Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News
Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News |
- The age of destruction is nigh?
- The art of window-dressing (UPDATED)
- Najib serves old wine in new bottle
- Chasing the Dragon in Tehran
- The real winners in Air Asia-MAS deal
- Sabahans ‘Cry Freedom’ after nearly half century
- Lembah Pantai: Raja Nong Chik lawan Nurul Izzah?
- Missing a large hole in Sarawak kitty
| The age of destruction is nigh? Posted: 22 Nov 2011 02:40 PM PST In the barbaric age, the Vikings and the Huns used to invade and plunder the villages using the sword and battle-axe. The people then lived in fear of such a foreign invasion. That age is now lost in the sands of time. The biggest plundering scam so far is the PKFZ (Port Klang Free Zone) scam which has swallowed up the rakyat's money amounting to RM12.5 billion and counting. The question being asked is this: Was the federal government cheated by certain parties or is the federal government that stupid or both? The outcome of the ongoing trial pertaining to this issue is anyone's guess. By Selena Tay, Free Malaysia Today Now a new age has begun, a new age which heralds a new form of plundering – done without swords and battle-axes but just as deadly. Enter the world of scams and plunderers where one can fall prey to a wide variety of scams including the black money scam, scratch and win scam and the magic stone scam where people are easily cheated of their hard-earned money. Con-men and confidence tricksters abound in Malaysia so much so that it is not unusual to hear of Malaysians falling prey to such scams. We hear of Malaysian women being conned into becoming drug mules besides "travel agencies" and "job agencies" cheating people out of their money. Still, the biggest scammer-cum-plunderer award goes to none other than the Barisan Nasional federal government who indulge in big-time scamming to dupe the rakyat. The biggest plundering scam so far is the PKFZ (Port Klang Free Zone) scam which has swallowed up the rakyat's money amounting to RM12.5 billion and counting. The question being asked is this: Was the federal government cheated by certain parties or is the federal government that stupid or both? The outcome of the ongoing trial pertaining to this issue is anyone's guess. Another big plundering scam is the awarding of tender projects. There is certainly some hanky-panky going on as there are cases where the one who gets the tender is the company submitting the eighth lowest and the 23rd lowest bid. This scam was exposed by DAP's Beruas MP Ngeh Koo Ham in a press conference in the Parliament lobby recently. A project named the Sarawak Rural Water Supply worth RM638,910,000 was given through direct negotiation. Other projects given through direct negotiation were the Sarawak Rural Water Supply Reticulation System worth RM83,860,000 and the Sarawak Special Rural Water Supply project worth RM555,050,000. All these humongous sums given through direct negotiation to cronies? The taxpayers have been ripped-off due to the government's failure to award tenders according to proper professional standards and ethical procedures. The above three projects and many more exposed by Ngeh involved a sum amounting to nearly RM404 million and these are only those that have been detected. What about those undetected? It is enough to give you the shivers! Of trains and cows Another big-time rip-off which has been highlighted, this time by PAS MP Dzulkefly Ahmad is the purchase of 38 electric multiple units (EMU train sets) at a price of more than RM500 million more than it was supposed to be. This is the story. Originally the three-coach train cost RM13.725 million each. But this purchase was cancelled as the NKRA requires it to be a six-coach train. Be that as it may, logically the six-coach train should cost only RM26 to RM28 million (the original price x 2) more. But this has ballooned up to RM48 million per train which is thre times more than the original price and worse still the purchase does not include the MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul) package which is said to be negotiated separately. The only changes, if it can be called "changes" to the specifications is the addition of CCTV and slide-presentation panel which can only be considered as minor additions to the specifications. The National Feedlot Corporation is also a recent plunder – a crony project as it was awarded to Shahrizat Abdul Jalil (minister for women, family and community development) by Muhyiddin Yassin when he was the minister of agriculture. If a project awarded by one Umno minister to another Umno minister is not called cronyism, then what is it called? The accounts of NFC should be frozen and an independent third party auditors should come in to do forensic auditing.
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| The art of window-dressing (UPDATED) Posted: 21 Nov 2011 06:32 PM PST
Sarawak Report has investigated the UK headquarters of Oxford Business Group, which claims to have been publishing country reports since 1994. There is no relationship to Oxford the town nor Oxford the University. The London HQ advertised on the company's website is in fact an office rental centre, where rooms can be let on demand. We were informed that the Oxford Business Group no longer has office space in the building, although "they sometimes still come in and out" . (READ MORE HERE)
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| Najib serves old wine in new bottle Posted: 21 Nov 2011 06:01 PM PST Instead of allowing more space for public assembly, the new Peaceful Assembly Bill would further stifle lawful dissent and perpetuate a culture of fear. Bersih 2.0 steering committee member, Wong Chin Huat said the new Bill was a scam and bluntly called Najib a "moderate dictator". "Its just a cosmetic change, like you are changing the name of Official Secrets Act (OSA) to Freedom of Information Bill while the former's clauses are still intact," he said. G Vinod, Free Malaysia Today All street protests have been outlawed. Rally organisers have to give one month's notice to the police. And if you under 15, don't even be seen at any rally. And to drive the point home, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak's government has come up with hefty fines for rally organisers and participants. In the new Bill, those found participating in an illegal assembly could be fined up to RM20,000 and the organisers who fail to give sufficient notice could be fined up to RM10,000. In a nutshell this is what the Peaceful Assembly Bill means. The Bill was tabled in Parliament today by Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Nazri Abdul Aziz. In September, Najib announced a slew of reforms including scrapping Section 27 of the Police Act that requires a permit before holding an assembly. And there was some hope that liberisation was finally taking place in the country. But today when the Peaceful Assembly Bill was tabled, it proved to be draconian than the previous Police Act. Several political parties and special interest groups were quick to point out that this was just old wine in a new bottle. Breach of the constitution Calling it a breach of the constitution, PKR vice-president N Surendran said it was obvious that the Barisan Nasional government is trying to make peaceful assembly difficult for the people. "Najib's promises of reforms is a farce. This law is a joke and will make our country the laughing-stock of the world," he said. He also said that there was no reason why street protests should be outlawed as such rallies were normal, harmless and an integral part of any functioning democracy. "It is the job of the police, upon notification, to manage traffic and other matters during rallies. However, in many cases, the police themselves cause traffic congestion by putting up unnecessary road-blocks," said Surendran. He added that it was absurd to have a 30 days notice period before anyone could hold a rally, saying even South Africa's authorities require only seven days notice. "Must we wait a month if we want to gather and hand over a memorandum to the government? The government is bent to make it difficult for the rakyat to convene any assembly," he said. Surendran also said that Section 8 of the new Bill granted wide discretionary powers to the police to stem public assembly and the high fine would serve to deter people from participating in rallies. Najib a 'liar', 'moderate dictator' Echoing Surendran's concerns, Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) secretary-general S Arutchelvan said the new Bill only proved that BN must be voted out as it will never be able to reform. "I think BN is paranoid of losing power like dictators in the Middle East. The bill is more draconian than Section 27 of the Police Act," he said. Calling Najib a liar, the PSM leader said the new Bill is unconstitutional as the Federal Constitution permits all Malaysians to assemble peacefully, irrespective of race, religion, gender and even age. "The age limit for organising a rally is ridiculous. What if students want to hold an assembly to show solidarity on some issues concerning their well-being? "In some countries, those aged 15 and 16 are even allowed to work," said Arutchelvan. He also alleged that the 30 days notice would be used by the government to get those opposed to the rally to lodge police reports against the organisers. "And the police will use the reports to stop the assembly, like what they did to Seksualiti Merdeka organisers," he said.
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| Posted: 21 Nov 2011 04:56 PM PST
Behind its façade of Muslim piety, Iran is one of the most drug-addled countries in the world. Today's Islamic Republic offers premonitions of a narcodystopia. Take a car ride through Tehran at night, and your driver may tell you that the underage girls in chadors who offer esfand -- seeds that are burned to ward off the evil eye -- along the highways are really selling sex to enable addicted fathers. Ride the metro, and you will see battered children pitching trinkets and fortunes to sustain their parents' habits. BY ROLAND ELLIOTT BROWN, Foreign Policy TEHRAN – On June 26, Iranian state media reported that 20,000 former drug addicts had assembled at Tehran's Azadi Stadium to mark the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attended, and used the podium to portray narcotics as an implement of Western predation. "Today," he said, Western countries "have begun harming nations, especially the Iranian nation, by drugs. Arrogant states masquerade themselves behind the so-called humanitarian masks and they want to stir a sense of inability in other nations. They put on masks of freedom-seeking, human rights, and protecting people but in fact they are the biggest criminals in the world." Tehran is one the higher capitals on the earth's surface, and not only in terms of altitude. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reports that Iran has 1.2 million "drug-dependent users," and that 2.26 percent of the population aged 15-64 is addicted to opiates. The organization's director, Yuri Fedotov, has praised Iran for having "the world's highest rate of seizures of opium and heroin," and for developing effective treatment and prevention programs. Human Rights Watch, by contrast, has criticized Fedotov for glossing over the country's inadequate legal proceedings and executions of drug offenders. Most alarmingly, people arrested during opposition demonstrations, such as the Dutch-Iranian Sahra Bahrami, have occasionally been hanged as "drug smugglers." Today's Islamic Republic offers premonitions of a narcodystopia. Take a car ride through Tehran at night, and your driver may tell you that the underage girls in chadors who offer esfand -- seeds that are burned to ward off the evil eye -- along the highways are really selling sex to enable addicted fathers. Ride the metro, and you will see battered children pitching trinkets and fortunes to sustain their parents' habits. Visit a poor southern suburb like Shahr-e Rey, and you might see a cigarette vendor in the bazaar with a sideline in used needles. Walk through Khaju Kermani Park on the capital's southeastern outskirts, and you might witness young girls smoking crystal meth in full view of park authorities, while in the background a tall, badly sunburned man with track marks on his arms staggers around in an ill-fitting, woman's blouse. Yet the Iranian drug scene is not an exclusive feature of the country's decadent capital, or solely of its abject underclass. Its roots run deep and wide: For example, when I was visiting the tomb of the 12th-century poet Saadi, a tourist attraction in the southern city of Shiraz, Azad, a local literary critic who was showing me around, gestured beyond the garden walls to the adjacent neighborhood, named Saadieh after the poet. This he identified as a hub for the region's thieves, traffickers, and drug addicts. "Would you like to visit? It's very easy to visit, but you might not come back alive," he joked. I had seen enough Iranian skid rows to demur, but, intrigued by the apparent intersection of drugs and high culture, I pressed him for insights. In a display of Persian hospitality, he invited me to the home of a learned opium enthusiast to witness a display. Opium, Azad told me, is Iran's oldest and most entrenched drug, and was used medically in the region by Avicenna, the great Persian philosopher-scientist, 1,000 years ago. In ensuing centuries, it was extolled by the poets of the Persian canon. The best-loved of these, Hafez, measured his ecstasies against it, writing, in the genre of love: "A wound from you is worthier than salve from others/Your poison, sweeter than the opium they render." When we entered the front room of a large house on the city's periphery -- shielded from the street by high walls -- there lay arranged on the floor a metal brazier full of coals, an opium pipe, and other paraphernalia, along with plates of watermelon (your reliable narrator partook only of the fruit). "We love it and we hate it," remarked Mani, Azad's friend, a soft-spoken and serious academic in his sixties, as he began to light up. "It has so many problems, difficulties, but also attractions. In my family, my father used it, but he would always say, 'Don't touch it.' He was against it because he used it himself, but later we smoked it together. I used it because it seemed romantic, poetic." "When you first use it," Azad added, "it makes you relaxed. It makes you have good sleep, or it can give you nightmares and make your imagination work. Especially when you do [creative] work, it gives you the concentration you need. Mowlana, the poet, used it 800 years ago and mentioned it in his work. Hafez mentioned it. But in Iran today, artists and writers have no role, and they are suffering from their own nothingness, so they become disappointed, and look for something to make them calm." "Socially it's looked at very negatively," Mani added slowly as he recovered from a long hit. "It's often criticized in government propaganda. And there's the impact it has on families. But it is still accepted in some parts of Iran, like in [the south-eastern province of] Kerman. Traditionally, when a girl gets married there, among the things she's expected to take to her husband is an elaborate set for preparing opium, even though it's illegal." "In the shah's time," he continued, "there was even a certain prestige attached to it. His brothers used it. His father was an opium addict, and everyone knew it. In Islam, the attitude towards opium is not completely negative; in fact, it's not mentioned." Before the revolution, he added, "there was a brand of opium known as 'senator.' Now, they should call it 'ayatollah.'" Despite his insinuation of the drug's appeal to Iran's rulers past and present, Mani sees opium as a drug in decline. "There is a lot of pressure from outside, because most of the heroin and opium that gets into Europe goes through Iran. [The international community] gives the government money to respond," he said, referring to financial support Western countries give UNODC. The result, he said, is that opium has become expensive. "Mostly rich people use it now, but the quality is much worse. It might be quite dangerous. Chemical drugs are much cheaper and more accessible to the youth, and they require less paraphernalia." Before I left, Azad asked me to be careful with the pictures I had taken of their session because "the government is after just such a thing, especially when it involves intellectual people." Back in Tehran, I sought a more clinical take on the subject, and met Ali, a gentle 32-year-old social worker at an addiction treatment facility in the city's eastern Tehranpars neighbourhood. "The problem of drugs in Iran does not belong to any particular class or educational background," he emphasized. He sees more than 100 regular patients, from a range of economic spheres. Some are poor Afghan workers with no legal status or family support, while others are -- or have been -- wealthy. "One [of my patients] is a dentist who worked in the United States," he said, aiming to surprise. "He had a car accident there, and was injected with morphine. After he was released from hospital, he started injecting himself, and eventually lost everything he had and moved back to Iran." Ali described two main classes of drugs with which he deals. There are opiates, such as opium, morphine, and "crack" (which in Iran describes not the most addictive form of cocaine, but the most impure form of heroin) -- and synthetics, which includes ecstasy, psychedelics, and "shisha" -- crystal meth. Shisha and crack habits, Ali told me, are the most common forms of addiction. He explained that drug treatment has come a long way since the revolution. "There was a time when if someone was using drugs, it was viewed as a disaster by families. The treatment was locking up, even chaining up, those who were addicted. Politics aside, drug addiction is a horrible problem for any government to face, and attitudes have changed. Rehab centres keep opening. The hopes of families really increase when they see treatment working." But successes in treatment for opiate habits, he added, have been countered by mafias introducing synthetics, with which treatment centers have less experience. Improbably for a country where lawbreakers and ideological renegades are regularly hanged in public, Iran can be uncharacteristically lenient where addicts are concerned. The center where Ali works dispenses government-subsidized methadone to opiate users and conducts "self-awareness therapy" for those on methamphetamines. Some patients even visit the center from prisons, where they undergo treatment programs. Ali spends much of his time counseling youths, families, and spouses, and conducting group support sessions. He invited me to one of his sessions, which bore likenesses to Western 12-step programs, with its heavy emphasis on personal responsibility. The meeting even concluded with a non-denominational group prayer. In light of what I'd heard and witnessed, I tried to think my way into Ahmadinejad's Azadi Stadium remarks. The president failed to point out that Western markets have made Iran a conduit for narcotics, or that Iran can only resent that its police face danger, in part, for the benefit of authorities in decadent Europe. Nor did he suggest that international demand for opiate interdiction might be contributing to the spread of crystal meth in Iran, thereby exacerbating drug harm. He dismissed the language of human rights, perhaps insinuating that calls for leniency toward drug pushers are ill-intentioned, and so it's just as probable that his logic is unabashedly conspiratorial. If so, his view is echoed by Hamidreza Hosseinabadi, head of Iran's anti-drug task force, who last year accused British forces in Afghanistan of actually guiding traffickers into Iran. Following Ali's support session, I ran Ahmadinejad's statements by Rahim, a bazaar merchant and recovering opium addict in his fifties who had led the group prayer. He was having none of it. "The way I see it," he said, "We can't blame other people for our mistakes. You could pile up all the drugs in the world in a square in Tehran, but only those who want to use them will take them. You can't say, 'because there are drugs, I became addicted.' Some people say, 'it's my parents' fault, it's my friends' fault, it's my country's fault, it's the regime's fault,' but after going through this program, I believe that [my addiction] was my fault, not the fault of my government or of the United States."
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| The real winners in Air Asia-MAS deal Posted: 21 Nov 2011 03:43 PM PST
It looks like the little Napoleons in Khazanah are the ones who will benefit most from the controversial share swap. Here, the truth of the matter is that Tony has had it up to his eyeballs with the little Napoleons at Malaysian Airports Holdings Berhad (MAHB) for virtually extorting him over the years through excessive fees. He sees the badly-managed MAHB as a leech, sucking Air Asia's blood for all it is worth. Joe Fernandez, Free Malaysia Today Who are the real beneficiaries in the controversial Air Asia-Malaysia Airlines share swap? The answer should not be as confusing as has been made out to be in media statements from all and sundry. Air Asia Chief Tony Fernandes isn't being very helpful, and for obvious reasons. He fears that millions of his doting fans will abandon him and, in consequence, he will lose his throne as the God of Marketing in Malaysia and the region, if not the world. We are told that Khazanah Nasional will have a 10% stake in Air Asia in return for the latter having a 20% state in Malaysia Airlines. Khazanah Nasional has a 17.33% stake directly in Malaysia Airlines. Indirectly, it has a 52% stake through Penerbangan Malaysia Sdn Bhd, its wholly-owned subsidiary. There's more than meets the eye in this cloak-and-dagger deal. Tune Air Sdn Bhd, a private limited company which has a 20% controlling stake in Air Asia, is owned 50:50 by Tony and his partner Kamarudin Meranun. This means that each has a 10% stake in Air Asia through Tune Air. Khazanah, for all practical purposes, did not enter Air Asia directly. But like Tony and Kamarudin, it went in through Tune Air. The 20% that Tune Air has in Air Asia is now owned 50% by Khazanah and 50% by Tony and Kamarudin. Khazanah, in reality, now owns half of Tune Air. Tony and Kamarudin both hold the rest in equal measure. In return, Tony and Kamarudin accepted a 20% stake collectively in the virtually bankrupt Malaysia Airlines. Many will say that the two need to have their heads examined. The bottom line is that buddies Tony and Kamarudin have both lost their once controlling stake in Air Asia via Tune Air. The little Napoleons at Khazanah can go on to pick up Air Asia shares in the open market and build up its ownership of the airline outside Tune Air. The revenue from Air Asia is expected to help feed the war chest of the little Napoleons at Khazanah. This is part of the real story that Tony isn't telling anyone. Instead, like Kamarudin, he deliberately keeps mum on the deal while the media goes on a wild goose chase. Both men must have laughed their heads off recently when several MPs attacked Tony in Parliament over the share swap. It's a bit of a mystery why Tony and his partner gave up their controlling stake in Air Asia. Under Tony, Air Asia had bragged from its inception that Now Everyone Can Fly. We can only guess at what his real motives are in accepting a deal with Khazanah so that Not Everyone Can Now Fly. There was that story not so long ago that Air Asia would shift its headquarters to Jakarta. This was shortly after Tony started singing praises of the Indonesian capital. The Air Asia chief saw Indonesia as El Dorado and the Promised Land all rolled into one as Air Asia Indonesia was poised for as much success as Air Asia in Malaysia. Genius plan When caught with his pants down over the headquarters announcement, he quickly claimed that Air Asia would still keep its headquarters in Malaysia. Jakarta, he said, would be Air Asia's Asean headquarters since that's where the Asean Secretariat was located. Apparently, he wanted to have a "closer working relationship" with the Asean Secretariat since Air Asia was in fact THE Asean Airline. If that's the case, what role would the so-called Air Asia headquarters in Malaysia still play? Air Asia would end up with two headquarters under Tony's genius plan. Since the share swap deal, we have not heard anything about Air Asia's Asean headquarters in Jakarta. Instead, we are told that Tony will set up a new airline—Caterham Jet—ostensibly to compete with, among others, Qantas in its plans for a new airline for the super rich in the region. Not Everyone Should Fly? God alone knows. Here, the truth of the matter is that Tony has had it up to his eyeballs with the little Napoleons at Malaysian Airports Holdings Berhad (MAHB) for virtually extorting him over the years through excessive fees. He sees the badly-managed MAHB as a leech, sucking Air Asia's blood for all it is worth. The way he reckons it, he works hard only to see MAHB robbing him of the fruits of his labour and constantly blackmailing him. He is still sore that it denied him the right to build a new low cost airport near the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Instead, MAHB decided to build its own—for the lucrative private contracts that the little Napoleons could take for themselves—and confine him to using their new airport. MAHB even enlisted the support of former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the omnipresent, to lobby public opinion against the new airport planned by Air Asia. Many stories in the Malay media on the issue bordered on the personal, were highly offensive and even downright racist. That Air Asia has been a runaway success in Malaysia from the word "go" is in no doubt whatsoever. It has replicated and duplicated this success through subsidiaries in Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines, besides Indonesia.
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| Sabahans ‘Cry Freedom’ after nearly half century Posted: 20 Nov 2011 03:08 PM PST There is a swelling movement in the Borneo states that is asking for more independence and questioning Putrajaya's intentions. Having been thwarted once too many times on registration by the Registrar of Societies (ROS), ex-Usno members have now set up the ad hoc Kelab Usno under Datu Badaruddin Datu Mustapha, the son of the party's founder. It's the Kelab Usno members who ensure that local Muslims turn up in droves at UBF gatherings. Joe Fernandez, Free Malaysia Today The wind of change is sweeping throughout Sabah and Sarawak. After nearly 50 years there is a movement that is calling for total national unity in the Borneo states. The United Borneo Front (UBF), an ad hoc NGO led by Jeffrey Kitingan, a former PKR vice- president, is awakening the people to the plight of Sabah and Sarawak's association with the Peninsula. The UBF has been holding meetings all over the two states and droves of people turn up to hear the arguments of its leader. UBF's rally cry is "Unity is Duty" and the Sabahans who are taken in by this are the children and grandchildren who voted for Malaysia in 1963. They are now beginning to realise rather belatedly, by all accounts, that their fathers and grandfathers made a "terrible mistake" in opting for Malaysia, a term first used by French navigator Jules Dumont d'Urville in 1826 for Malaya. It's an open secret that a third of those in Sabah who favoured Malaysia in 1963 were Muslims under the leadership of the United Sabah National Organisation (Usno), led by the charismatic Suluk chieftain Datu Mustapha Datu Harun. It is widely believed that Mustapha, a Year One school dropout, hailed originally from the Philippines. Local Muslims are Bajau, Suluk, Dusun (Orang Sungei, Bisaya, and Ranau), Irranun, Cocos-Keeling, Bugis, Indian sub-continentals and others. Another third, the United Nations then determined, were mostly local Chinese against any idea of Malaysia. This third included an equal number of people who wanted a period of independence before re-visiting the idea of Malaysia. A further third, mostly non-Muslim natives, wanted more and better particulars on Malaysia, and more safeguards for Sabah and Sarawak, especially the native communities, before deciding on Malaysia. There are no prizes for guessing why local Muslims in Sabah have now come around to the idea, often expressed hitherto only by their non-Muslim brethren, that the state needs to return to the independent status it attained on Aug 31,1963 before Malaysia intervened two weeks later on Sept 16, 1963. Divide-and-rule policy The signature theme in the state anthem "Sabah Tanah Airku" (Sabah My Homeland), they recall wistfully, is "Sabah Negeri Merdeka" (Sabah an Independent Nation). In 1963, the local Muslims had high hopes that they would be a favoured community under the anticipated benign leadership of the ruling Malay elite in Kuala Lumpur. Many were even willing to accept the lowly status of being proxies for Kuala Lumpur, stooges and even traitors in return for a life of material comforts. They reckoned the wrong as evident from the ousting of Mustapha as chief minister in 1976, the entry of the Peninsular Malaysia-based Umno in 1991 and the deregistration of Usno in 1994. They swallowed hook, line and sinker, Kuala Lumpur's neo-colonialist divide-and-rule policies in Sabah and Sarawak and became its first victims. There are also other developments which have since fed into the growing local Muslim sense of alienation as they continue to wither under Putrajaya's policy of internal colonisation. The net result is that rebels within the community are being criminalised by the powers-that-be, demonised, dehumanised, neutralised, isolated, marginalised and being virtually eliminated and/or exterminated from the political arena. A case in point is the struggle of Usno diehards to re-register their old party. Having been thwarted once too many times on registration by the Registrar of Societies (ROS), ex-Usno members have now set up the ad hoc Kelab Usno under Datu Badaruddin Datu Mustapha, the son of the party's founder. It's the Kelab Usno members who ensure that local Muslims turn up in droves at UBF gatherings. One sore point among local Muslims is the growing influx of illegal immigrants of their faith who secure Malaysian personal documents via the backdoor from Putrajaya, become instant natives, get on the electoral rolls and snap up the opportunities which would have otherwise gone to them. This has included seats in the State Legislative Assembly and Parliament. Tainted electoral rolls The crux of the Muslim problem in Sabah with the electoral rolls is the 12 tiny state seats and five tiny parliamentary seats created since 1994, mostly in the East Coast, on the basis of illegal immigrants on the electoral rolls. Meanwhile, the number of local Muslim state seats remains at 20 as before 1994. The number of local Muslim parliamentary seats remains at eight, the same figure as before 1994. Local Muslims find that the illegal immigrants have become the electoral fixed deposit of the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN), especially since the political tsunami of 2008, and at their expense. Hence, their apparent growing desire to make common cause with other Sabahans – Dusuns (including Kadazans or urban Dusuns and Muruts), Chinese and others – who are spread over 28 state seats and 12 parliamentary seats. The common cause strategy calls for total local rejection of Peninsular Malaysia-based political parties which are operating in Sabah in defiance of the political autonomy promised by the 1963 Malaysia Agreement. The agreement, along with the Sabah 20 Points, governs the terms and conditions under which the state and Sarawak (18 Points) agreed to get together with Singapore, Malaya and Brunei to form the Federation of Malaysia. Brunei stayed out at the 11th hour and Singapore left, two years later, in 1965. Local Muslims have plenty of other issues to complain about. For starters, next to the issue of illegal immigrants, there's growing frustration over the huge revenues being taken out of the state by Putrajaya.
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| Lembah Pantai: Raja Nong Chik lawan Nurul Izzah? Posted: 20 Nov 2011 03:04 PM PST Nurul Izzah dakwa Menteri Wilayah Persekutuan dan Kesejahteraan Bandar mengabaikan kawasan lain kerana mahu rampas kerusi Lembah Pantai. Nurul berkata demikian ketika diminta meramal kemungkinan Raja Nong Chik merebut kerusi Lembah Pantai di dalam satu temuramah menerusi e-mel. K Pragalath, Free Malaysia Today Ahli Parlimen Lembah Pantai Nurul Izzah Anwar sangat yakin bahawa Umno akan menurunkan Menteri Wilayah Persekutuan dan Kesejahteraan Bandar, Senator Datuk Seri Raja Nong Chik Raja Zainal Abidin akan bertanding di kerusi itu dalam pilihanraya ke-13. Keyakinan ini disandarkan kepada beberapa faktor, antaranya penumpuan Raja Nong Chik terhadap Lembah Pantai. "Daripada penyalahgunaan kuasa dan jawatan selaku Menteri Wilayah Persekutuan dan Kesejahteraan Bandar untuk meluaskan pengaruh beliau di Lembah Pantai, sementara meminggirkan kawasan lain di Wilayah Persekutuan, Putrajaya dan khususnya Labuan, jelas bahawa Raja Nong Chik berkemungkinan besar bertanding di Lembah Pantai," kata Nurul yang juga ialah naib presiden PKR. Nurul berkata demikian ketika diminta meramal kemungkinan Raja Nong Chik merebut kerusi Lembah Pantai di dalam satu temuramah menerusi e-mel. Beliau menambah bahawa keyakinannya itu diperkukuhkan lagi kerana dihalang dari menggunakan prasarana Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur (DBKL) serta memasuki surau dan masjid seliaan Jabatan Agama Islam Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur (Jawi). Halangan Beliau mendakwa halangan ini wujud sejak Raja Nong Chik menjadi ketua bahagian Umno Lembah Pantai. "Semua ini merupakan tindakan maha tidak profesional dan mengecewakan oleh seorang menteri lantikan BN," kata Nurul. Nurul menjadi ahli parlimen Lembah Pantai setelah menewaskan Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil dengan undi majoriti 2895 di dalam pilihan raya umum ke-12 pada tahun 2008. Dari sudut sokongan beliau mengakui penerimaan warga kota terhadap Pakatan Rakyat. "Tahap sokongan warga kota sememangnya banyak berpihak kepada para pembangkang, sehingga memungkinkan pemisahan Kuala Lumpur daripada Selangor, dan diletakkan selaku tanah jajahan kerajaan pusat sehinggalah hari ini. Kubu kukuh "Justeru, tahap keterbukaan warga kota terhadap parti parti pembangkang adalah penting dalam memperkukuh kubu-kubu PR khususnya di kerusi-kerusi seperti Bukit Bintang, Kepong, Seputeh dan juga Cheras. Ini, jelas beliau, tidak bermakna bahawa Pakatan akan memandang mudah usaha penyebaran maklumat berkaitan Pakatan. "Apapun, tahap sokongan ini perlu diperbaiki dengan penyaluran maklumat serta komunikasi yang membantu menjelaskan dasar-dasar Pakatan Rakyat yang berlainan dengan BN – dengan perbandingan manfaat yang diberi kepada warga Selangor, dibanding dengan KL." Beliau menambah bahawa penterjemahan suara rakyat menerusi wakil Pakatan memaksa BN memperbaiki tahap perkhidmatan mereka. "Pembaikan perkhidmatan mereka berlaku ke tahap di mana agenda kesejahteraan bandar itu diterap di dalam agenda Kementerian Wilayah Persekutuan.
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| Missing a large hole in Sarawak kitty Posted: 17 Nov 2011 03:59 PM PST How on earth did the Auditor-General give Sarawak's finances a 'clean bill of health' when for the past nine years billions have been chanelled to 'phantom agencies'? How can the Auditor-General not see this annual big drilled hole in the state public accounts? This kind of criminal act is akin to bank robberies where a robber or gang of robbers would drill a big hole into the bank strong room to get the hard cash out. Awang Abdillah, Free Malaysia Today The annual Auditor-General's Report which is supposed to be professional and independent is grossly inaccurate, especially on Sarawak. Giving the state government a clean bill of health for nine consecutive years (until 2010) is not only inaccurate but unbelievable and disgusting. In fact, it is simply the Audtor-General lying to the public . For professional accountants coming up with such reports only show that the Auditor-General's officers are either not qualified to check the financial health of a government or that they are "on the take". "On the take" here means the officers were rewarded to cover up bad practices and financial criminal acts committed by the head of government, which is tantamount to not only making false reports but can be construed as being an accomplice to the wrongdoing . Of the two possibilities, I am of the opinion that the second one is the right answer. The Auditor-General's officers should read the reports from the on-going international investigations into the ill-gotten wealth and investments of the Chief Minister (Taib Mahmud) overseas. They should not ignore the claims made by the opposition parties and the information from online news portal. They must research and obtain a fair, better and accurate picture of the public accounts of the state government. The Auditor-General should check and investigate the following gross malpractices perpetuated by the Sarawak government: Allocation of state funds to phantom agencies According to the DAP reports, the following are the biggest irregularities in the state budget estimates: Year allocation of funds (in billions) 2007 – RM1.257 2008 – RM1.719 2009 – RM1.825 2010 – RM1.416 2011 –RM1.7 These huge allocations were channelled to unknown recipients. A client without identity would make it difficult for the Auditor-General's office to monitor or check how these funds are spent, which is understandable. But they can still question and check from the state finance ministry the actual funds spent and given out to these phantom agencies based on these budget estimates. And reports could be made accordingly. Don't tell me the investigating police officer cannot see the big hole! The only deduction we can make is that the money, all those years, was channelled to the Chief Minister's own private companies and later these funds were transferred overseas. These public account malpractices are widely reported in the online media news portals which the Auditor-General cannot ignore but should check before making the final reports, which are not only improper but a scam and a crime. For public accounting principles and rules, the most serious abuse of public funds is insider stealing/theft of public money . The chief minister is literally stealing the public funds which should be the Auditor-General's priority to investigate and expose. If your investigation proves to be true, then your office should report to the Malaysian Anti- Corruption Commission (MACC) accordingly. I have never heard of any government allocation of funds of such a magnitude approved by a State Legislative Assembly only to be stolen later by politicians who control the government! This kind of unique practice is only found in Sarawak. These funds are taken out from the development funds, which is supposed to be for development projects for the people. Our brothers at MACC are another kind who do not bother who steals what. Looks like the Auditor-General and MACC are two birds of the same feather. Closed-door tenders given to Taib's family and cronies Contracts worth hundreds of millions of ringgit are given every year to Titanium (Management), CMS (Cahaya Mata Sarawak) and Naim (Holdings) without going through the open tender system. The prices of these projects are marked up way beyond the actual prices. Since the projects do not go through the open tender system, they themselves will do the "fix-and-approve" of the prices, according to their greed. The Auditor-General should check the prices they quoted vis-à-vis the actual costs of these projects. Substandard works That is why the road infrastructures in Sarawak are in bad shape and need repairs. Even roads in Kuching city are of substandard quality. Substandard infrastructure then calls for maintenance jobs. Again the contracts go to the same companies. Maintenance works for roads and bridges again go to the chief minister and his bandits without the open tender system. A large sum of state funds is paid out every year for such purpose. As to whether they do the job or not, the national auditor should check these out.
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