Tabung Haji: Sins and silliness

The Quran in Surah Al Hajj verse 38 reads:

Truly, Allah defends those who believe. Verily, Allah likes not any treacherous ingrate.

The interpretation of the last part of the verse means Allah "does not like any of His servants who bear these characteristics, i.e., treachery in covenants and promises whereby a person does not do what he says, and ingratitude is to deny the blessings, whereby one does not acknowledge or appreciate them".

A hadith narrated by Muslim quoted the prophet saying, "Whoever lies, they are not among us". To Muslims who understand the day of judgement, that has serious implication.

May victims of cruelty be protected by Allah. Those treacherous liars, cheaters, dishonest, untrustworthy and cruel on others repent than bear the curse of Allah. Muslims may commit sins but never lie. It is not only a reminder for this writer and others in position of public trust.

Lying is not only sinful, but in these age of openness, where lies can be easily spotted and exposed, one will be seen as silly to attempt to lie. More so, when statements made in public found to be wrong and subsequently, forced to turn.

Made silly for lying

Lembaga Tabung Haji's new CEO, Dato Zukri Samat made only few statements, but it was noticeable to the public that he was seen to be silly to have his statements doubted and changed.

Thursday last week, Zukri claimed the Islamic institution have been saved and could now maintain subsidy to all first time Haj goers. 

Two days ago, Apa malu, BossKu Dato Najib wrote in his Facebook that Tabung Haji was slandered and accused of being robbed in the billions for many years.

PH became government and it is not robbed by BN, but lost money due to the silly reason of giving out too much dividend.

Within less than 8 months into the appointment of Zukri as CEO, Tabung Haji was saved without any operational turnaround from the "loss" in the value of asset vis-a-vis liabilities.

All along, the shares continued its fall since May 2018 after the fall of the BN government. It is impossible for Tabung Haji to be saved in a short span of time. It is a joke and a silly one!

Only financial magic and creative account-cheating could achieve such. And, surely by now everyone is aware that it was through force-selling of about RM20 billion asset to SPV. How silly of Zukri to utter those lines?

Was that narrative prepared by Yati, the long associate and trusted PR agency hired by Zukri and Empress Dowager?

Internal e-mail on subsidy 

Minister Dr Mujahid Yusof Rawa can deny or threaten with regards to the internal e-mail by Tabung Haji communications and public affairs division general manager, Anis Zuhani Ahmad that got leaked.

The fact remain and it would be a lie to deny that the discussion and decision made never existed. Zukri must give his consent for the internal e-mail to inform the organisation to prepare for the new policy. Among others, there will be no more subsidy for the mahram.

If that is not true, why would the official social media spokesman hired by Yati, BEBASnew.my argued for the removal of subsidy.

It is silly for Yati to have Zukri say and Zukri willingly say without thinking that Tabung Haji will "maintain the subsidy for all first-time pilgrims".

People are talking and gossiping at the surau and masjid between maghrib and isya as to how silly of Zukri to now say so when there is an internal email revealing management has agreed to remove subsidy.

It gets more silly for Zukri to make a decision without getting the approval of the authorising body and tell everyone in the organisation, then got rejected in public by the Minister and now known by the whole organisation that he had memandai (trying to be clever) to decide without consulting and getting approval.

It would hurt the ego of anyone with a short man syndrome, but it was silly. Zukri should fire the adversarial PR consultant for making him look silly.

Yati's silly political propaganda

It is obvious that Tabung Haji had to chip in to help PPBM win the Semenyih by-election.

The by-election was to be a proxy referendum on Tabung Haji. Of all the issues that could be played up by Yati, she chose the hot issue of subsidy and highlighted Tabung Haji is under the purview of PM's Department.

Obviously, it was to dispel the accusation that Tabung Haji is under the control of Lim Guan Eng and Ministry of Finance.

That is the problem with corporate public relation whose skill is in saying the least, but in a verbage manner. Lawyers hate clients trying to play lawyer. As much as Yati can be "political" in her practise of corporate PR, it does not qualify her to play politician.

Any Ahmad, Bala and Chew knows that the SPV is under the purview of the Minister of Finance. Mujahid knows nuts of accounting, finance and even Haj operations before becoming Minister. The Tok Lebai on the Board of Directors defended BNM's role to monitor Tabung Haji.

How silly can Yati be to deny?

Here is another little secret. The SPV or Special "Perompak" Vehicle structure was designed and proposed by ProKhas, the body that took over the portfolio of Danaharta in which Zukri was once a CEO.

Prokhas is no turnaround managers, but Danaharta-style quick buck artist.

The gameplan of Yati to evade the wrongdoings of Empress Dowager exposed by Sabahkini2 for the conflict of interest and causing losses to Tabung Haji, and the discussion on impairment was obvious. BEBASnews.my has still yet to respond on the two matters.

Anyone would agree with Najib that Tabung Haji propaganda was kelakar (funny) and silly.   

When is hibah announcement?

Last year's hibah announcement on February 7th 2018

Hibah announcement is usually made in the first week of February. In the case of hibah 2017, it was February 7th 2018.

Today is March 7th and no where in sight has Tabung Haji informed when the announcement will be, except false claim that it is usually at end of February or early March or end of March.

Is there any problem to announce hibah?

If it has been told since end of December that Tabung Haji have been saved, then there should not be any problem to announce the hibah and skirt around it to talk politics on the subject of subsidy.

Hopefully it is not another of Zukri's silly statement prepared by silly Yati, On January 15th, he said Tabung Haji is in the position to pay hibah.

Is the Empress Dowager's visit to the Auditor General office fruitful? Surely the Auditor General should secede to any request in the name of national interest.

Under national interest, Empress Dowagers forced on Tabung Haji to adopt new impairment policy, what is there to announce hibah?

Is the delay due to problems with the accounts? Has the Secretary General of Treasury agreed to the accounts and proposed hibah? Since PWC Chairman is both family and crony of two of the Empress Dowagers, would he not endorse the accounts thus fnd ways to by-pass AG?

Is AG being silly or Empress Dowager being made silly?

Impairment

Yati's PR handiwork: Who has to impair now?

EPF did not impair their portfolio to take account market condition for current 2018. It enabled Guan Eng to boast that EPF produced extraordinary dividend under his short watch for 2018.

However, Tabung Haji cannot take that route because the Empress Dowagers had forced on the throat of Taung Haji to introduce impairment.

Now, Khazanah had recently announced a collossul lost of RM6.3 billon for 2018 due to RM7.3 billion impairment that obliterated any profitability for the year. Will Tabung Haji still need to impair?

A pissed off AG would have told off Empress Dowagers, "You wanted the impairment so much, you now have to impair your asset according to the current market.

"Last time, you wanted to protect national interest by re-interpreting my accounting policies. We have to be consistent and stick to the same!"

Tabung Haji was supposed to be issued with sukuk bond and RCPS in exchange for the properties and shares transfered at end of 2017 bookvalue of RM19.9 billion.

Their magic trick to impair was to shame the previous management and government, get them investigated by police, maybe MACC, FBI, CIA and which ever country a new Khairuddin Abu Hasan will appear and do, and suspend them from work.

Behind the magic trick, Najib exposed that the sukuk and RCPS is "not guaranteed, not-traded and not rated." Will that mean the the sukuk and more relevant, the RCPS, will have to be valued according to the underlying assets?

Heard from sources at Putrajaya, could be MOF or Jabatan Audit Negera, that the underlying asset to match the RM19.9 billion sukuk and RCPS is only worth RM10 billion, thus TH will have to impair about RM10 billion.

Empress Dowager insisted there will be no bailout of Tabung Haji despite deposits at Tabung Haji are guaranteed. It means no section 24 and expectation of about 2-3% hibah will not materialise.

It is so silly an act that Yati, Zukri and Empress Dowager can join the world renown Barnum Bailey Circus in a new profession as clowns.

Has the sukuk and RCPS been issued?

With such complication, the suspicion is that sukuk and RCPS have not been issued by SPV to Tabung Haji. Any creative accountant would show in the books as "amount due to".

With the valuation of the underlying asset of the sukuk and RCPS depressed, one would wonder the basis of the new valuation to justify RM19.9 billion.

One way they could do would be to follow the way Mahathir forced on Tan Sri Tajuddin to buy a RM3 per share MAS at inflated RM8 per share.

But no corporate player would be crazy enough to fall victim again because when the shares are sold back, the government used CIMB to steal the money and companies of Tajuddin.

If the sukuk and RCPS have not been issued yet to Tabung Haji, MOF the Ministry, AG and cabinet have nothing to approve.

Silly is the game of impairment and creative accounting to slander and now thunderously fall back on themselves.

For year 2017, hibah was deemed haram for allegedly not complying with the instituted-at-whim-and-fancy policy to conform to Malaysian Financial Reporting Standard 139 (MFRS 139) and Section 22(3)a of Tabung Haji Act 1995.         

MFRS 139 have been replaced by MFRS 9. Will hibah 2018 conform with MFRS 9?

It would certainly be interesting to see these silly clowns perform. The 24 year economic reporter for BEBASnews.my should assist to answer for them.

The problem is the unrealised loss was about RM4 billion for end of 2017 and by mid-2018, ballooned to RM9 billion. Suddenly, Mujahid can announce hibah.

Mu jahat could be lying. However, he hardly could understand all these. He may not understand what is going on or out of political expediency, could not appreciate  ....

So, which Tabung Haji officials lied, cheated, being dishonest and untrustworthy to the Minister?

With so many police report being made to enable them to lie, cheat, be dishonest and untrustworthy, they are bordering on being cruel not only onto others, but also to themselves.

But, let the Almighty be the judge. May they be saved from Allah's swift punishment. The silliness is already punishment by itself. The more one lie the more people will uncover by theselves