malaysiakini when contacted.
So, the same police force who arrested cartoonist Fahmi Reza for correctly depicting Najib Razak as a kleptocratic clown have now arrested him for listing songs about jealousy on Twitter. The situation must be serious.
Bemused folk from anywhere but Malaysia may well ask why is satirising jealousy (if that is what this was supposed to be) regarded as a seditious act resulting in the most serious charges?
The reason is that the police, like everyone in the country, know that jealousy was the topic of a major ‘faux pas’ by the Queen last week – an utterance that has acted as a spark to a tinderbox of public rage against a self-serving and unelected backdoor regime propped up by her husband.
Indeed, sticking to the French motif, there can hardly have been a more incendiary remark made by a reigning Queen since Marie Antoinette notoriously suggested “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” (“let them eat cake”) after being informed that the folk of Paris were marching on Versailles because her husband’s ruinous policies had run them out of bread.
It seems there are those even in the Malaysian police force who know what happened next to her (and her husband and the bulk of the French nobility). Hence, presumably, the sedition charges.
In Malaysia the issue in hand is not basic foodstuffs, although for many these also are becoming extremely scarce along with cash, but vaccines against the deadly Coronavirus. These have yet to start to be rolled out to the most vulnerable and elderly in the general population of Malaysia, despite vast sums of taxpayers money having been appropriated to buy them.
Meanwhile, the ‘Top 400k’ of elite Malaysians – politicians and government workers – have all smugly received not just their first but second dose. When a citizen asked if these included the palace chef with whom the Queen was making tasty morsels for her table (as depicted on her instagram account) the sovereign messaged back “Are you jealous?”. When a wave of anger then washed over the internet she snapped shut her account.
So, which lady is to be least forgiven? It has been pointed out that the pampered Austrian princess on the eve of the French Revolution was simply vastly naive and had no concept of poverty and hunger, matters she had never encountered in the vast palaces she had dwelt in all her life. She simply revealed how out of touch her kind had long become and they paid a vicious price.
The Malaysian royal on the other hand was smug. She knew exactly what the question was all about and appeared happy to flaunt her privileged position as a safely vaccinated creature (as well as being vastly rich, pampered and all the rest) compared to all her compatriots who are suffering thanks to the incompetence and suspected corruption of her husband’s government.
Thankfully, in the present era and under the present constitution of Malaysia there are ample means by which an out of touch, unsympathetic, thieving set of politicians can be ejected from office without resorting to the methods forced on Parisiennes in 1789.
The Constitution could even be altered, if necessary, to rein in the powers of royals should they be shown to have abused them.
Former spy chief Hasanah Abdul Hamid has been granted a discharge not amounting to an acquittal (DNAA) in a US$12.1 million (RM50.4 million) criminal breach of trust (CBT) case involving funds from the government.
The High Court in Kuala Lumpur today allowed the prosecution’s application for the accused to be granted the DNAA.
Today was initially set for continuance of the prosecution’s stage of the trial against the former director-general of the Malaysian External Intelligence Organisation (MEIO).
Under the law, an accused granted a DNAA may still be charged for the same offence in future, in contrast to an accused given a discharge amounting to an acquittal.
On Oct 25, 2018, Hasanah, 62, claimed trial to one count of CBT amounting to US$12.1 million in government funds when she was serving as then director-general of the Prime Minister’s Department Research Division.
She was accused of committing the offence at the office of the Research Division in the Prime Minister’s Department in Putrajaya between April 30 and May 9, 2018.
There is no information given as to whether the bloated, shifty-eyed ex-Madame Spy even gave back the US$12 million she embezzled in this abuse of the highest position of trust for her country.
She just got let off no conditions applying!
One must be therefore forgiven, as others suffer horrendous penalties and even death for lesser crimes daily in Malaysia, for speculating about what information Madame Spy had obtained in the course of abusing her various duties and about whom?
Someone who had the authority to call up the AG and tell him to drop all prosecutions against this phone-tapping, email-cracking Surveillance Queen for sure. Someone who wanted her to keep quiet about her stash of incriminating tapes and photos.
Guilty persons in top positions of power? Surely Not!
There is no point for a government to command a huge majority when it has no integrity, PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang said.
“What is the benefit if one enjoys majority support but has no integrity and if one lied to the people to secure majority support?
“Lies are enough of a sign that one has lost their integrity, which will definitely lead to other bad behaviours, including becoming a kleptocrat,” he said.
One has to remind oneself that this fellow considers himself a scholar. Sadly his efforts to justify his party’s conduct are laughable and lamentable.
PAS do not want to lose their perks of office, bought by betraying their constituents as the original opposition frogs. They are clearly relishing the rewards (listen agin to Muhyiddin’s tactics for buying their loyalty) of being part of the present unelected coup government. Therefore, PAS does not want to face the test of Parliament, let alone another election, by ending the bogus emergency designed to keep them all in office and kleptocrating away.
So, to hell with democracy, which is what he is saying, he wants to stay in office majority or no majority.
The excuse is that PAS, according to Hadi, has more ‘integrity’ than those parties who did not lie to their voters and defect after the election and who actually won the election. In fact, he has the brass neck to say other parties are the liars, which he deplores even though he has admitted that he lied about his allegiances at GE14 and claimed ‘Allah is OK’ with his lying for the political benefit of the party.
By his own words and deeds there is not an ounce of basic moral understanding or integrity in this political party leader who claims to have religion on his side – he has not even the wit to disguise it.
Awang Tengah dispensing largesse
An Umno leader has mooted that financial allocations for elected representatives are better channelled to government agencies that serve the rakyat.
Umno information chief Shahril Hamdan told an online forum that the country already has a system in place for which the rakyat can tap for assistance. Elected representatives should instead be playing the role of facilitating this process rather than giving out cash to polish their political image, he stressed.
“Why do we rely on elected representatives to solve welfare issues? Is it not the task of existing agencies in the first place? Like the Welfare Department for example? ”
Surely there is something fundamentally broken. If I am an elected representative…. “I can give out food baskets and some cash aid. Meaning that if I have money, then I am more likely to succeed (as a politician). Surely there’s something wrong,” he said.
It is refreshing to hear a young UMNO leader reflecting on the corrupt practices that formed the bedrock of the system his own party has operated by looting public money to promote its prospects over very many years.
He is entirely right. The stomach churning scenes that have just gone viral in Sarawak of the local thug politician Awang Tengah swaggering through the market place handing out RM50 notes to hardworking constituents (as if the cash was his) is the perfect illustration of the sick system at work.
Awang Tengah became rich through public office. He hands out cash he gained through his access to public funds over which he and his party owe a duty of trust. For such politicians to raid the public coffers to hand out cash in such a manner to buy gratitude and votes – and further to deny the same sums to opposition parliamentarians is corrupt practice.
People must understand the money is theirs in the first place, not his kind personal gift to them. Likewise the fat constituency grants, the distributions of bags of rice with minister’s faces printed and all of the rest of the state-funded handouts channelled through elected MPs instead of state agencies as they should be.
All state funded benefits should be carefully shared out according to clear public policy by neutral public bodies to those identified as the most deserving by the elected government. The elected representatives can claim credit for the policies but should never directly touch a single ringgit to buy favour … let alone be seen tossing it (as if to beggars) at the folk they took it from in taxes and state assets in the first place!
Maybe, by championing such reforms the upcoming generation of UMNO will recommend themselves as better servants of their people than the dirty predecessors who tarnished the name of government in Malaysia?
This particular call for change should be implemented immediately.
Former prime minister Najib Razak wants to know why Malaysia is not invited to US president Joe Biden’s virtual leaders’ summit on climate next month.
Najib said the new US president has invited 40 world leaders for the summit on April 22 and 23, which will be live streamed for public viewing.
Three of Malaysia’s neighbours – Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam – have received invites.
“So why hasn’t Malaysia been invited when the summit is to be held online?
“The internet connection in Malaysia is unstable?
“Or is Malaysia seen as lagging in its fight against climate change and pollution?” he said in his Facebook posting today.
The White House press release stated that the leaders’ summit on climate will underscore the urgency – and the economic benefits – of stronger climate action.
It will be a key milestone on the road to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) this November in Glasgow, United Kingdom.
And Najib himself, together with his cronies over many years, is as culpable as anyone. These destroyers of Malaysia’s natural habitat, resulting in vast climate changing emissions, have included the leadership of Sarawak and Sabah and various royal families who have cashed in the forests and rolled out huge plantations at the expense of indigenous people.
Malaysia’s land and agriculture could have been developed much more sustainably and with the benefit of all the people in mind, but instead it has been turned into a destructive resource grab in order to line the pockets of a handful of decision makers as quickly as possible – corruptly and illegally in very, very many cases.
So, Najib asks the question having presided over the process for years whilst the rest of the world already knows the answer, having observed the situation in Malaysia and faced only denial of the facts and defiance of concerned criticism by the leaders of the country.
As European countries and the US have sought to implement responsible sourcing in their markets Malaysia has responded with accusations and legal complaints about the impact on their irresponsible businesses.
Other countries (like the present government of Indonesia) have more sensibly sought to work with the global campaign to mitigate climate change and address bad practices – which is why they are being taken in as partners, offered injections of climate change cash and invited to the right meetings in the lead up to COP in the UK at the end of this year.
Do Malaysia’s decision makers care about such matters, as long as they can still find resources to cut down and sell to China to make themselves rich whilst others suffer?
Under the present government plainly not. Or at least that is the conclusion of the leading countries who have in turn blackballed Malaysia from their meeting.
Ministerial reply to Chris Bishop in New Zealand
It is probable that most Malaysians, particularly his constituents of Segamat, are of the opinion that this public figure holding elected office in Malaysia and appointed as a Federal Territories minister should grant this privacy waiver as invited by the New Zealand government.
It would surely certainly make for a first for a democratically elected minister in one country to have acquired or applied for permanent residency in another. In effect, it gives him the ability to parachute out from having to abide by his own laws.
So, if Santhara has done no such thing he should speedily take the opportunity to prove it. If he has it is time to explain himself fully.
At the very least he should tell those people who voted for him whether circumstances demand he is away for chunks of every year or just this one? He presently claims he is on unpaid ‘compassionate’ leave in Covid free New Zealand, whilst the people of Segamat suffer under lockdown, food shortages and the general incompetence of his own PN government.
Many might suspect that he is in fact just clocking the necessary period in the country to qualify for his status…. or is it for one better, a full blown passport? After all, his family live there permanently (not for them the schools and facilities provided by his own government in Malaysia) and his children appear to qualify as junior ‘parliamentarians’ in the ‘Youth Parliament’ which would imply citizenship.
This is not a suitable matter for personal privacy when we are talking about a public figure on a public contract who had failed to admit to his voting public that he had bilked the country for over three months until the matter was exposed by Sarawak Report.
He has been issuing explanations and police reports ever since. How about issuing the full facts about his status in New Zealand?
Claiming that the government sought an emergency declaration because it lost its majority in the Dewan Rakyat violates the fake news ordinance, said de facto Law Minister Takiyuddin Hassan.
“It is an offence. To me, it is an offence,” Takiyuddin said at a joint press conference to explain the fake news ordinance.
He said this when asked if critics claiming that the government sought an emergency declaration because it lost its majority was considered fake news.
The ordinance makes spreading “fake news” on Covid-19 or the emergency punishable by up to RM100,000 or up to three-year imprisonments, or both.
The emergency was declared by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong on Jan 12 on the advice of the cabinet.
Officially, it is to help the government curb the spread of Covid-19. At the time, there were around 2,000 to 3,000 cases being reported daily.
However, critics have questioned why Parliament was also suspended under the emergency – and continues to be closed despite businesses and schools re-opening.
The declaration came two days after the Perikatan Nasional government lost majority control of the Dewan Rakyat after Umno’s Machang MP Ahmad Jazlan Yaakub withdrew support.
On the same day the emergency was declared, Umno’s Padang Rengas MP Nazri Abdul Aziz also withdrew support from the PN government.
The government has since secured the defections of two PKR MPs to make up for the support deficit after the King said Parliament can reconvene during the emergency.
So it is up to this minister from the PAS party, whose leader admitted he lied for political gain before the last election (by denying he was in a secret tryst with UMNO) to decide what is Fake News under this ‘Emergency Ordinance’?
He wants to throw into prison critics who say that Parliament was suspended because PN had lost its majority rather than because of Covid.
Is it his excuse that this would combat Covid?
The fact is, as all Malaysians know, PAS are enjoying having their snouts firmly in the Federal Government trough for the first time since independence, having been at last befriended by a failing UMNO and defectors seeking power.
They want to keep stuffing themselves with public money for as long as possible by supporting the coup coalition made up of former long-term foes – all in the name of deepest piety, of course. Covid has provided a ‘God given’ excuse to break all the democratic rules and impose a bogus state of emergency to keep in office.
As the global and local media pointed out at the time the ‘Emergency’ was called the day ‘PM8′ lost his majority of two in the Parliament, which ought to have provoked a vote of no confidence or sent him to the Agong to submit his resignation. Instead, he conspired to advise the Agong to declare a bogus ‘State of Emergency’ in order to shut down Parliament and suspend elections.
He made no secret of it and it was reported everywhere. Muhyiddin admitted the reason for the ‘Emergency’ was because he no longer commanded a majority so an election beckoned if Parliament was called:
“The main thing that is stopping me from advising the Yang di-Pertuan Agong from dissolving Parliament and pave the way for an election is the Covid-19 pandemic,”
Yet, despite the admission of the PM himself and the global reporting of the situation this minister now threatens local media he will prosecute them for Fake News if they mention it again.
The TRUTH of the situation is that in no other democracy in the world has Covid been used as an excuse to close down Parliaments, which to the contrary have been used to support genuine emergency legislation to assist in the pandemic, such as raising relief funds.
As for elections, in the US over 150 million voters cast their ballots in a campaign where the winner Joe Biden campaigned virtually and voters used mail in ballots. PN itself had just weeks before triggered an election three years early in Sabah because it suited them politically.
Malaysian politicians have all now been vaccinated and are being given special exemptions to travel round the world, yet they are not allowed to do their elected jobs. Casinos and cinemas are open but Parliament is forced shut. Only the prospect of buying more frogs has tempted talk of a possible re-opening…. re-enforcing the highly valid observation that the reason it was suspended owed to politics and not to Covid.
So, on what grounds can the law minister’s case be upheld as true and his critics false? He doesn’t care because he prefers to rely on bogus emergency legislation to lock up those who speak the truth and accuse them of Fake News. After all, he has no answers to the charge being made.
For a party that proclaims itself religious, the well heeled Mr Takiyuddin and his Mercedes driving colleagues clearly consider themselves untouchable, from either Allah’s wrath or a furious electorate. And that’s not even news.
