Najib is suing Tony Pua, a DAP MP from Petaling Jaya Utara
and Chan Chee Kong, the owner of MediaRakyat website for defamation, for
slandering him in the 1MDB controversy.
What the outcome of this legal suit is another exciting court drama in Malaysia
and may drag on and gain infamy like the Anwar case.
What is important is the immediate impact of what Tony Pua
and his peers had done, to bring down the 1MDB ‘sovereign’ fund. The PM Najib
has ordered an investigation into the operations of 1MDB and the winding down
of its activities plus the sale of its assets. The 1MDB has ‘become a hot
potato for the Malaysian government. It was just too much to handle’ according
to a report in the Star paper. With the fire sale, what would be left of the
1MDB would be just a skeleton with everything stripped off. Several hundred
million ringgits of assets and investments just went pooped and it was all
over. Not sure about the reported RM42b debt.
Such big funds are usually managed by a team of professional
managers, the lucky people that got to gamble with OPMs with little
responsibility and at most losing their jobs. They gamble with other people’s
money, not their money, and imagine the kind of opportunities these lucky
people have to line their pockets with the payments from all parties, the
buyers/sellers of assets and investments, and their employers paying them good
salaries plus big bonuses when the gamble was right?
And the good thing is that many of them would not be sacked
even if they lost big money as long as no fraud was discovered. They became
valuable assets for the expensive training fees paid for their mistakes and
wrong bets. They become indispensable for the experience of losing big money.
In the 1MDB case, it was just bad luck that there were Tony
Pua and the social media to expose the doubtful and questionable investments
made. If all this was hidden, undisclosed, no one would be wiser. The 1MDB
could even churn out financial reports after reports to show how profitable
were their investments. Who is there to check on the real stuff, who is there
to check and confirm that it was really making big losses and all the reports
were merely cover ups?
The truth would be revealed in the investigation ordered by
Najib. I bet he would assign an independent committee and not cronies to do the
investigation. I bet the opposition leaders would demand to be a party to the
investigation or to insist on an independent committee, not appointees of the
govt. If not, then it would be no different than a kangaroo court with
kangaroos doing the investigation.
There is really very big risk in the management of a
sovereign fund when the money is OPM and the professional managers are
employees who are also human beans and at times would behave like human beans
when the temptations are sexy enough. The need for transparency cannot be
overstated. Without transparency, no one really knows what is going on.
Malaysia
is lucky in this sense, that Najib also believes in transparency and there is
real opposition in Parliament to demand transparency. Otherwise, 1MDB would
still be happily playing with OPM until the cow comes home and more and more
OPM would be injected into the fund for the fun of the management and their
patrons.
Tony Pua and his peers could claim one down and more to go.
10 comments:
I admire malaysians. They dare speak out and take avenues neccessary to voice the wrongs of govt policies.
But whatever lah, there are great advantages by being the incumbent govt. And Najib is the leader of the incumbent govt, tio bo? Tony Pua is just an opposition MP only what, although a better and stronger one and from a stronger party, than our Teochew Ah Hia and party.
And this great advantage by being incumbent is the same all over the world, not just in Matland. And u can see from other places and examples that only through a revolution can a bad incumbent be removed, along with the advantages that come with it.
In democratic western countries eg USA, there is a separation of powers between the Executive and the Judiciary. Hence the Judiciary cannot do the bidding of the Executive.
If there is no separation of powers, then the incumbent Executive can simply remove and replace the Judiciary if the Judiciary try to be "funny" with the Executive, tio bo?
What is the relationship between Singaporeans and PAP?
Is it just a business relationship?
PAP makes Singaporeans rich, we vote PAP?
PAP makes Singaporeans poor, we vote Opposition?
Catherine Lim's affective divide.
Isn't it just a fancy way of saying "business relationship"?
- PAP does not perform, Singaporeans vote them out.
- Singaporeans don't perform, PAP replaces us with Aliens.
Possible Theme Songs for SG50 celebrations:
"A Time To Say Goodbye"?
"The Final Countdown"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqYG3f4PaWc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jK-NcRmVcw&feature=related
- Singaporeans don't perform, PAP replaces us with Aliens.
Anon 12:31 pm
And Singaporeans really don't have the numbers available, and also at lower cost, to perform. Boh tiok meh?
That's why PAP replaces Singaporeans with "Aliens", which have the numbers (no problem, tio bo?) and also at lower cost (also no problem), never mind some may be fake ones.(small problem lah, because there are many more genuine ones than fake ones)
As I said before, the shitty assets will be liquidated under debt plan.
However the culture of "let's get the money and keep it for ourselves" will still prevail in UMNO-ruled Malaysia. The ENTITLED Malay elites love their stylo-milo lifestyles, replete with European finery and overseas property portfolios.
Anwar is already in jail/ hospital. Pua is being sued by Najib---"How dare this Chinaman pechah our lobang?". Anti-Chinese bias in UMNO is quite well known and thus is no secret.
At the moment it is an entangled finger pointing circle as the guilty rush to cover their arses. However THE CULTURE of entitlement, corruption and privilege continues unabated.
1MDB will reappear in another form or associated forms and the whole shebang will start all over again.
SWF's contain shit-tonnes of money---mostly looted form private citizens and their enterprises. Since the CULTURE OF ENTITLEMENT is cast in stone, and the money constantly coming in, what do you think is going to happen?
Forget all this "transparency" bullshit. People like to delude themselves about "transparency" only after the shit has hit the fan and the money's vanished like MH370---i.e. without a trace, without an identifiable "agent".
The People of Malaysia Get The UMNO they Deserve...and since politics emerges from CULTURE, you can all rest assured that in the future, when this saga has settled down, "disappearing money" and asset write-downs will be happening all over again.
Malaysia boleh? 'bang, kalau ada duit, apa-apa pun boleh...
Bumiputra much?
Has any eunuch in Temasek informed Ho Ching that the oil and commodities market is crashing?
I worry about Temasek's investments in oil & commodities companies:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-06/ep-writedowns-loom-reserves-overvalued-60
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-06/aussie-boom-towns-go-bust-iron-ore-prices-crash-record-lows
Vote Kenneth Jeyaratnam into Parliament and he can do a Tony Pus on Temasick & GIC. When the skeletons fall out of the skeleton, CPF members will be crying father crying mother !
Investment well under water already how to sell ? Better to claim they are there for the long term. With a simple statement like that, their jobs are safe, and its OPM anyway so why worry ?
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