Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News
Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News |
- A morning session with The Oracle of Syed Putera-Final Part
- Can we have a lawyer as the next Chief Justice please?
- The Return of Daim Zainuddin's Monopoly Game
- Cut Waste? Who Is Wasting Resources?
| A morning session with The Oracle of Syed Putera-Final Part Posted: 14 Aug 2011 05:36 PM PDT Just a bit before we move on. The whole deal involving AA-MAS reminds me of the carving out of spheres of influence between the superpowers of 18 and 19th century. The English got Malay peninsula, The Dutch got the East indies. They signed a treaty. In a very similar way, this government of ours, allowed the airline industry to be carved out between what they currently assessed at the poster boys. MAS will be assigned to compete in the premium sector while AirAsia is effectively given the monopoly to do the LCC. What about Firefly. We haven't heard a spokesman from this outfit being given a fair airing have we? I am sure they will have a thing to say. I have also written about the role of CIMB in this deal. I have cited its record in the deals involving Synergy Drive and the split between Telekom Malaysia and Axiata. In this MAS-AA I am told, CIMB played the role of match maker simpliciter. That is its claim, the public may choose to adopt a different view because its difficult for the public to accept that CIMB, the merit driven, results focused bank does something for altruistic reasons. As I said, we shall leave the issue for a moment. We shall come back later. Now, for my final installment of my one morning with the Oracle. How many states does TDZ indicate can BN remain comfortable I asked? This is a dreaded question admittedly because what Tun Daim said in the past has proven to be prescient. Everyone wants Tun Daim to say something optimistic. But the Oracle says, his friend remains pessimistic. He can only say, among the states where BN can say its comfortable are Johore, Melaka and Pahang. Even in Pahang, a few parliamentary seats will slip out of BN's grasps as with a few more state seats. But overall, Daim believes Pahang will remain under BN. why does he mention Pahang in particular, I asked. Because Tun daim knows you are from Pahang and may he knows you would want to know what's to become of Pahang. But didn't Tun Daim write a very optimistic and encouraging article in Utusan Malaysia a few months ago? I asked. Yes, said the Oracle. I did discuss that article with Tun Daim and didn't I also show you the transcript of that article to you the last time? You did, said I. you will observe said the Oracle- that Tun Daim wrote the article with so many caveats and qualifications. BN and especially UMNO can win if they do this and that. Its leaders must go to the ground, walkabouts in Subang, in Petaling Steet and in Kg Pandang are not sufficient; people can see through the superficialities and forced smiles and staged walkabouts. Yes people feel good at that time at seeing the PM and his entourage, but after that what – after they are brought back to the realities of thinking about what's happening in this country. The oracle mentioned of TUn Daim's exhortations to the 2 top leaders of BN to go meet up with the cawangan people. Meeting with Ketua Bahagians can be a misleading source of information, they will tell of everything good they have done with a view of getting reelected. You need to go down to the basics-listen to the views in the raw. If possible exclude the ketua bahagians. But they haven't done this. The PM is busy with his overseas trip. The DPM will not move lest whatever actions he takes will be misconstrued as upstaging the boss. That can cause some internal upheavals in UMNO. And you also will notice that UMNO and BN have lost its influence on the younger generation. 80% of the younger voters are not going to vote for the BN.
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| Can we have a lawyer as the next Chief Justice please? Posted: 14 Aug 2011 04:17 PM PDT We have had too many CJs who were administrators and judicial spokespersons for political masters. Small men holding high positions bring shame to the judiciary and to the country. I pray that Ariffin will be a suitable CJ. The Ariffin that I know would bring comfort. He is a good lawyer and has a sufficient dose of humility in him to be interested inthe business of dispensing justice, especially to the minority and the oppressed. Any idiot can decide in favour of the rich and the powerful – it takes a special Chief Justice who can adequately distance himself from the levers of power, and have the courage to defend the rights of ordinary Malaysians. I hope Ariffin will bring integrity, decency and independence to the Bench once again. High positions can change many of us, but I hope it will not be like that with Ariffin. As for the present CJ, Tun Zaki Azmi, I wish him a happy retirement. His pronouncements in some cases have bordered on the absurd. His pronouncement that a receiver and manager can have two principals – that is the company (borrower) and the bank (debenture holder) – is mind-boggling. He is more suited to be UMNO's lawyer or Chairman of UMNO's conglomerates than a Chief Justice. When he resigned as Deputy Chairman of UMNO's Disciplinary Board following the burning of his own marriage certificate, he said he did not want to tarnish the good name of the Board. Clearly, he cared more for UMNO than the judiciary, since he then accepted the post of a Federal Court judge when Pak Lah offered it to him. During the Federal Court hearing of S. Shamala's conversion case, when the Court of Appeal referred several important constitutional points of law for determination, he denied them the answers. Instead, he told the lawyer that the questions posed to the Court were political. The Court of Appeal had sought answers to questions of law concerning the position of several Syariah Court Enactments. It also questioned whether the unilateral conversion of a minor to Islam by Shamala's husband was constitutional – these questions are clearly legal in nature, and are also constitutional issues of great importance. The ramifications may be political, but it is not the Chief Justice's job to manage political fallout.
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| The Return of Daim Zainuddin's Monopoly Game Posted: 14 Aug 2011 03:34 PM PDT And Mahathir was freaking comfortable with such person. Furthermore Mahathir and Daim were intimate friends from the same village in Alor Setar. Daim was so influential during Mahathir's administration that Musa Hitam, Deputy Prime Minister, couldn't get Mahathir's attention when Musa commented about Daim's dealings in awarding huge projects to his cronies such as Tajuddin Ramli, Halim Saad, Wan Azmi, Samsuddin Hassan, Rashid Hussain, Amin Shah and others. Daim, the Mr Moneybags of UMNO, can easily become the richest man in Malaysia if his wealth is openly declared. During his day as the Finance Minister, Daim persuaded Mahathir for absolute power in running the Economic Planning Unit and the nation's Treasury. In short projects were awarded directly to "preferred" companies aka cronies. As Finance Minister, Daim practically ordered banks to lend money to any companies he desired. Daim and his cronies also profited tremendously from shares allocated from company listing (IPO) on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange. At one time Daim Zainuddin was so powerful (and greedy) that his boss, Mahathir, was speechless when confronted by not only Chairman of Japan's banks but also former Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that Daim Zainuddin's demand on the quantum of commissions was simply outrages. Daim was so influential politically and monetary that he can influence the ups and downs of the local stock exchange. Eventually Mahathir had to relieve Daim Zainuddin of his position lest the PM wish the whole world to know about the irregularities. Of course Daim Zainuddin was linked to many scandals over his journey in wealth accumulation. Daim was allegedly illegally acquired 40.7% of UMBC in 1984 while he was already Finance Minister. He also owned substantial stake via nominees in previously Development & Commercial Bank, Rashid Hussain Berhad, Bank of Commerce, United Asian Bank, Southern Bank, and Ban Hin Lee Bank before their mergers in the 1990s when he was still Finance Minister. Daim's name is also linked in the RM8 billion controversial electrified double-tracking railway project spanning from Gemas to Johor Baru. It seems CREC (China Railways Engineering Corp.), a Chinese company that has Daim Zainuddin's finger-prints and was awarded the Letter of Intent, is fighting tooth and nail with Najib's administration because the PM wanted the project to be awarded to another company. Najib's crony and golf buddy Tan Kay Hock was allegedly asking RM500 million commission of which RM200 million was for Najib's family. One of his cronies, Tajuddin Ramli, recently created havoc when he exposed that it was former prime minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad and former finance minister Tun Daim Zainuddin who instructed him to buy shares in Malaysia Airline System (KLSE: MAS, stock-code 3786) to help Bank Negara (Central Bank) recover from foreign exchange losses in 1994. And now another (Daim) crony tycoon Halim Saad who was bailed out in the 1997/1998 Asia financial crisis is making headlines in the local stock market. Halim Saad controlled now defunct Renong Group which in turns owned PLUS and UEM Group Berhad. Both PLUS and UEM are now owned by Khazanah. It was reported that Halim and Daim are the man behind Asas Serba, a company which proposed to tale over 25 toll expressways in the Peninsular Malaysia. Asas Serba has offered 20% cut in toll rates in its RM50 billion bid for the acquisition as a carrot to lure the ruling government to accept the proposal. Politically this is attractive since the government could cheer the voters while the government could save RM114 billion (from 2010 until 2038) in a lopsided agreement that allows the concessionaires to raise toll rates every 3-years. The contender was from Syed Mokhtar Albukhary, one of Najib's many cronies, who is offering RM45 billion to take over all assets of highway concessions with a 10% toll reduction across the board. The proposal also includes a promise not to increase toll rates in the remaining years of the concession. The whispers on the street were that Syed Mokhtar is already monopolize the nation's sugar (that's right, Robert Kuok no longer the Sugar King) and rice industry so should the same person be crowned the Highway King as well?
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| Cut Waste? Who Is Wasting Resources? Posted: 14 Aug 2011 01:34 AM PDT After reading this report, I am compelled to cut to the chase the talk about cutting waste at government hospitals.
The ministry is collating data from the other government hospitals. Eisah said the current figures alone reflect the amount of medicine wasted adding that it would be a substantial amount for all the hospitals.
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