Friday, February 23, 2018

TI-Malaysia's latest CPI telling MACC not to investigate corruption


Tranparency International Malaysia announced their latest Corruption Perception Index for 2017.

Despite relentless efforts by MACC to uncover and investigate corruption, power abuse and corruption related money laundering activities, their latest report puts Malaysia 7 points lower than the previous year and rank the country at 72 among 180 countries.

Without any misgiving and reservation, TI-Malaysia President Dr Akhtar Satar said the latest finding should serve as a wake-up call to the government and that recent developments including mentioning the old and buried issue of NFC pushed the country’s ranking further away from the targeted of 30. [Read FMT here].

By mentioning NFC in which Rafizi Ramli's recent appeal for prison sentencing was rejected, it proves that TI's perception based corruption index is seriously faulty. The message from TI-Malaysia finding is that perception on corruption worsen when MACC uncover and investigate high profile corruption cases.

Datok Paul Low proves the point [Read FMT here]. TI-Malaysia index implies that the countries better perceived in term of corruption are those that cover-up big corruption cases and anti-graft agency should do nothing.

Thursday, February 22, 2018

Money for Candidacy, Campaign Donation and Political Funding


No wind, yet the tree shake.

Two weeks ago, The Mole reported PPBM Information Chief, Dato Kamaruddin Md Nor denied rumours it is selling their candidacy.

The denial can only be expected as it is a preposterous suggestion for any decent political party to sell their candidacy to the highest bidder. It is in contravention to the party struggle, whatever it is and against the principle of representative democrasy.

Nevertheless, politicians are pragmatic people and the pursuit of power is not entirely rationale.

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Mahathir: A mere show which regressed the opposition


Good that Tun Dr Mahathir jumped to the other side. This time around BN is not burdened to defend his past failed policies.

It is also good that he is now leading the opposition. They will now have to defend him in which they seemed reluctant. For every defense they put up for Mahathir, there is always there past position and comment to haunt them back.

It is god-sent that his past could now be scrutinised and compared to the present government of Dato Najib. All along the only political point of Mahathir is only 1MDB to justify his hatred and revenge of Najib for not taking his orders.s

Rise in prices is another favourite point of his but he overdone the issue in the manner of 1MDB's RM42 billion lesap to claim Malaysia is moving towards bankruptcy. The price rise happened during any PM's era, the important part is to contain it within the current constraint of government. That Najib did.

Now that Mahathir is on the other side, one can see the opposition is equally but more corrupt than the allegation they made of BN. To add further, their administration is not as they claim to have the best interest of the rakyat. Mahathir's only concern are his, familiy's and cronies'interest over the rakyat. 

With old and out of time Mahathir on their side, they are regressing.

Thursday, February 15, 2018

Forex investigation: Police should probe BNM sales of MAS


Upon reading the news report below, we double checked with a high level police officer on the seriousness of police to investigate the BNM forex loss:
BNM forex scandal: 27 people summoned so far
https://www.nst.com.my/news/crime-courts/2018/02/335529/bnm-forex-scandal-27-people-summoned-so-far#cxrecs_s
The answer was an affirmative: Yes, bro.

As a former currency dealer and in another career in financial market, suffered from BNM forex loss from massive and reckless position-taking, which led to the 1997 financial crisis, we were elated to hear police is getting down to the bottom of it.

It was obvious from the the RCI proceedings that all those called in collaborated to not speak up and intentionally pretend to #taktau. Also, it proves government is serious and not merely pursuing the RCI for political mileage.

From the report, police is also investigating the sales of TNB, Telekom, MISC and MAS shares done discreetly in 1993 and 1994 to absorb the loss and revive the financial status of BNM.

Of all these, MAS is of special interest.

Monday, February 12, 2018

Najib vs Mahathir is not a Coke vs Pepsi comparison



Zikri Kamarulzaman of Malaysiakini wrote: Dr M or Najib for PM, like choosing Coke or Pepsi. It was basically about there is no difference between BN or PH.

Tun Dr Mahathir's reply was ".. not really" but he merely went philosophical without give a substantive reply. Seemed he lost for words to answer.

Dato Salleh Said Keruak criticised the poser itself. He revived an old argument among the opposition  that they should not be BN 2.0 but different and supposedly better. Salleh went on to say their voters and supporters are viewing PH as no better than the criticism they levied on BN. 

Sebastian Loh agreed with Mahathir. It is not really because an honest and logical assessment of Najib and Mahathir will point to Najib as the better choice:

The difference between Najib and Mahathir

by: Sebastian Loh
The Malaysia Impact

It’s tempting to see Najib and Mahathir as a tired choice between Coke and Pepsi.

Lots of decent, thoughtful folk argue there’s no difference between the two men – they’re both irredeemably repulsive. I respectfully disagree. You’ll forgive me for repeating that annoying cliche: It’s an imperfect world, but there is, as they say, a lesser evil.

The key is view Najib’s and Mahathir’s legacies proportionately.

Saturday, February 10, 2018

THHE: Old Profesori's conspiracy exposes "client" scam


Lembaga Urusan Tabung Haji (LUTH) had just announced their annual Hibah and Hibah Haji of 4.75% and 1.75%, respectively. Given the market condition and written off loses for TH Heavy Engineering (THHE), it is considered commendable.

Some yoko and instant financial experts on social media questioned the calculation methodology without understanding the original purpose of the establishment of LUTH. [This was explained well by The Mole here.]

Some old fart Hindu made the preposterous claim that LUTH was operating as the ole Pak Man Telo ponzzi scheme. Not this old fart, though his politically sly writing these days could only indicate he does not understand much.

While, this old Profesori seemed to know much on an alleged scam involving THHE. However, he made a cardinal mistake in his investigative report for not sufficiently knowing the man behind the company before defending the so-called "victim".

It is the same as knowing the background of the Profesori to help predict where he is coming from and where he would take the story to.

Hope he heed LUTH vociferous denial in 2016 to attempts to link the financial performance of THHE to them. It is neither a subsidiary nor a GLC. Get that straight. 

The "victim" could at times be a "predator" himself in the corporate dealmaking. Johoreans has much to tell. And Din Merican should know Yinson and their political link before writing.

He could be shooting his own feet.

Friday, February 09, 2018

In the eye of the Wall Street storm, the air is still calm here


Bursa Malaysia ended higher yesterday in line with regional recovery to buck the drop on Wall Street on Wednesday.  The Malaysian Reserve reported it touched a 10-year high.

This blog did gave the hint that Bursa been under-performing but to go this high yesterday is a different story all together.

Naturally, there are those follow-the-crowd cautious dealers still holding on to the believe that when Wall Street sneezes, the world catch a cold. It may not be limited to the lower level. The higher executives too have the tendency to fear being proven wrong and is risk averse to express their own gut feel.

It is interesting though to hear there are research houses bold enough to view the global equity sell-off as temporary and no apparent risk to global economic growth. The operative word is apparent but they are not alone.

The Wall Street analysts that made the market correction call few days before last Tuesday's said it would only be only 5%. February is no witching hour like the thin trading condition of the 4th quarter.

However, who would be macho enough to put money where their mouth is? Analysts could only talk cock, but when Wall Street fell by more than 1,000 again last night and Australia caught cold this morning, would dare they put their money where their mouth is?

Expecting a nervous Friday and nervous weekend.

Thursday, February 08, 2018

Malay resentment against Najib due to Mahathir's "dedak"?


One could blame the dissatisfaction by segment of the Malays on incitation and fake news propaganda by opposition.

It could happen as a source claimed Tun Dr Mahathir had employed retired Special Branch officers to do covert whispering campaign against the government in Kedah. There is no way to check. How do these SBs look like?

One can only visibly be sure the slight problem Dato Najib is facing with certain segment of Malay voters got nothing to do with Mahathir, but sentiments attributing to rising prices of good.

One could blame it on the poor implementation of GST by Royal Customs, but we are not about to repeat and just say, "I told you so!" It was in the postings on early critics of Pemandu.

However, there have been a change of mind after several personal engagements with Dato Idris Jala. It was his mid-term report on NTP at the new BNM wing that convinced us that it was a bitter pill that had to be swallowed. .

Fake news is one, but which is the segment of Malays and why are they negative on government?

Tuesday, February 06, 2018

Biggest 1-day Dow drop in history, Oppo to blame Najib


The hope of a Chinese New Year run-up and followed through into a pre-GE rally as corporate confidence for a BN win could be temporarily dashed by a large single day fall on Wall Street.

A call from a stock market investor told us Bursa Malaysia was then down by 55 points.

Can expect the earlier confident forcasters will turn cautious and take a wait and see stance. If market make a downturn, these are the procastinators.

They way we see Bursa has not started its rally. It means this is an oppurunity to shake off weakholders. The rally can begin from the bottom.

In the meanwhile, the bottom fell off Wall Street. CNN report:

Sunday, February 04, 2018

Warisan lost it


One would have expected a former Federal Minister and resigned Vice President of UMNO be on top of his game in a political campaign.

Unfortunately, Dato Shafie Apdal fell short of expectation. He lost his hold on matters close to the heart of the people of Sabah for decades.

President Dutarte announced a committee to review their Federal Constitution to include Sabah as the 13th state but no response was forthcoming from Shafie or his fellow party members.

Dato Anifah Aman challenged opposition leaders and even their bloggers to attend an event to debate the Malaysia Agreement 1963 but none turned up.

It is a disappointment of Sabah opposition, particularly the likes of Warisan whose been going about the state repeating a slogan similar an old PBS slogan of "Sabah for Sabahans".

It should be opportunity for them to seize on to show their Sabah political character and state their positions on Sabah sovereignty, and rights under MA 63.

Friday, February 02, 2018

Now ready for #takmautua


While opposition is scrambling and whacking to supress the #undirosak movement against Tun Dr Mahathir, there is another movement against the ole i.e. Lim Kit Siang.

The video below:


This could start a #takmautua movement and Mahathir could not escape this protest too ...

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