Answering Jebat Must Die's "Najib blunder" article

Yesterday. the pro-Mahathir blogger Jebat Must Die (JMD) posted a blog post titled "Another blunder by Najib Razak on his RM2.6 billion money" where he made several quite naughty accusations against PM.

JMD has followed the style of his idol, Tun Mahathir where he has been very selective in his accusations.

First Slander: "What is perplexing is the fact that back in July 2015 when the news about that RM2.6 billion was exposed, he (Najib) and his whole army of sycophants denied ever having any sort of accounts!"

This is entirely false and slanderous. The article from Wall Street Journal exposing the accounts came out on July 2nd, 2015 - and the very next day on July 3rd, 2015, Najib issued a statement which said clearly that the money was not for personal use. Not once did he ever deny the existence of the accounts.

Second Slander: "One of his "bootlickers" (JMD is referring to Ahmad Maslan here) even quipped that no Prime Minister is that stupid to receive money in his personal bank accounts!"

Again, this is false and slanderous. What Ahmad Maslan actually said is ""Perdana menteri bodoh mana yang akan mengambil RM2.67 bilion daripada dana agensi kerajaan dan memasukkannya ke dalam akaun peribadi? Ia tidak munasabah langsung. Jika benar, ia kebebalan yang terlalu amat sangat."

Somehow JMD missed out the words "daripada dana agensi kerajaan" when he slandered Ahmad Maslan. It wasn't too "stupid to receive money" but "too stupid too receive government money in his account."

This is a big difference that JMD somehow missed out.

The third Slander: "he even thanked Haron Din for not believing the Wall Street Journal article! What is wrong with this Prime Minister? Why did he cheat us back in July by saying those lies?"

What Haron Din actually said was "Simple logic says (that) usually, if someone wants to transfer money from a public fund to their personal accounts, they won't do it like this. They will transfer it to a different account or a secret account,"

To which Najib replied

Again, as in the first slander by JMD, this was referring to PUBLIC FUNDS - which JMD missed out on completely. And since these are not public funds as confirmed by MACC, so how exactly did Najib "cheat us back in July by saying those lies?"

The Fourth Issue: Razak contravened penal code 165 and section 16 and section 23 of the MACC Act 2009 which said that public servants cannot receive any donations - whether with or without gratification or payback,

This is what JMD posted - which was from opposition-friendly, The Malaysian Insider who tends to spin their contents:

But if you actually watch the video of the interview here:

This is what was actually said:

"Asked why the funds were deposited into his account, the prime minister explained that it was the donor's wish and the donation was made in a personal capacity.

"But do not be confused. The account is in my name, but it is not like a personal account. And I am sure that once the investigation is completed, the truth will prevail," he said.

He said that the Bank Negara was notified when the account was created.

"So, there is no intention at all to cheat or to commit an offence because Bank Negara had been notified about the existence of this account.

What Najib meant was that the donor, for his own reasons, wanted to donate to Najib directly but Najib had clearly meant was that although the account is in his name but it was clear that Najib was holding the account in trust for some other party or purpose. 

And it is specifically allowed under UMNO's constitution for the party president to hold funds on behalf of the party.

It is allowed to hold funds on behalf or in trust of another purpose.

Those who have written cheques to donate to charities or other purposes would be familiar with this. For example, this donation drive for acid attack victims were asked to do this:

"Those who wish to donate can make the cheques out to MCA Public Services Dept, Wisma MCA, Tingkat 7, 163 Jln Ampang, 50450 Kuala Lumpur.
Please write “Azri bin Abdullah” at the back of the cheque."

The ultimate beneficiary is Azri and not MCA Public Services Dept, which was holding the funds in trust.

And in the case of DAP, during GE13 the public was asked to donate funds to the current Member of Parliament for Stampin Julian Tan Kok Ping's account in his personal name instead of to his party.

Does this also mean that Julian Tan embezzled money?

And in the case of Tun Mahathir himself, a court testimony in 2010 by the ex-shareholders and directors of UMNO-linked company Realmild - which owned assets worth billions consisting of New Straits Times, MRCB and TV3 - revealed that 70% of the shares of Realmild was held in proxy for the personal name of Tun Mahathir (not UMNO!!).

This fact was further confirmed by Anwar Ibrahim who had wrote on his blog in 2010:

Sekian lama juak Umno memfitnah saya kononnya punyai kepentingan menguasai syarikat gergasi MRCB melalui Realmild. Maka pada tahun 1999, dalam perakuan di mahkamah tinggi KL, saya mengesahkan bahawa pemegang saham terbesar Realmild; 70 peratus adalah atas nama Dr Mahathir sendiri. Dan saya tidak punyai sebarang kepentingan dalam syarikat tersebut. 

Hanya setelah pendedahan tersebut, Dr Mahathir segera meminta Datuk Seri Abdul Rahman Maidin mengambil alih saham tersebut, dan ketika itu baru disebut sebagai milik Umno. Maka ia mengesahkan perakuan saya sebelumnya. 

Hal sedemikian terbongkar semula dalam keterangan Abdul Rahman Maidin dan Datuk Nazri Abdullah dalam prosiding mahkamah dalam kes saman Datuk Khalid Ahmad terhadap Datuk Abdul Rahman Maidin. Saya bersyukur kehazrat Allah kerana fitnah terhadap saya yang sekian lama menjerat pemikiran sebahagian pendukung Umno kini terbongkar.
ANWAR IBRAHIM

So, how did Tun Mahathir explain why the beneficial owner of 70% of a company worth billions were essentially under his own personal name and not in the name of the party?

Of course Tun Mahathir kept quiet and didn't bother to explain - and neither did he sue Anwar Ibrahim for stating that too nor sue the ex-director for giving a sworn testimony in court,

Tun Mahathir never needs to explain himself, of course.

In any case, it appears that the practise of holding UMNO party funds or assets in the personal name of the President on behalf of the party is not new and this practise is decades-old. And I am pretty sure the Realmild assets were not reflected in UMNO's accounts then too,

This is simply due to the opaque political funding laws of Malaysia - something I hope can be changed soon with new laws regulating such funding to be implemented soon - a process that has already started in September 2015,

Having said that, I agree with JMD's final paragraph which said this:

"MACC must do their job thoroughly."

Let the MACC investigate and see if any laws were broken. The AG had given MACC a deadline until the end of Dec 2015 to complete their investigations - not too far away now.