Is resistance building towards Dzulkifli and MACC or graft busting?

MACC Chief Commissioner, Tan Sri Dzulkifli Ahmad was obviously upset over Lim Kit Siang's monkey remark.

He described Lim Kit Siang as uncivilised and by Malaysian norm, uncultured behaviour and words. MACC and himself is open to criticism but it should be done in a civilised manner.

Kit Siang's uncouth remark should not be read literally. The master in the art of  subversion is merely seizing on the opportunity to incite hatred against MACC.

He could see Dzulkifli as the target of hate from within and without government; and within BN and opposition party and its supporters.

MACC is used to being vilified by both sides of the political divide thus it should be no big deal.

However, Kit Siang could see the war of words between the Chief and PM Department's Minister, Datok Paul Low as a potential time bomb to cripple MACC.

Protasco: Ex-board members discharged, Payback time?

Past member of the  Board of Director of Protasco during good times

It was last year that we bumped into a member of the Board of Director of Protasco at Publika. When asked the latest on the Protasco board tussle, he commented, "Dua-dua sama samseng".

That was interesting because at one time, he described the former Board members on the other side of the tussle as uncouth and samseng. He is on the side of CEO Dto Seri Ir Chong Ket Pen.

Coincidently the Chairman, Tan Sri Hadenan Jalil came up in a recent posting on the RCI on BNM forex loss (read here). In the posting, links to the Protasco board tussle of 2014 was provided.

After the duo, Datok Adrian Ooi Kock Aun and Dato Larry Tey Por Yee lost at the EGM, they got ousted. There is a civil suit on the disputed oil and gas venture that was injected into Prostasco. Chong refused to do arbitration in Indonesia where the concession is. He claimed he does not trust the Indonesia court.

But, he pursued the duo through police report and managed to "fixed" them up with criminal charge (read here and here). However, both were discharged on Tuesday. The odds now is they could win their civil suit. It could be pay back time on Chong for breach of contract.

Both have since sold their shares in Protasco and other listed companies. 

That moment Azmin was out of character ...

The latest episode on Rafizi and the expose by Dato Rizal Mansor (read here) on INVOKE may lead to more trouble for Rafizi. He has one on GST to the Royal Customs (read FB of Izardy Mbb here) and possibly related party transaction and money laundering (read FB of Salahuddin Hisham here).

For Azmin Ali, as one of the anti-KARTEL members (which include PKR President, Datin Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail) against him, Rafizi's fate is sealed. He is facing prison, possible bankruptcy, lost in public confidence, more lawsuits for his lies and slanders, and expect more to come from MACC, Income Tax Dept, etc.  

Rafizi's latest trouble relate back to Azmin's release of his female attack dog, Latheefa Koya in which she raised issue on INVOKE and his fund raising exercise to settle possible bankruptcy. It was in reaction to Rafizi open opposition to Azmin's effort to collaborate with PAS. (The episode was written here.)

Trouble was brewing but it was under control for Azmin. Tun Dr Mahathir was on the same side with Rafizi but Azmin could control him. He reminded Tun #Taktau that Anwar is still Ketua Umum and the old man had to divert issue with an attack on PAS.

So when Azmin finally spoke to comment on the raids and probes by MACC, it out of character of him to accuse "harassment and intimidation" against the state was due to jealousy (read FMT here).

Rafizi: Is there a catch or just plain stupid? (Updated)

It started out with Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor's special assistant, Dato Rizal Mansor putting up several poser on INVOKE's financing in his Facebook dated September 20th (read here).

It is not the first time that Rafizi is being questioned of his INVOKE. Adam Rosly questioned the financing of INVOKE in response to Rafizi's statement on alleged contract fixing allegations against Zuraidah and Adam.

Recently, few weeks ago in the midst of exchanges between Rafizi and Dato Azmin Ali on collaboration of PKR with PAS, Latheefa Koya fired the same salvo on INVOKE's financing, particularly picking on Rafizi's donation drive for his court cases.

This time around, Rizal's poser could put Rafizi in more trouble with the law. Not out of any doing of Rizal's, but his own. The issue gained attention when Rizal revealed his bankruptcy announcement. One wonder was there a catch when he revealed all the donors' name.

Or was it plain stupidity? It is certainly because now more was revealed that he could be investigated for money Laundering.

Anifah to table resolution on Rohingya at the UN General Assembly (Up-dated 2)

Despite non-consensual support of ASEAN, Malaysia has taken the plight of the Rohingya on it's own to the United Nation and getting the support of the Organisation of Islamic Countries, European Union, United States and Russia.

Foreign Minister, Dato Anifah Aman is expected to table a resolution at the United Nation General Assembly at 8 PM New York tonight (around 8 AM Saturday in Malaysia). Yesterday, NST reported:

PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia is expected to highlight the plight of the ethnic minority Rohingya in the Rakhine state at the 72nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly (72nd UNGA).

It will be among the highlights to be brought to the attention by Malaysia's Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman who will deliver Malaysia's National Statement at the UNGA meet.

Losses acknowledged but strangely, not in the know

This morning a person quite in the know of the BNM forex trading loss debacle expressed his disgust of Tan Sri Hadenan Jalil's statement to the RCI. Sundaily dated September 7th 2017 here has a little snippet:

Meanwhile, former auditor general Tan Sri Dr Hadenan A. Jalil testified that while he was the secretary in the Finance Department, Treasury denied to ever having a discussion about the foreign exchange losses sustained by BNM between 1990 to 1994.

"I at no time as the secretary in the Finance Department, Treasury held any discussions about the forex losses sustained by BNM with the Prime Minister then."

This Protasco's Chairman (read here) is a £@€#-ing liar and a fake (read here).

The person messaged that the statement made lost trust with the auditing profession. Hadenan should have then joined P Ramlee to be Auditor in the movie Ali Baba Bujang Lapok.

He should be the right choice for a role in a Tun Dr Mahathir's film production as a crooked auditor. Without telling much, he said the auditor in the movie helped pull off the biggest robbery by counting the amount robbed instead of defending the stolen money from the rakyat.

Apart from being Chairman of Tun Daim's former company, he was Chairman of Swiss-based ICB Group. At the same time, he received a comfortable pension from government.

The person highlighted that the more relevant point not picked up by the media of the Monday RCI is that both Tun Daim and Tun Dr Mahathir acknowledged the losses. Thereon, one can argue over the amount and who were guilty of wrongdoings and covering up.

RCI: Covering up Mahathir than telling the truth

The Royal Commission of Inquiries will resume tomorrow September 18th and continue till the September 20th. Tun Dr Mahathir is expected to testify. Will he conveniently forget?

Thus far, the reports on the RCI proceeding gave the impression that the power of Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) superceded the Minister of Finance (MOF) or the Prime Minister (PM). In turn, the dealing room, where the foreign exchange trading was done under the Banking Department, is more powerful than the Bank’s management.

No one seemed to admit regularly briefing and reporting to the MOF and PM of the large foreign exchange trading position taken. And, no one seemed to have kept them abreast with the accumulating losses till it became a dead elephant hidden under a baby blanket.

Either the monetary system and line of authority then had a very serious systemic flaw or there was a major cover-up.

Geo-global politics behind Najib's US visit

Donald Trump's tweet is just common courtesy. So does the one by Dato Najib. Hope pro-government supporters not make too much out of it.

However, the statements made during the meeting and subsequent statements after the meeting should not be looked at too simplistically.

Malaysians have a tendency to be too political, or more precisely, low level political practises that tend to be simplistic, arguing based on good soundbyte one liner, and over induging in perception play meant to appeal to common folks' logic.

Applying that thinking to international relations and geoglobal politics is plain dumb.

Off course, there are more intelligent Malaysians that look into core issues of politics - facts, figures and discourse in public policies, but then geoglobal politics is a different ball of wax.

The passing of my favourite royalty, a true Malay gentleman

Marissa Mohamed couldn't have described it more appropriately.

The late Sultan of Kedah, Almarhum Tuanku Abdul Halim Mu'adzam Shah is a true gentleman. The Malay Mail Online described Almarhum as "Kedah Sultan - The ultimate Malay gentleman".

Almarhum was truly a great man. 

Although there was never the opportunity to meet Almarhum in person and the impression made is from afar, there was hardly any bad rumours circulating of Almarhum in carrying out his duty as the twice Seri Paduka Baginda Yang di Pertuan Agong.

In private, we often expressed our disgust to the actions and behaviours of certain members of the royalties. However, none could be said of the late Sultan.

As expressed before in our December 13, 2011 blog posting Daulat Tuanku!, his majesty was my favourite royalty:

Al Fatihah

KDYMM Tuanku Sultan Kedah mangkat sebentar tadi lebih kurang 3:15pm di Istana Anak Bukit.

In Malaysia, only Mat Salleh are expert

Not intended to be sarcastic to yet another foreigner taken in as CEO of a major Malaysian company. When a major change in the way of doing business is needed, maybe that is what is needed to break out of the social and cultural barriers for change.


Found this piece on Facebook which is a humourous observation of one attitude of Malaysian. We tend to be to lavish with claims of expert that it can be rather embarassing to those being praised as one but know they have not quite reach the level.

It can be appalling to those who appreciate the criteria for anyone to be considered as expert. For one, it needs many number of years.

Read the Facebook posting below:

AN IDIOTS GUIDE ON HOW TO BE AN EXPERT IN MALAYSIA

Will Mahathir's corruption and financial recklessness reach tipping point?

Wikipedia described tipping point as:

In sociology, a tipping point is a point in time when a group—or a large number of group members—rapidly and dramatically changes its behavior by widely adopting a previously rare practice.

When Jeff Ooi was still blogging, he introduced this term to mean similar to pounding on a wall till it finally crumble. It was mean to be the BN wall.

Since Dato Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi re-introduced the name Kutty as Tun Dr Mahathir's last name from his father side of the family, there was widespread condemnation of him from the opposition who dismissed his argument that Mahathir lied of his family background.

But it did started critics of Mahathir's stereotype character as a "mamak". Unfortunately for Malays of Indian descent, they became a collateral damage of verbal abuses on social media.  

The more relevant revelation on Mahathir is allegations of corruption, nepotism and cronyism that result in massive losses, leakages and bailouts to the national coffer, which ran in the hundreds of billions.

Should that not led to a tipping point to not return to the days of Mahathirism again?

Mahathir, eat your heart out

Najibnomics has been good for Malaysia's economy

Bruce Gale For The Straits Times

Published Sep 1, 2017, 5:00 am SGT

Under PM Najib, Malaysia's macroeconomic policies have been broadly appropriate

One striking aspect of what has been written about the Malaysian economy in recent years is the extent to which assessments have been coloured by a small number of (admittedly major) controversies. But is it really correct to assume that the only issues worth mentioning, when it comes to the way the government in Kuala Lumpur has been handling the economy, involve allegations of financial mismanagement or fraud?

For some observers, it is almost as if nothing else mattered except the latest revelations involving organisations such as 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), Felda Global Ventures (FGV) and, of course, that controversial US$681 million (S$929 million) gift from Saudi Arabia. One result of this approach has been a tendency to see every policy pursued by the government of Prime Minister Najib Razak in negative terms.

Of murdered M'sian honorary counsel and Mahathir-linked SR failure to proof

On August 24th recently, the Malaysian honorary council, Housseinaly Zahid Redza to Republic of Madagascar was murdered at the the capital, Antananarivo. Investigation is still being carried.

Wisma Putera was only informed by his wife and a press release issued few days ago.

However, Davis Gibson, the amateur investigator that found debris of the MH370 in Madagascar speculated that the death is linked to the plane crash investigation. Such conspiracy theory attract readers and it received wide coverage from both foreign and local media yesterday.

The reason could be coincidental or relevant, but it is too early to tell.

So is the case with the two civil forfeiture of US DOJ against those alleged to have laundered money from transactions linked but outside of 1MDB jurisdiction.