For political stability, UMNO and BN standalone

The underlying reason behind UMNO's decision to go alone was lost to the "garang" undertone and overemphasis on politics and 15th General Election by the speakers at the UMNO General Assembly.

UMNO President Datok Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi cannot be solely blamed. 

Since losing GE14, the General Assembly is no more the platform to set the direction for the Malays and nation. And since Pak Lah's Presidency, the opening address stopped playing the role as agenda setting for the Malays. 

More so, the pandemic limit any role the GA could play. 

Jangan berbicara tentang Perpaduan Ummah dengan UMNO jika "sebenarnya anti perpaduan Melayu" - Mohamad Hassan

".... kita akan melihat perpecahan jika konsep perpaduan bangsa Melayu itu ditafsirkan dalam konteks politik semata-mata."

Teks Ucapan Perasmian Wanita, Pemuda,Puteri UMNO – Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan

Para perwakilan sekalian,

1. Saya sangat berbahagia dapat bersama dengan semua perwakilan Wanita, Pemuda dan Puteri pada pagi ini.

2. Dalam gawatnya pandemik ini, Allah SWT terus mengizinkan kita berhimpun untuk melangsungkan urusan parti dan negara.

3. Maka marilah kita memanjat setinggi-tinggi syukur dan pengEsaan kepada Allah SWT yang Maha Mengasihi dan yang Maha Mengetahui atas semua yang telah ia aturkan kepada kita.

Zeti, Ambank, Goldman and Jho Low colluded for a bite of 1MDB bond

Prior to the commencement of the operations of Terengganu Investment Authority (TIA), the Sultan of Terengganu summoned a then renown corporate figure to the Istana Terengganu off Jalan Tun Abdul Razak in Kuala Lumpur.

The TIA scheme put together by Jho Low was to capitalise the future cashflow of Terengganu Wang Ihsan oil revenue by raising more capital through  the issuance of bond to undertake investment. 

The money raised by Ambank through the 1MDB bond issuance was supposed to be invested into Petrosaudi. However, part of the money was redirected into a bearer owned company, Good Star Ltd controlled  by Jho Low. Amhari admitted during the SRC trial that he registered Good Star and is the beneficial owner.   

The 1MDB-Tanore case against Dato Najib is on the allegation the RM2.3 billion donation into his personal account came from Good Star.

The Tan Sri flipped through the paper shown to him by the Sultan and commented it looks dubious. 

The Sultan's subsequent action to the comment is not known till yesterday's posting by Facebooker Lim Sian See. She gave a perspective by linking current development to past news report. 

LSS disclosed Sultanah instructed to stop the bond issue, but it still proceeded. That could have explained why federal government tookover TIA entirely and turned it into 1MDB a year or two later.

KTM rail contracts on silver platter for China

Rocky Bru here suggested the Railwaymen Union of Malaya (RUM) take up their case with Minister of Transport, Dato Dr Wee Ka Siong and Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin. 

One of their many grouses is China. In January, RUM President Abdul Razak Md Hassan warned government to stop the flood of China trains. The union repeated the same call to protest a plan to purchase the problematic Locomotive Dalian and Six Car set (SCS) trains. Razak claimed most China purchases were not made on open tender but direct negotiations.  

Their concern against China dates back to the days of BN. When PH came to power, they look towards new Minister Anthony Loke with the hope of change. PH's campaign tagline "selling the country to China" in their GE 14 campaign was appealing. 

Subsequently, Loke began an make about turn in 2019. He was overly excited and today, still is over China's promise to assist Malaysia to build trains and  rail equipment hub South East Asia.     

Despite PPBM uttering the same campaign tagline, there was no change in policy when the took leadership of PN government. 

Late last year, MoT is believevd to have invited a China company to submit a proposal for Electrical Multiple Units (EMUs). A case of specifications tampered was found.

Najib can afford a smile of relief

After few years of disappearance, the lady facebooker, who defended 1MDB galantly, Lim Sian See has returned to the social media. Her latest is on US goverment blocking Dato Najib access to court document related to Goldman Sach admitance to giving bribes to 1MDB and government officials.

Soldier such as former JASA officer, vocal and combative, Tun Faisal turned his back to attack Najib, openly collaborating with PPBM to topple Dato Zahid Hamidi, and not shy to support UMNO-oppressing Tan Sri Muhyiddin and his Perikatan Nasional government.

LSS remained steadfast and loyal to the cause than the many other Melayus. Recently she wrote her view on SRC for the upcoming ppeal date. (reproduced at end of this posting). Could her re-emergence be a sign of renewed confidence for Najib as he faced the harassment of legal charges?

Last Monday, Najib can afford to smile in court on the AMLA related court application involving the police raid against him from the night of the first Ramadhan in 2018. Its giving police, MACC and prosecutor quite an embarassment.

Zeti expose, Goldman Sach case in US, Ambank fines, and the AMLA cases against UMNO, few divisions, and leaders are showing it was political persecution all along.

Rumour of SC raid douse frenzy on Dataprep shares

Malaysia Focus dubbed Dataprep as a rags to riches story for 2021 in their article yesterday that it caught the attention of a PLC CEO of an IT company yesterday. According to the Edge Online, the shares went up by 23 times in a mere month. 

Regulators cautioned investors because a mere collaboration to provide solution for Covid-19 screening without sufficient details provided is nothing to go crazy over. The frenzy for few more days gave rise to the suspicion there was insider trading or market rigging. 

That led Malaysia Focus's expressed concern as to "how the information communications technology (ICT) firm is able to emerge unscathed from the claws of the market regulator." A quick check and taking account of political development leads to the suspicion that it is a money laundering exercise to cleanse black money for political operations. 

It could be linked to MPs jumping ship to support Perikatan Nasional, more so involving those dubbed in the political circle as "a cartel member". If not to camouflage, why then would a certain leader be making unnecessary press statement this evening?  

Railway union up in arms as KTMB awaits new Chairman

At the end of February, media reported the recently removed Menteri Besar of Perak, Dato Seri Ahmad Faizal Azumu was tipped to be the new Chairman of Keretapi Tanak Melayu Berhad (KTMB) to replace Dato Rameli Musa.  

However, no formal announcement has yet to be made. The official Facebook for the Railwaymen Union of Malaya (RUM) asked on March 6th as to why Faizal has yet to to accept his appointment. Faizal told media he will be meeting Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin to discuss the appointment. 

For Faizal, or casually referred to in the political circle as Peja, he may have the Prime Minister's ear, but he does not exude the confidence to provide the leadership to overcome KTMB's dramatic drop in revenue, rising liabilities, and even late salaries paid.  

Peja's appointment is seen by political pundits as Muhyiddin pacifying his Deputy President, who was removed as Menteri Besar at the behest of the Sultan of Perak. He was suspected of blatant involvement in the rampant sales of state land, but there is no such opportunity in KTMB since it holds no land or rail assets.  

He will also have to content with RUM, a union known for being aggressive but short of militant. The union is vehemently opposed to the new CEO appointed by Minister Dato Dr Wee Ka Siong, against Destini-KTMB JV to do MRO, and up in arms with MoT's preference for China's CRRC. 

Syed Naquib on "Kalimah Allah"

General Election must be around the corner because explosive inter-racial and inter-faith issues are in vogue and returning to the public sphere.

Latest is High Court decision by Muslim Court of Appeal judge, Dato Nor Bee binti Ariffin for Christians to use "kalimah Allah". 

Justice Noor Bee's decision, that arised from a legal challenge to police seizure of educational Christian CDs of Jill Ireland at Sepang Airport in May 2008, is challenging a 4-3 Federal Court decision made in 2016 to disallow use of "kalimah Allah" in Christian publication.

The same debate is being revived on the "kalimah Allah" issue that dates back to legal attempt by Catholic Church to seek court order in 2009 against Home Ministry confiscation of Malay printed material by Catholic Church publication, The Herald.

Dato Najib attempted a solution to the interfaith impasse that put differences in religous practises and interfaith attitude between East and West Malaysia into question.

However, he could not because court process was on-going. 

TH CEO bites the dust, 10,000 additional Haj allocation?

Since the Pak Man Telo expose by Facebooker Salahuddin Hisham on March 2nd, 2021, Lembaga Tabung Haji have been absolutely silenced without a response.

Its a clear cut case of non-distributable income being given out, which current LTH CEO Dato Nik Hasyudeen used to accuse previous management of doing a Ponzi scheme-like operations.

In this age of social media openness, which used to be led by blogs, keeping silence is not an option for Investor Relation or Corporate Communication people, more so management. 

Issues will not go away and gets buried. These days getting someone on WA group to deny, "It's not true" is not good enough.  

More so with extract of documents provided. Made possible by technology to enable easy distribution of image, text, audio, and video. Proudly to say, if it is written in this political economic blog, it does get at least attention from its modest number, but yet influential followers. 

Perhaps, this blog can claim to be an Industrial Relation blog too. Nik Hasyudeen will not be preachy anymore in his way to evade hard questions. He was given the Donald Trump reality show ending. 

Tabung Haji reduced to a Ponzi Scheme

In the previous postings, curiosity on the trading of Top Glove led to suspect that EPF's surprising return of 4.9% to 5.2% could be either a Ponzi scheme like operation to discourage withdrawal or the return from script lending to foreign funds to short shares and bash the Malaysian market down. 

Investopaedia described Ponzi scheme as below: 

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investing scam promising high rates of return with little risk to investors. A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investing scam which generates returns for earlier investors with money taken from later investors. This is similar to a pyramid scheme in that both are based on using new investors' funds to pay the earlier backers.

Back in April 6, 2019, the current CEO of Lembaga Tabung Haji (LTH), Dato Nik Mohd Hasyudeen Yusoff tweeted in Malay to be translated as:

Remember the Pak Man Telo scheme? Why is this scheme wrong? It pays dividend from deposit it collect, not from the profit as per their claim. Similar in meaning, right?

Now that he is CEO of LTH, he is probably doing exactly it.  

 

Is Agong shareholder of Green Packet?

On February 8th, it was announced that DNex won the bid for Silterra. [Edge reported here] An announcement was made to Bursa Malaysia [Read here] Local media reported positively for Silterra to remain within local hands. [Read Dagang News and Berita Harian here and here, respectively]. 

After a long struggle, it is encouraging for DNeX, a company controlled and spearheaded by professional Bumiputera professionals and technocrats together with their China partner to hopely do another turnaround success story such as Proton and Geely. 

Decison had to be made by January. Khazanah considered DNex proposal to develop local semiconductor industry through its Wafer fabrication. 

Apparently, Green Packet have not given up and could be behind recent attempt to foil the already officially announced decision. 

Do they have Agong as shareholder that they could still attempt to reverse the officially announced decision?    

Did EPF lent shares for foreigners to short the market?

Stupid or something fishy?

That was the comment on the Facebook Group Citizen Voice to this blog's yesterday posting, Why would EPF be selling out Top Glove?

Zam Yahya's comment to question the dividend announced for 2020 remained on the back of many astute professional investors and market traders. 

The fact that almost 40% of the portfolio is stuck in equity for salvaging the crashing market from loss in investors confidence after GE15, the balance 60% in cash, money market and bonds need to make up for the substantial shortfall from equity return throughout 2018, 2019 and 2020.

That portfolio cannot make up for the poor dividend and capital loss. Zam Yahya fairly estimate should be about 4%. EPF under former CEO Tengku Alzakri Alias may have found some innovative ways to generate return from the equity portion to get 4.9 to 5.2%. 

One possibility is to do shares lending for foreign investors to short the market. That would have detrimental effect on the Malaysian equity market. 

Why would EPF be selling out of Top Glove?!

Top Glove Berhad shares closed out at RM4.75 per shares yesterday. From a one year horizon double peaks at above 9.50 in August and October 2020, the shares seemed to be on a downtrend. 

This is not believable because the six glovemakers are sitting on a pile of cash, order books that takes it to 2023, and could afford giving money to government effort to combat the Covid 19 pandemic. They are diversfying like crazy and buying properties on the cheap. 

     

Among reason cited was the worldwide vaccination and puzzle over the cash raising exercise for fear of dilution. On the contrary, a month or two ago, a market player was flabbergasted over shorting by foreign players. There was an opportunity for a short squeeze but was aborted due to developments. It adds to the curiosity. 

One explanation for this behaviour is probably EPF. They have a bit more than 6% direct interest in Top Glove which is equivalent to about 492 million shares. Sometime ago, they had 8%.

EPF were actively transacting in the market. [Refer to Bursa Malaysia's company announcement here]. From the series of transactions in February, they seemed to be net buyer. 

Here is the surprise bit of information. It is "reliably informed" that EPF is selling out and Singapore is buying at market dip. Apparently, a Singapore government institution is buying a strategic interest. Do they know something EPF do not know?