Almost at the end: The RM12.35b final step in the 1MDB rationalization

1MDB has just announced that it has signed to sell a 60% stake in the 486 acre Bandar Malaysia to a 60-40 consortium of Iskandar Waterfront Holdings Sdn Bhd and China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC).

The deal was announced after an international open tender - which attracted initial interest from dozens of parties - called by 1MDB as part of its rationalization exercise.

IWH is the holding company for listed  company Iskandar Waterfront city Bhd and is 60% owned by tycoon Tan Sri Lim Kang Hoo and 40% owned by Johor Govt's Kumpulan Prasarana Rakyat Johor (KPRJ).

In Oct, 1MDB had announced that they have finally received planning approval from the govt for Bandar Malaysia, which includes a 4.05 gross development ratio and the planned HSR terminus, and two MRT stations.

40 per cent of the land is taken up by infrastructure such as transport facilities, parks, schools, and police and fire stations - leaving 60% of the land for development.

With the planning approval raising and giving certainty to the value of the land, 1MDB had initially expected a value of RM11.5b.

But after a keenly fought competitive tender, the IWH-CRCC consortium emerged the winner with the bid for 60% of Bandar Malaysia at RM7.41b - which values the project at RM12.35b.

3 1/2 years ago, 1MDB had paid an estimated RM1.6b (RM400m cash plus buying various pieces of land for MINDEF- including a 750 acre new RMAF airbase in Sendayan, a plot for a PDRM airbase in Subang and the 31 Royal Artillery Regiment base in Kajang.

On top of that, 1MDB also committed to pay RM2.1b to build and equip 8 military sites for MINDEF as compensation which brings the estimated cost of the land to RM3.7b.

But selling it for RM12.35b is a significant gain for 1MDB since it only had a RM4b valuation in their last financial statements.

This would mean that 1MDB could potential post a profit of RM8.6b out of this transaction.

After selling the 60% stake, the remaining 40% stake will be retained by 1MDB and will probably be eventually transferred back to the 1MDB's sole shareholder, the Ministry of Finance - thus Bandar Malaysia will be 76% owned by Malaysia and 24% owned by the Chinese firm.

And since the Johor state govt owns a 40% stake in IWH, this means that Bandar Malaysia will still be 54.4% owned by government.

It is anticipated that CRCC will be bringing in about RM3 billion of foreign direct investment into the country for this deal.

And if you add that to the Edra deal bought 100% by China' CGN group for RM9.83b (plus assuming debts of RM8b), that would mean a total of RM12.8b worth of foreign investments will come into the country just from 1MDB's last two deals.

This Bandar Malaysia deal is the 3rd major rationalization step for 1MDB and also fulfills Najib's promise to settle 1MDB by the end of this year - a move forced on Najib and 1MDB amidst heavy and sustained political attacks:

1. Asset-swap deal with IPIC signed in May 2015 - RM16b
2. Sale of Edra in Nov 2015 - RM17.3b
3. Today's Sale of Bandar Malaysia - RM12.35b

All in all, those 3 deals means that about RM46b of value (either cash or assuming of debt) had flowed to 1MDB - which vindicates 1MDB's frequent claims that their asset is worth more than their debt.

It also proves that despite Tun Mahathir's frequent and ever-changing claims, RM42b or RM27b or billions didn't lesap - in fact there is a surplus!

After those 3 deals, 1MDB will still be left with 100% of the TRX project with remaining plots to be sold and construction well in progress, the RM300m Pulau Indah and the RM1.1b Penang land to be sold - meaning more billions to be gained too beyond the 3 milestones.

Here's a video of the TRX construction progress as at Nov 2015.

After today's signing, there would no longer be any fears that 1MDB will be a financial problem or sovereign risk for the government or for Malaysia anymore or any problems related to contingent liabilities related to 1MDB.

There should also be no more concerns that those bonds and loans given by KWAP, EPF, Tabung Haji etc would be at risk.

And hopefully, people finally realizes that no GST money was used to "bail out" 1MDB.

There's no doubt about it. Najib and 1MDB had worked hard and have delivered on their promise to "solve" 1MDB - exactly on schedule.

Here is wishing the Bandar Malaysia and TRX development all the best! Eventually, we will be left with two major developments that will help drive continued growth for Malaysia.

Here's a video giving you an idea of what TRX, the planned Islamic Finance Capital of the world, will look like when completed:

At this stage where the majority of the debt have been settled, 1MDB will still have:
1) 100% of TRX that will continue to be developed and bring economic gains and spin-offs to Malaysia
2) 40% of 1MDB with another effective interest of about 18% by Johor State Govt - that will continue to be developed and bring economic gains and spin-offs to Malaysia
3) delivered 8 military facilities to MINDEF
4) Pulau Indah and Penang land yet to be sold off/developed

All the above for initial RM1 million capital injection and two land deals.

It was never 1MDB's initial intent to have gone on to this rationalization plan but the continued political attacks on 1MDB, which prevented 1MDB from receiving a much-needed capital injection and unable to tap capital markets further, have forced the govt hands to do this.

For me and the Malaysians who wishes to see our economy not be affected by this in any way, we rather the debt be settled.

But in the end, what is important is the debt is resolved but many people will still be unhappy with 1MDB - which begs the question of what do they want?

That 1MDB's RM42 debt be resolved or for 1MDB's RM42b debt not to be resolved?

You can never please them.

In fact, many people would not like the RM42b debt to be settled and for it to remain. They will reject all sorts of moves to settle the debt and will give whatever reasons why this debt should remain unsettled - mainly because they do not want to be proven wrong or continue to use this RM42b debt as an excuse to slam the government.

1MDB: LSS asks and WSJ's Tom Wright answers

Today, Tom Wright from the Wall Street Journal hosted an online Questions and Answers session on FaceBook at 5pm Malaysian time.

Tom Wright is the chief author of the frequent 1MDB articles featured in the Wall Street Journal including the RM2.6b "expose".

I posted 10 questions for him and he tried to answer as many as he could.

Could you shed some light into these questions that I long had:
On the PetroSaudi-1MDB JV
1) Why would the owner of PetroSaudi, Prince Turki the 7th son of their absolute monarch and Governor of Riyadh, their largest province and city, want to collaborate with a Chinese Malaysian to steal Malaysian money? Doesn't the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with sky-high oil prices then have enough money that it need to steal a mere USD1.83b? 

2) Is it possible that the PetroSaudi-1MDB JV is a Government-to-Government initiative with the backing of the King of Saudi and the PM of Malaysia? Both leaders had met quite frequently during the exact period where 1MDB-PetroSaudi JV was created. 

3) What is your evidence that Good Star is owned by Jho Low? 

4) Is it possible that Good Star was an investment vehicle still fully owned by PetroSaudi but they had engaged Jho Low or his team to manage any funds in there? As I remember from the Sarawak Report expose, there was an agreement for such fund management services. 

This is also possible as Jho Low had made his name prior to the Terengganu Investment Authority (TIA), the predecessor to 1MDB was even founded or Najib became Prime Minister 

He had used Arab money related to various middle-east royal families to buy over three publicly listed companies in 2007-2008 which is even before 1MDB existed. 

On Abu Dhabi's IPIC5)  Why is it that IPIC had never made any public statement confirming that they have lost billions as alleged by yourself? 

6) Since IPIC bonds are listed on the London Stock Exchange, losing up to USD2.4 billion as alleged by you, would be a cause for at least a query by the London Stock Exchange to IPIC but there was none. Why is that? 

7) If Billions are missing, would would IPIC continue to pay USD1 billion in cash to 1MDB in June and still take over their USD3.5 billion of bonds and even paid the bond interest for them in Oct and Nov recently? 

8) Why is it that after four or five years being existed by the biggest and 2nd biggest audit company in the world, KPMG and Deloitte, none of them could find any evidence of missing billions over so many years? 

9) What is the global implications if both KPMG and Deloitte was found to be negligent and could not detect your alleged fraud of this scale of billions of dollars missing? I remember Enron was not even this scale and it was just one of the big audit companies which closed down causing havoc to the worldwide finance industry during that time. 

10) Since you mentioned multiple times in your article today that there does not seem to be any Malaysian laws broken, what is your personal motivation to continue pursuing this 1MDB story in a passion that no one else has? Are you in communications with Clare Brown as it seems your articles are coordinated with Sarawak Report. For example, Sarawak Report came out with their own report on the USD850m that you allege to be missing within mere minutes of your WSJ article being published. 

Thanking you in advance for your answers.

Tom replied and the following are his answers.

Well, that's it. Tom sort-of answered 5 out of the 10 questions and skipped the rest. He then thanked me for the very thoughtful questions.

Personally I am not happy with his answers and had wanted more details and more convincing answers.

I thanked him for the answers and asked him to feel free to add to his questions when he has the time later.

To be fair, I can't be hogging all his time as he needs to answer the rest of the world on this 1MDB issue.

Let's see if he will come back and answer more. I will update this blog if he does.

I did notice that the likes of Muhyiddin Yassin, Tun Mahathir, Tony Pua, Rafizi Ramli and the rest who wanted to so desperately seek answers about 1MDB were not there to take this opportunity to ask though.

Perhaps they are on their holidays.

There was an interesting question from The Malay Mail Online.

So, let it be on record that so far no one has threatened to harm the WSJ's journalist.

林冠英不起诉Nasrudin Hassan意味着指控是真的？

A translation into Chinese by persons unknwon of my blog-post yesterday titled  "Dear CM, would you like to borrow my pen?"

2014年8月6日在雪兰莪民联危机时，雪兰莪伊党淡马鲁州议员Nasrudin Hassan指控槟州首席部长林冠英关于槟城隧道工程问题：

• 为何槟州海底隧道未曾公开招标？
• 为何槟州海底隧道没有咨询民意？
• 槟州海底隧道总费用为四十六点三亿令吉（全程6.5公里）是否被高估？
• 为何槟州政府预算出现赤字？

关于这些问题，林冠英显得非常生气，并在第二天召开双语新闻声明否认上述所有的指责。要求Nasrudin Hassan24小时内道歉。他也表示，槟州海底隧道只花了三十六亿令吉，而不是四十六点三亿令吉。

第二天，Nasrudin Hassan说，他拒绝道歉，并进一步澄清之前对林冠英的指控：

• 槟州海底隧道仍然被高估，林冠英说只是海底隧道的造价介于RM36亿（海底隧道总造价约RM63亿），那么就意味海底隧道平均每公里就需要RM5.53亿令吉的成本构建，再加上连接隧道的道路全程20.8公里也将花费RM27亿或每公里RM1.3亿 。 这是绝对是一个惊人的数字。
• 槟州海底隧道工程还没有进行公开招标，林冠英就和北京城建集团有限责任公司（北京城建集团）签署谅解备忘录 -。
• 槟州政府预算出现严重赤字，如果不是售卖土地，赤字从过去的几年中增长了303％。

这使得林冠英更生气，他在2014年8月9日的第二天，要求他的律师起诉Nasrudin Hassan。

林冠英说他别无选择，只能起诉Nasrudin Hassan。

这一次，林冠英没有说谎，他的律师确实起诉Nasrudin Hassan。因为关于RM6.3亿槟州海底隧道事件，Nasrudin Hassan对他的指控形成了诽谤。

但是....问题出现了！

大约过了一个月后2014年9月30日，高等法院退回这诽谤案件，并处罚金林冠英RM500原因是浪费法庭的时间！

根据伊党党报Harakah和 Free Malaysia Today说，林冠英和他的律师“忘记”签字，然后发出了自己的传票纸！

2014年10月2日，当今大马的马来文版也报道引述林冠英的律师的话，这是一起疏忽，他们忘了签名：

从另一方面来看，这特是一起非常尴尬的新闻事件，“首席部长林冠英和他的律师竟然忘记签上自己的名字”。当然，在他们的任何官方媒体或亲他们媒体如或当今大马或马来西亚局内人根本不会报导这起事件。

当今大马和马来西亚局内人就像之前“忘了报道”马来西亚有史以来最大规模的纪录诉讼案，其中主角就是公正党沙巴州副主席Christina Liew 被高级法院下令罚款RM5.57亿元，罪名是她勾结工作人员骗取819名穷苦的百姓的土地。

看回林冠英“忘了签名”的官司......

林冠英的律师当时说：“只要我们收到法院的文件，我们会重新发出的诽谤诉讼给Nasrudin Hassan”。

那是在2014年10月2日的时候。

今天已经到了2015年12月23日 - 过一年之后的今天，媒体也没有报导关于这场“忘了签名”的官司。

我认为，行动党和伊党互既然不和，为何不起诉伊党的议员诽谤？把伊党的议员控上法庭就能证明伊党的议员就是个骗子- 但奇怪的是林冠英并没有利用这次的机会。

尽管多次在新闻发布会上愤怒的表示说他会告，当过后又诺无其事的安静下来。

现在，使用如同反对派支持者和领导者的相同的逻辑，林冠英不起诉Nasrudin Hassan意味着指控是真的？

槟州海底隧道被高估！槟州海底隧道工程还没有进行公开招标！槟州政府预算出现严重赤字！

现在，很多人都认为不起诉华尔街日报的2015年7月指控的纳吉是有罪的。

然而，在上个月，纳吉的律师建议向在大马的华尔街日报提出控诉。

纳吉的律师建议他起诉大马的华尔街日报而不是美国

这也是如同新加坡政府在四大诽谤案件中起诉华尔街日报，新加坡政府赢了这四起诉讼。


与此同时，在过去的两年中，纳吉已经起诉一些对诽谤他的人：

• 纳吉起诉行动党的潘俭伟在对他在1MDB指控，潘俭伟想以技术理由strike-off（取消）诉讼。但目前此案仍在继续。
• 起诉当今大马的报导纳吉贿赂 - 其中当今大马已表示错误报导此事件，但纳吉想要一个完整的道歉。
• 起诉林良实的说纳吉盗取公款
• 起诉DAP的倪可敏诽谤罗斯玛拥有内阁的控制权。
• 起诉霹雳州前州务大臣尼查诽谤罪。在过后尼查向纳吉道歉的情况下事情得到解决。

纳吉布还起诉公正党的秘书长Rafizi诽谤，他演讲时说纳吉盗取公款购买钻戒的罗斯玛。

被起诉后，Rafizi在法院诉讼时给予了一个令人难以置信的理由：“我只是在开玩笑。”


因此，纳吉确实有继续起诉一些对他造成无实诽谤的人士。

他的律师起诉大马的华尔街日报，我相信这也是迟早的事而已。

该案件很可能在大马提交 - 就像之前新加坡政府如何向新加坡的华尔街日报提出诉讼并赢得官司。当然，新加坡政府也耗了数月或整年的准备才正式提出诉讼，华尔街日报是一家来自美国的外国新闻机构，要起诉的确必须下一番功夫。

至少纳吉和他的律师在这些事件中没有给出一些不可思议的理由如“忘了签名”。

我感到奇怪的是，人们关心纳吉RM26亿的诉讼案，但似乎并不担心，一个RM63亿定价过高而又不公开招标海底隧道工程，更糟糕的是海底隧道工程被人指控后，过了一年半某人仍然不敢依法起诉对方而且之前还给了一个的“忘了签名”不可思议的借口。

马来西亚人很奇怪，但我相信，马来西亚人不会愚蠢到相信“忘了签署自己的法院传票纸”的借口。

或者，一些亲反对派的媒体并没有报导了这个问题，所以“忘了签名”的官司仍然不为人所提起，以便继续误导一些单纯的百姓和支持者。

Dear CM, would you like to borrow my pen?

Would you believe it if a Chief Minister very angrily says he wants to sue you because you slandered him but then he and/or his lawyers forget to sign on their own court papers? This is a true story. Read on.

In the middle of the Selangor MB crisis, on 6th August 2014 the PAS Member of Parliament for Temerloh, Nasrudin Hassan made these allegations against Penang Chief Minister YAB Lim Guan Eng regarding the Penang Tunnel Project:

• The Penang Tunnel was awarded without open tender
• The Penang Tunnel did not have sufficient public consultations
• The Penang Tunnel at RM4,63 billion (for 6.5km) is overpriced.
• The Penang State Govt keeps running budget deficits.

Lim Guan Eng got very angry and issued a bi-lingual press statement on the very next day denying all the above and gave Nasrudin Hassan 24 hours to apologize. He also stated in his denial that the tunnel only cost RM3.6 billion and not RM4.63 billion.

You can see Lim Guan Eng's press conference with the 24 hour ultimatum to Nasrudin here:

The next day, YB Nasrudin said he refuses to apologize and made further clarification on his allegations including:

• The tunnel is still overpriced and worse, the figure of RM3.6 billion (for the tunnel portion out of the total RM6.3 billion project cost) given by Lim Guan Eng would have still mean a total cost of RM553 million per km to build while the 20.8km of above ground roads connected to the tunnel would cost RM2.7 billion or RM130 million per km - a staggeringly high figure.
• That the award of the Penang Tunnel project is still not an open tender as Lim Guan Eng had signed a MOU on the Tunnel with Beijing Urban Construction Group Co. Ltd (BUCG) - one of the consortium member of the winning party on 28 April 2011 - a full 6 months before the project pre-qualification on 14 Nov 2011 - and a full two years before the project was awarded in 2013.
• The Penang State Govt would have been in budget deficits if not for the revenue from the yearly sales of state land that has increased by 303% from the past few years.

For avoidance of doubt, the Penang state govt is paying RM6.3 billion worth of land to the private company to build the Penang Tunnel and accompanying roads. On top of paying RM6.3 billion, the Penang state govt will also give a 30 years toll concession (despite this being against Pakatan manifesto) to the private company to collect tolls.

When asked the reason why the 30 years toll concession was given on top of paying the full cost of the tunnel, Lim Guan Eng had given the official excuse that he doesn't want Penang bridge operators to use him, - which of course makes no sense at all.

This made Lim Guan Eng even more angry and he announced the next day on 9th Aug 2014 that he has already got his lawyers to sue Nasrudin Hassan.

Listen to LGE as he holds yet another press conference - this time saying he has no choice but to sue Nasrudin.

This time, Lim Guan Eng did not lie and his lawyers did indeed continue to sue Nasrudin Hassan over this RM6.3 billion overpriced no open tender allegation and a defamation suit was issued to Nasrudin Hassan.

However.... horrors of horrors !!!

A little over a month later on Sept 30th 2014, we learned that the high court has thrown out this defamation case against Nasrudin by Lim Guan Eng and fined Lim Guan Eng RM500 for wasting the court's time!!

This was reported by PAS newspaper Harakah and Free Malaysia Today saying that the reason was that Lim Guan Eng and his lawyers "forgot" to sign on their own summons paper which they issued against Nasrudin!

On 2nd Oct 2014, the Malay edition of MalaysiaKini also reported this and quoted Lim Guan Eng's lawyer as saying it was a genuine mistake that they forgot to sign:

As a side-note, it is important to point out that this particularly fishy and highly embarassing piece of news of "the Chief Minister LGE and his lawyers forgetting to sign on their own summons" which they themselves issued was never reported by the English version of MalaysiaKini or Malaysian Insider nor in any official Lim Guan Eng or DAP statements or media.

Exactly like how MalaysiaKini and Malaysian Insider "forgot to report" on the biggest ever record lawsuit award in Malaysia where the PKR ADUN for Api-Api and PKR Sabah Deputy Chairperson Christina Liew was ordered by the High Court to pay RM557 million for colluding with her staff to cheat 819 poor landowners out of their land.

Okay.. back to the LGE "forgot to sign" lawsuit...

LGE's lawyer at that time said that "as soon as we receive back the documents from the court, we will re-issue the defamation suit to Nasrudin Hassan again".

That was on 2nd Oct 2014.

Today is 23rd Dec 2015 - and more than a year later, there are no media reports about this defamation law-suit ever being re-issued and there is no trace of this lawsuit in the courts systems.

And I thought that DAP and PAS hated each other now. Suing the PAS MP for defamation and humiliating him would help LGE and DAP prove what "liars" PAS leaders are - but strangely LGE didn't take this opportunity.

Despite multiple press conferences and press statements and angry threats initially saying he will sue, when it comes down to actually suing LGE went all quiet.

Why is this? Nothing for over one and half years?

This leads me to ask Lim Guan Eng and his lawyers this following question:

Now, using the same logic of opposition supporters and leaders, does Lim Guan Eng not suing mean that what Nasrudin accused LGE of is true?

That the allegations by PAS Nasrudin Hassan are true? 

"RM6.3 billion Penang Tunnel project is way overpriced, that the project was awarded without open tender and that Penang State Government would be running annual deficits without selling state land?"

---
Now, many people have alleged PM Najib Razak of not suing over WSJ's July 2015 allegation that Najib supposedly stole RM2.6 billion from 1MDB is proof that Najib is guilty.

The latest update however is that last month, Najib's lawyers are advising PM to saman WSJ in Malaysia.

Najib's lawyers to advise him to sue WSJ in Malaysia, not US

There is nothing wrong with this as each and every one of Singapore govt's four defamation cases against Wall Street Journal which they won were also all filed in Singapore: THIS IS HOW SINGAPORE DOES IT.  https://www.facebook.com/lim.siansee/posts/1691245134427607:1

It also took months form the date of the original article before Singapore officially filed their charge.

But in the meantime, over the past two years, Najib has sued the following persons for defamation:

• Najib sued DAP's Tony Pua over Tony Pua's 1MDB allegations. Instead of wanting to grill Najib in court over 1MDB to "find out the truth about 1MDB", Tony Pua wants to strike0off (cancel) the lawsuit on technical grounds. The case is still going on.
• Sued MalaysiaKini for alleging that Najib bribed ADUNs in Terengganu - to which MalaysiaKini has offered to say it regretted its actions but Najib wants a full apology. 
• Sued Ling Liong Sik for saying Najib took public money
• Sued DAP's Nga Kor Ming for slandering that Rosmah is in control of cabinet. 
• The Govt charged former Perak Menteri Besar Nizar Jamaluddin from PAS (now Amanah) for criminal defamation. Nizar has now given a full apology to Najib and the case is settled.

Najib also sued PKR's Secretary General Rafizi Ramli for defamation for publicly saying in ceramahs that Najib steals money from public to buy diamond rings for Rosmah.

After being sued, Rafizi's official excuse in the court proceedings was an incredible "I was just joking".

Thus, Najib does indeed have a very good track record in following-up with his threats to sue others for defamation.

I believe it is also a matter of time before their lawyers file suit against Wall Street Journal's article which suggested that RM2.6 billion of money from 1MDB went into Najib's personal account (the MACC has already said the money was not from 1MDB).

The case would probably be filed in Malaysia - just like how Singapore's leaders filed and won defamation suits against WSJ in their own country and remember that Singapore leaders also took months or up to a year before officially filing suit agaisnt WSJ too as suing a foreign news agency from the USA is easier said than done.

But at least Najib and his lawyers did not give lame excuse as "forgetting to sign" on their own law-suits.

I do find it amazing thought that people are more concerned about a lawsuit by Najib over RM2.6 billion but do not seem concerned that a RM6.3 billion overpriced project no open tender award allegation law-suit did not proceed for over 1 1/2 years based on a "forgot to sign own saman" excuse.

Malaysians are strange but I am confident that not many of my fellow Malaysians are so foolish to believe a "forgot to sign on own court summons paper" excuse.

Or it could be the opposition-friendly media did not play up this issue and kept it well-hidden in order to continue misleading and using the opposition supporters.

Chedet comments on "UCAPAN PRESIDEN UMNO"

After 5 days of silence, Chedet has finally posted his criticism of the UMNO General Assembly speech by Najib.

By and large there was really nothing new in this posting save from recycling the same allegations of RM2.6b and "billions" missing from 1MDB. It is incredible that Tun M went from RM42 billion lesap to RM27 billion to a rather ambiguous billions missing.

Compared to his past posts this particular post was a rather disappointing affair - to the extent of dissecting the English translation of the Malay word "Tolong" and what he believes it means.

Tun M also complained why DPM Zahid is apparently asking Police to question him alone and not questioning the other BERSIH supporters and football fans who also wants Najib to resign as PM.

This is where it gets confusing.

Tun M clearly knows as he has been told numerous times that he is being questioned by police for what he said in his public statement at BERSIH where he alleged that all UMNO division leaders took bribes..

He is not being questioned by PDRM because he wants Najib to resign.

Why doesn't Tun M understand this simple answer?

In fact, when questioned by police on his allegations that UMNO division leaders too bribe, Tun M refused to answer the police's questions !!!

And later when asked why he doesn't make make a police report when he says billions are missing from 1MDB and went to Najib, Tun M said he had no proof!!

What an amazing person this Tun Mahathir is! Keep saying he is being silenced but when given the chance to prove his allegations and speak out to the correct authorities, he keep quiet pulak!

However, in this blog post, he also confirmed that UMNO presidents have received donations in the past but he claims that these donations have been put into the Tabung UMNO.

But it would be interesting to see if the RealMild (which owned MRCB, NST and TV3) shares worth billions held via proxy in his own personal name and the shares of UEM-Renong then were indeed put into the Tabung UMNO and whether Tun M had disclosed these assets in UMNO's books or announced to his UMNO supreme council then how much these billions of shares were actually worth.

I am sure there are provisions withing ROS and UMNO constitution that allowed such actions under the law or Mahathir could already have gone to jail then.

In any case, 1MDB's rationalization exercise have proceeded with pace and even Bloomberg and the financial markets deem the "1MDB mess have been fixed". 

Malaysia's Credit default risk swaps and bond rates have also normalized as the Financial Markets finally comes to their senses that 1MDB is just a political distraction and are convinced that it is being solved.

In addition, the bi-partisan Parliament PAC inquiry into 1MDB have resumed with speed. Arul Kanda, Sharol Halmi, Jho Low, Suboh, Nik Faizal, a dozen other persons - and even Najib has been questioned by the authorities. 

BNM have investigated and found no evidence of money laundering except that BNM did not receive the full information in the forms filled in by 1MDB during certain transfers 6 years ago. 

The Auditor-General have pretty much finished their special audit on 1MDB and should be giving the final report to the PAC soon.

MACC have also investigated and have committed to deliver their report in about two weeks time before the end of the year.

Therefore, if there were any laws that were broken and billions missing from 1MDB, I am sure these will be disclosed soon.

The UMNO Supreme Council and the recent UMNO Assembly have also shown great support for Najib while a recent "vote of no confidence" by proxy via voting down the 2016 budget in Malaysia's parliament have fallen flat in the face for Pakatan where only 20 MPs out of 87 bothered to attend the final vote - causing great embarrassment for Pakatan.

Even Pakatan gave up fighting to remove Najib via a parliament vote

But to Tun Mahathir's credit, he still soldiers on.

All because he wants a compliant PM who will listen to a Council of Elders - perhaps chaired by him.

Of all the countries in the world, only Iran has a Council of Elders to advise their president - and I am not sure I want Malaysia to be governed like Iran since Iran's system also have a Grand Ayatollah.

Which comes to my next question: 

Who would be the best candidate to be the Ayatollah for Malaysia should we ever follow Iran's system?

One Legacy Problem Solved: The impact on PLUS Highway tolls after the 2011 Govt and EPF take-over

Plus Highway Berhad is the largest highway operator in Malaysia and ASEAN - owning the North-South Highway. Expressway Lingkaran Tengah Sdn Bhd (ELITE), Linkedua Second Causeway highway, Lebuh Raya Butterworth-Kulim (BKE), the Federal Highway extension and the Penang Bridge

PLUS started with the privatization of the North-South Highway where in 1986, despite the government paying for and building half of the North-South Highway it was mysteriously privatized to known Mahathir-crony, Halim Saad for 30 years from 1988 to 2018 and the new company company was allowed to collect tolls for the entire stretch - with the excuse that MHA was not building it fast enough.

One of the public complaints for this toll-concession and others was the lop-sided toll concession agreements that allowed toll rates to increase like clockwork every few years.

Under the agreement, toll rates for the North-South Highway was allowed to increase 10% every three years.

In 1999, amidst mounting public complaints, Tun Mahathir himself extended the toll by 12 years to 2030 to avoid toll increases as per the agreement (which Tun M himself signed in 1998).

In 2005, it was Pak Lah who signed to extend the toll by another 8 years to end 2038 to avoid toll increases as per the agreement (which Tun M himself signed in 1998).

In fact, it was reported in 2005 that if govt was to freeze all toll increases for the North South Highway, the government would have to pay RM38 billion as compensation to the private owners based on the original agreement signed by Tun Mahathir! 

Thus the extension was agreed by Pak Lah.

Like the KLIA express rail link which had a big increase in rates recently or govt has to pay RM2.9b or extend the concession by 30 years to the private company YTL, this PLUS Highway concession agreement is yet another legacy issue that Najib had to deal with

In 2008, it was scheduled to increase again but new Prime Minister Najib did not allow this increase and devised a plan to buy back PLUS Highways Bhd.

(although UEM was taken over by the government as part of the bail out in 1998, PLUS was privatized and listed on the stock market in 2002 to help reduce UEM/Renong's mounting debt then).

This deal was completed in 2011, and the Ministry of Finance (via 100% owned UEM) now owns 51% and EPF owns 49% of PLUS Highways Bhd.

Nov 16 2011 — UEM Group Berhad and the Employees Provident Fund (EPF), the new owners of the assets of PLUS Expressways, have waived their right to some RM6.5 billion in compensation in exchange for extensions to the concession periods for the Penang bridge and two other highways. UEM and EPF also said that toll increases for the North-South Expressway (NSE), the crown jewel of PLUS, will be lowered from 10 per cent every three years to five per cent at the same intervals, while the Penang Bridge will see no increase. The government owed PLUS billions in compensation due to the decision to freeze unpopular toll hikes that were stipulated in the original concession agreement, until 2015. 

As part of this deal, EPF financed the RM23 billion purchase by subscribing to bonds issued by PLUS and govt is now fully in control of it - making negotiations much easier since government will essentially be negotiating with government.

Thus, RM6.5b owed by Government as compensation since 2005 has now been waived and the govt went ahead and renegotiated the concession agreement.

As a side-note, contrary to public perception and in order to increase transparency and fairness, when Najib became Finance Minister in Sept 2008, one the first thing he did was to declassify all toll agreements.

These are the changes to the toll rates increase after PLUS Bhd was taken over in 2011 and the rates renegotiated:

A) North South Highway toll rates increase revised down from 10% every three years to 5% every three years with no further extension. 

Given the length of the toll concession and its compounding effect, this revision is very significant, as you can see from the simulation below:

With the revision, the toll you pay for travelling from Jalan Duta to Ipoh South 23 years later in the year 2038 would be RM39,15 instead of RM83.17 as per Tun M's agreement - up from RM26.50 now.

In fact, an increase of 5% every 3 years is just 1.7% per year increase - much lower than inflation.

Future generations of Malaysians should be giving thanks to Najib.

As part of the above negotiation package, other toll roads that PLUS Bhd owns were also revised:

B) Singapore Linkedua Second causeway toll rates increases revised down from 25% every 5 years to 5% every 3 years with no extension to the concession period.

C) Elite Highway toll rates increase revised down from 10% every 3 years to 5% every 3 years but the toll concession period was extended by 8 years from 2030 to 2038.

D) The Butterworth-Kulim Expressway (BKE) Toll rates increase was reduced down from 25% every 5 years to 5% every 3 years but concession period was extended 12 years from 2026 to 2038.

E) Penang Bridge toll increases revised down from 10% every 5 years to no increase forever but the concession period was increased from the year 2021 to 2038.

And in 2013, PLUS also discounted the toll by 20% - from RM7.00 to RM5,60 if you use a Touch and Go card for those who work or stay in Penang.

All in all, the government has negotiated well on this to provide overall big savings to the public while still being fair to EPF and the government.

EPF gets a great investment with a minimum internal rate of return (IRR) on the investment in PLUS to be at least 10% in accordance with EPF's general guidelines - meaning continued good dividends for the EPF account-holders.

Although Govt now controls PLUS, it cannot abolish all tolls on this as the company still needs to pay off the RM23 billion debt which was mostly subscribed by EPF and used to buy the highway company. To abolish this now would mean not being fair to EPF holders.

And even with this much revised down toll-rates increases allowed, PLUS Bhd can still continue to maintain the highways as well as fund current and future highway expansions including the additional lanes for the Penang Bridge as well as along the North-South Highway.

In fact, tolls on the North-South Highway have not increased since the year 2005 - 11 years ago now.

At least in the case of the North South Highway, which is an inter-city (toll ANTARA bandar) highway, there may not be an increase.

"Works Minister Fadillah added that the Works Ministry intends to honour the promise made by the ruling government in 2013 that they will gradually reduce rates on intercity expressways by 2018."

Again, this is one of the legacy problems left behind that Najib had to solve where lop-sided toll concession agreements owned by private companies had caused hardship for the public or the government.

In the case of toll highways, Najib had started with the largest toll operator PLUS but it remains to be seen if government will also continue to restructure other toll highways in Malaysia still owned by private companies.

At the very least, the 2,200km Pan-Borneo Highway being built by Najib Govt will be completely toll-free and financed using alternative models - with no privately-owned company operating this ala Tun Mahathir.

Even Tun Mahathir himself admitted that he made a mistake with these toll-highway concessions when he said in 2007 :

"This is one of thing that we need to correct. What you have is a cabinet which is not very knowledgeable all the time because it is not made up of experts but politicians (and) some politicians like myself can sometimes be stupid," he said when told by reporters that all the five tolled expressways were constructed during his 22-year tenure as prime minister. 

"The cabinet merely gave approvals in principle and never really studied the implications in some parts of the agreements."

Well, someone has to clean up the many mess Tun Mahathir left behind - and much work has already been done by the Najib government on these including car prices, unfair IPPs, Approved Permits (APs) etc.

I will write more about these in future.

Note: the above toll calculations are based on Publicly available  information. It is best-effort basis and I make no warranties that the calculations above are 100% correct. I may be making changes on these should further information be made available or others point out errors in it.

Note 2: Contrary to public perception, when Najib became Finance Minister in 2008, the government had declassified all toll agreements.

Sarawak Report has fighting spirit!

Perhaps disappointed that the UMNO Assembly did not proceed as per their plans and that PM Najib came out the clear winner, it looks like Clare Brown has gotten really desperate and published this "major exclusive  (her words)" Jho Low Is Confirmed As The Sole Shareholder Of Good Star.

To recap, Good Star inc is the company that Sarawak Report has alleged to belong to Jho Low and th company where USD700 million was deposited into it by 1MDB as part of their Joint-venture agreement with Saudi Arabia's PetroSaudi.

I admire her unwillingness to give up and her fighting spirit but don't you think the timing is suspicious? This story really sounds like an after-thought and really cannot accomplish much.

She should have published this before the UMNO assembly started rather than on a Sunday after the event. What else would make the UMNO delegates more angry than Najib allowing a fat Chinese boy colluding with a bunch of dodgy Pak Arabs to steal billions of Malaysia's money?

Anyway, back to her story. She says that she now have proof that Good Star is owned by Jho Low but she does not explain the following:

• Why would Prince Turki, the governor of Saudi Arabia's largest province and capital city Riyadh and 7th son of Saudi Arabia's absolute monarch King Abdullah wants to pakat with a fat Malaysian Chinese boy to steal Malaysia's money?
• How come PetroSaudi never complain that they were not paid as per the Joint-venture agreement and that money belonging to them was diverted to Jho Low but continued on with the joint-venture for 3 years?
• How come PetroSaudi itself has confirmed multiple times that Good Star Inc has always belonged to them?
• Why is it that 1MDB received back all the USD1.83 billion that it put into the JV and even made USD488m of profits with the remainder balance all guaranteed by the Abu Dhabi Govt?
• Why over the course of 5 years two of the largest international auditor firms (KMPG and Deloitte) and our own Auditor General could not detect any trace of missing billions?

So what proof did Sarawak Report say they have that Good Star belongs to Jho Low? 

In their words, their proof is "documentation submitted to various international regulators.."!!

That's her proof! No documentation, no certificates, no testimony - nothing. We are expected to trust her words.

Clare doesn't mention who are these international regulators and neither does she say why these international agencies would even bother giving her all these details of their confidential investigations.

In fact, this picture of her "proof "(or perhaps secara hiasan) she posted in her Sarawak Report article is really just a company incorporation document with the name of the company blacked out!

Not only that but in her article, she accused one of the world's leading and oldest law-firm, the New York-based White & Case (founded 1901) of deliberately making a mistake to say that Good Star is owned by PetroSaudi and perhaps also collaborating with Jho Low to cheat 1MDB.

For good measure, she also accused RBS Coutts, one of the oldest banks in the world (founded in the year 1692) and at that time owned by  The Royal Bank of Scotland of conspiring with Jho Low to steal 1MDB's money.

This is what Clare Brown wrote:

"Yet again, private banks appear to have worked hand in glove with off-shore havens and the UK based incoporation agency (Offshore Incorporations Limited) to assist the transfers of enormous sums of money of dubious origin."

And finally, this is where it gets really scary....

Clare Brown apparently got very angry at prominent British businessman Rick Haythornthwaite. which she claimed is PetroSaudi's president.

She apparently wrote an email to Mr Haythornthwaite and got a rude reply, 

This was the email that Clare Brown published in Sarawak Report.

From: Rick Haythornthwaite <rh@rhaythornthwaite.com>Date: Thu, Dec 10, 2015 at 10:43 AM
Subject: Re: Letter sent by PetroSaudi claiming ownership of Good Star Limited, Seychelles
To: Sarawak Report <info@sarawakreport.org> 

Dear Mrs Rewcastle 

Having now done some research into your background, it is clear that you are an active campaigning blogger rather than an objective journalist with a desire to understand the true facts behind this matter. 

That your email to me contains fundamental factual errors – not least suggesting that I am, or have ever been, chairman of PetroSaudi International – reinforces my concerns about your credibility. 

Therefore, even if I were to be in possession of information relevant to your query, I would be unwilling to assist you in your questionable activities. 

Yours

Essentially in that email, Mr Haythornthwaite is calling Clare Rewcastle Brown:

• not a journalist who wants to understand the true facts
• has many fundamental factual errors in her accusation
• has questionable credibility and engages in questionable activities

Clare Brown (right) being called no credibility, flawed facts and have no desire for the truth by MaserCard Chairman

This means Clare Brown was called a lying person with a hidden agenda with no objective to find out about the true facts.

This made Clare Brown really really angry and she wrote that she is revealing Mr Haythornthwaite' email address and is asking her Sarawak Report readers to spam him:

"And we offer readers of Sarawak Report Mr Haythornthwaite’s email address, so that they can let him know that this blog is not alone in its concerns over what happened at this company under his watch and that it is to add insult to injury to trivialise and ignore the theft of billions from Malaysia’s development fund."

This is one very vindictive and vicious lady indeed!!!

Now, "Rick" or full name, Richard Haythornthwaite is no ordinary businessman. You can read his biography in Bloomberg here.

On top of being a director in many very large companies, Mr. Haythornthwaite is the current Chairman  (since 2006) of MasterCard International (yes, Visa card's competitor) and the current Chairman of UK's largest gas supply and electricity company Centrica PLC with about £30. billion (or RM200 billion) per year revenue.

Being called a "lying woman with a hidden agenda with no objective to find out about the true facts." by a person as credible as Rick Haythornthwaite must have really hurt,

Add this hurt to the recently-concluded UMNO General Assembly where Najib came out the true winner and stronger must have forced Clare Brown to grasp at straws and post this completely ridiculous allegation today on Sarawak Report.

Give it up, Clare Brown and Sarawak Report! 1

1MDB is already fully investigated and everyone connected have already given their testimony. It is already well on its rationalization plan with more than RM30 billion of its debt resolved.

Even Bloomberg said last week that "1MDB mess is fixed"

Stop your nonsense Miss Brown the game is over. It is check-mate already.

You are starting to sound even more ridiculous - bordering on the insanely vindictive.

民聯從強大盟友変成仇敌:四个原因造成伊斯兰党和行动党分裂

English version here: "From strong allies to bitter enemies: the Four Strikes that caused PAS and DAP to split apart"

A Malay version was also translated by unknown persons: "Dari sekutu kuat menjadi seteru ketat ... Empat peristiwa besar yang menyebabkan PAS dan DAP bersengketa."

民聯從強大盟友変成仇敌:四个原因造成伊斯兰党和行动党分裂
一年半前，伊斯兰党还是民聯的強大盟党。伊斯兰党沒有辜负公正党和行动党的巴結，经常動員他的百萬支持者軍团，支持民聯主办的活动和会。

在经济發展政策方面，伊斯兰党或許不是天才，但作為一个宗教政党，他們都一直坚持立場。因此，民聯伙伴関系如此快速分裂，為何伊斯兰党一直都是被怪责的一方，卻不是行动党?

期間發生的大事:

1)“加影补选”行动不是民聯一致的决定。

伊斯兰党並不赞成亦事先沒被咨詢。公正党和行动党领袖多次宣稱，民聯是遵循彼此协商的一致决定，重大决定必须要获得三方政党同意后才能執行。这不是根据多数，或只要其中两党同意便能作出的决定，这必须是三党一致同意。

伊斯兰党強烈反对加影补选行动，但是，沒有伊斯兰党的同意，还是照样行动了，到底是誰撕毀民聯协议。

尽管这件事看起来是公正党单方面行動，事实上，这是公正党策略主任拉菲达兰里的謀策。即便行动党中央秘书長林冠英不知情，直至加影州议員辞职，让安华竞选后才知道。加影行动由始迄終，都不是民聯的一致决定。


行动党中央秘书長林冠英表示对雪州加影州议員李景杰辞掉州議員一事不知情。根据2014年1月28日，林冠英談話：“对于公正党实权领袖拿督斯里安华依布拉欣將上陣加影补选，他不知情。”“我沒有被告知雪兰莪州务大臣要辞职。”“这最好要安华回答。我不适宜談论給意见。我个人看法对于此事並不重要。”

作為机會主义的行动党，稍后亦跟隨了拉菲达計划。但是，伊斯兰党坚持不追隨，尽管民聯协议已经被毀。

这便是民聯瓦解前的第一道重击因素。


2)前雪州务大臣丹斯里卡立依布拉欣被詆毀。

一直以来与丹斯里卡立保持良好合作関系的伊斯兰党相信，卡立依布拉欣是受害者，对他个人被詆毀認為不公平，有违伊斯兰教义。

进行倒卡立的運动，公正党和行動党拿出長达91页指控罪狀，指他涉及各种贪污和做錯事。这些指控，一再通过公正党和行动党领袖在各州进行政治讲座會。

當然，卡立沒有坐而待毙，他在2014年8月控告公正党誹謗。同时，卡立甚至指示他的助理，公正党指控他种种涉贪罪狀，提呈大馬反贪污委員會。

这是大馬史上，第一位政治人物，將他人指他涉贪的指控，自已要求提交給反贪污委員會。

伊斯兰党对卡立判断一年后証实无误。在卡立被罢免州务大臣职务后，他对公正党对他作出的詆毀向法庭提出控訴，終于有了答案。公正党前秘书長在法庭作出道歉。而道歉是建立在无条件上，並承認所有就卡立作出的声明都是捏造和存有詆毀。

“指卡立是一个腐败，不可靠，不透明，不道德，不值得信赖，涉及腐败和不當行為，不廉洁，沒有资格成為雪州务大臣言论的文件，我身為公正党代表，以及对我个人而言，我們深感遺憾，且真誠和善意，及无条件向丹斯里卡立道歉。作為公正党代表和个人立場，我們向法院承諾，不會重复所述文件內容和語句，或是再說出类似文件內容。”

这竟然是如此惊人和无恥的厚颜詆毀。拉菲茲兰里和公正党已经向卡立道歉，要求卡立撤銷誹謗提控。卡立並沒有撤銷誹謗控訴，仅接受公正党在法院作出无条件的道歉。公正党所謂对卡立的道歉，足以让人發笑.



公正党和拉菲茲如何能錯把穆斯林開斋节倡导“寬恕原諒”，卻与他們作出的“无条件 道歉”混為一談，这是真正的厚顏。他們竟然將之稱為“雙方向对方道歉”。



如果你想要看到这篇法院判決道歉全文，可以向卡立律师，BON律师馆查詢

。无论如何，伊斯兰党总算穩住其正义立場不被纵容。

这便是重击民聯，趋向分裂第二重击縁由。


3)伊斯兰党認為行动党“偷”了該党两名州议員。

两名伊斯兰党沒遵守党的决定，卻靠拢公正党和行動党，违党意签署了法定宣誓文件，支持旺哈茲莎擔任州务大臣。

伊斯兰党主席哈迪阿旺很愤怒他的伙伴在背后做出如此的事。你可以从他以下的談話看出他的怒火:“我猜这个世界沒有任何政党可以忍受中选的人民代议士可以被“偷”。如果你尊重你的伙伴，你不會接受該两名不遵守党的决定立場的党員，让他們签署該份法定宣誓文件。这根本就是背后插刀。”

这是民聯分裂第三项重击致因。

4)伊斯兰党相信公正党和行动党撕毀盟約，

不尊重之間的协议允許伊斯兰党可以成立伊斯兰政府和实行伊斯兰刑事法。

很明显亦是事实，伊斯兰党的创党理念便是在大馬建立伊斯兰神权國家。

所以，决对不可能要伊斯兰党放棄实行伊斯兰刑事法案治國。

这就是為什么伊刑法一直都是民聯関系的一根剌，亦是致使2008年民聯议席争执不下原因。

因此，在2011年9月的民聯进行的一次秘密會议，有関該会议的记录稿件，在馬来西亚編史和其它博客还沒有来得及拿下全文之前便很快被刪除了。

经过了馬拉松似的長时間開會议商议，當时行动党主席卡巴星甚至向对外喊話，指己方队友急着揽住會動摇民聯合作関系的問题。不过，多数人最終达成他們認為期望的結果。
首先，伊斯兰党精神领袖聶阿茲点头答应，伊党継续在吉兰丹州落实伊斯兰刑事法案，原因是这早在1993年，在民聯成立之前，伊斯兰党已经在該州议會提呈了伊刑法私人法案。
这是行动党最大让步和認同聶阿茲作為反对党对國的的贡献，同样也認同登嘉楼在2003年，伊党主席哈迪阿旺提呈該州议會落实伊刑私人法案，惟后者也同样未能成功。

作為回報，行动党認同民聯的共同政策框架政策，或稱作聯合宣言，以及他們推出的橙皮书或是稱為社會经济蓝皮书续保留，但是，並沒有加入落实伊刑法的部份內容。

首肯吉兰丹継续落实伊刑法，從来沒公众場合談论，他們継续如鹦鵡学咀般提及：“伊刑法不是民聯共同政策框架”。

第十三届全國大选过后，伊斯兰党在吉兰丹州再提呈落实伊刑法案受到行动党极力反对，且開始排斥伊斯兰党。

之后，雙方開始战火。

在2014年4月伊斯兰党中央妇女领稱:“行动党認同伊斯兰党实行伊刑法案治國的理念。”

針对如此說法次日，同年4月，公正党副主席蔡添強向媒体指出，行动党和公正党已经赞成吉兰丹落实伊刑法。但是，这也引起行动党林冠英指责蔡添強不负责任，是沒有道德的騙子。

数日后，伊斯兰党主席哈迪阿旺也指出，行动党已赞成伊党落实伊刑法案。

但是，林冠英卻要哈迪拿出証据。

之后，一份在第十三届全國选举前，哈迪和林冠英共同签署的文件露出了枱面。



这份文件清楚阐明，伊斯兰党有权争取和落实國家实行伊刑法，现在除非是林冠英罔视國家伊斯兰教义有涵盖伊刑法法规，否则，这很明显签署的文件說得很白，行动党是允許伊斯兰党去落实伊刑法。文件亦在哈迪阿旺的官方面子书上可以看到。

如果你还是不相信这文件真假，或認為哈迪阿旺撒謊，你可從第十三届全國大选前，伊党大會清楚读出此封聯合签署文件內容的录影片段。

有鉴于此，可以了解，伊党為何如此恼火行动党就已签署的协议自行毀約。

除此之外，伊斯兰党非常生气行动党领袖不断用粗魯无理的言论攻击伊党主席哈迪阿旺，还為哈迪起各种难听的綽号。

行动党撕毀书面协议和共识，公開出恶言相向，不断攻击伊斯兰党，是民聯死亡瓦解，压死駱駝的最后一根稻草。

这也是造成民聯死亡的第四项重击縁由。

從以上伊斯兰党和行动党之間的関系，已不能逆转挽回。誰在撤謊，誰在說真話，哪一方坚持原则和哪一方不能信，非常清楚不过。

Only morons would say that Malaysia is a failed state or pengemis country

Jebat Must Die (JMD), a known Tun Mahathir blogger has just posted an article titled "Failed State, Pengemis dan Najib Razak". This is my reply to him.

Note: JMD says that article was not written by him but by a fan of him.  To me, it makes no difference. For him to post it in his blog means he agrees and takes responsibility for the contents. Once you post it as your blog entry, you cannot hide behind the cowardly excuse "But it wasn't me?" You post it, you take responsibility.

The desperation of Tun Mahathir's camp is reaching sky-high and have yet again resorted to lies and half-truths - this time way worse than before - thinking rakyat is stupid to believe them.

JMD listed a bunch of reasons to vainly and very weakly justify Tun Mahathir and Muhyiddin's insane claim that Malaysia is a failed state and negara Pengemis.

Firstly, it is important to note that Lim Kit Siang has said the very same thing for 40 years already - but yet, we have not become failed, bankrupt or beggars.

In fact, Lim Kit Siang is very fond of saying it and in his blog there are literally thousands of references to "bankrupt" and "failed state" over a time period of decades.

Not only has Malaysia not become a failed state but it is important to note that after 40 years of saying the same thing,, Uncle Lim himself is now a millionaire. his son is also a millionaire and his co-founder of DAP, the founding Chairman and current life-time adviser of DAP Chen Man Hin and his family have netted hundreds of millions of Ringgit in 2013 after selling their company Pontian Plantations to Felda for RM1.3 billion.

RM1.3 billion! Not bad for an opposition politician whacking this "racist" government and saying Malaysia is a failed state for 40 years straight huh?

Anyway, it looks like Tun Mahathir and Muhyiddin, in great desperation, has borrowed Uncle Lim Kit Siang's decades-old time-tested "failed state bankrupt" slogan.

I call them the Barisan Orang-Orang Tua Hampa Malaysia

Okay, let me get back to answering JMD's post and his many allegations and outright lies.

JMD LIE NUMBER ONE: 41% of rakyat gets BR1M hence this is evidence of pengemis people.

BR1M is NOT a poverty eradication programs (Malaysia have many other such programs) but for the 40% lower income groupM (Below 40% or B40) in Malaysia.

No matter how rich or poor the country is, there will always be a group of people who are the bottom 40% income group (and also top 40% group too). 

I do not believe you can call households earning RM4,000 per month as poor people or those in poverty. 

BR1M is a targeted assistance to the Rakyat who needs assistance the most and was put in place instead of inefficient blanket subsidies that benefit the rich more.

It has also been proven to be an effective policy tool to help reduce income inequality by transferring more of the country's wealth to the lower income group away from the higher income groups. Don't believe me? Read IMFhttp://www.imf.org/external/np/pp/eng/2014/012314.pdf 

Essentially, programs such as BR1M directly transfers wealth from the richer 60% (via reduction in subsidies, income tax and GST) to the lower 40% income houses (via BR1M) - thus the yearly income inequality in Malaysia has narrowed.

JMD LIE NUMBER TWO: GAJI TIDAK NAIK or NAIK HANYA CIPUT

In this lie, he gave a funny anecdotal example saying  "Contohnya gaji pekerja di Selangor hanya naik RM 20 sebulan pada tahun lepas."

I don't know how that can be considered proof though. Whose wage? what industry? what company?

Ridiculous. Please bro, be professional and cite statistics instead of nenek-moyang stories.

It is definitely a fact that salaries and income have indeed risen over the years. For example, in 2009 (the year when Najib first became PM) the average household income for Malaysia was RM4,025 per month increasing to RM5,000 in the year 2012 and as at 2014, it jumped to RM6,141 per month - not a bad effort for 6 years.

And even more significantly, the median household income moved from RM2,841 in 2009 to RM4585 per month in 2014 - a sign that income inequality has improved as the lowest income group have increased their monthly income faster than the top groups.

Official statistics show the Gini Coefficient has improved significantly from 0.441 to 0.401 - meaning a more equal Malaysia in 2014 than in 2009.

Source: DOS Household income report.

Source: DOS Household Income Report 2014

Why do I think it is possible that those numbers above are real?

For the simple fact that Malaysia over the past 6 years has enjoyed full employment, economic growth for many years and that policies such as BR1M and minimum wage make it impossible that income levels did not rise.


JMD HALF-TRUTH NUMBER THREE: 1% TOLLS, KTM KOMUTER, LRT, ERL RATES HAVE INCREASED 

Yes, they have increased in the Klang Valley alone. But let me tell you a story.

In the 1990s, the govt invested significantly in the public transport system for the Klang Valley.
Among these initiatives were the introduction of KTM Komuter in 1995, Star LRT in 1996, Putra LRT in 1998. The ERL to KLIA -in 2002 and KL Monorail in 2003, covering while the RapidKL bus service was introduced in 2004 to provide a comprehensive bus network in the Klang Valley.
Under Mahathir's govt, the LRT1, LRT2 and monoral companies ran up huge amount of debts and all failed - and eventually bailed out by Prasarana.
Currently, all these services, except for KTM and the ERL, are now owned by Prasarana and operated by RapidKL.
Despite these initiatives, the modal share of public transport in the Klang
Valley has declined from 20% in 1997 to 12% in 2008 due to the
population's growing affluence, easy access to vehicle financing and an
inefficient public transport system.
A 50% modal share of public transport is often seen as the benchmark of a sustainable city.
The number of cars in the Klang Valley is expected to reach 7 million by
2020, unless there is a marked shift towards public transport.
This will be a nightmare for traffic for sure - which will choke the growth of KL with congestion, pollution and wasted productivity if not addressed.
In 2009, PEMANDU targeted public transportation as a key urgent area to address in order to safe-guard the growth of the Klang Valley. SPAD was established in 2010.
Through increased investments and optimization of the current public transport infrastructure, the share of public transport has moved back up from 12% (2008) to 19.6% (2012), 20.8% (2013) and by the end of 2015, it will hit 25%.
In order reach the goal of 40% modal share by 2030, the govt has committed to invest at least RM72 billion (not counting new investment in buses, new monorail trains, new KTM trains) - many of which are already close to completion.
They are:
- LRT1 and LRT2 extension costs - RM7b (completing March 2016)
- LRT3 - RM9b (completing 2018)
- MRT1 cost - RM23b (completing July 2017)
- MRT2 cost - RM30b (completing 2022)
- BRT Sunway - RM0.634b (completed)
- BRT Federal -  RM1.5b (completing 2018)
- MRT3 (no cost estimate yet)
Knowing that the previous STAR, PUTRA and monorail failed badly and had to be bailed out, I do believe some increase in rates after 12 or 13 years is justified - if you look at the huge amount and cost of new infrastructure that is already so close to completion.
The last thing Malaysia wants is to bail-out the lines again.
These KTM Kommuter, LRT and monorail rates increase affect Klang Valley residents only but the main beneficiary of the additional revenue also benefits the Klang Valley residents only.
People outside of Klang Valley benefits nothing out of these RM72 billion investments for the Klang Valley - thus it is unfair for them to subsidize those in the Klang Valley.
FYI, RM72 billion is equivalent to RM13,680 BR1M for entire Malaysia.
Let's try to have a sustainable public transport system as the alternative is a highly-congested and heavily polluted Klang Valley that will not grow anymore.
What I really cannot understand are people asking for more public transport to be built and when announced LRT1+2 extensions, LRT3, MRT 1 and 2, all cheered and say well done kerajaan.
But when asked who pays for it, everybody quiet or get angry. lol

As for toll roads, you can blame your master.

Tun M is not very good in understanding concession agreements of any sorts - including toll agreements and not just the IPP ones.

This was finally revealed by Tun M in Jan 2007 when he said:

"Acknowledging that the government during his time may have erred in signing the toll concession agreements, Tun Mahathir urged the present government to be more careful before agreeing to toll hikes.

"This is one of thing that we need to correct. What you have is a cabinet which is not very knowledgeable all the time because it is not made up of experts but politicians (and) some politicians like myself can sometimes be stupid," he said when told by reporters that all the five tolled expressways were constructed during his 22-year tenure as prime minister.

Mahathir said the agreements were drafted by officers and submitted to the cabinet and usually the small prints are not there.

"The cabinet merely gave approvals in principle and never really studied the implications in some parts of the agreements."

Like what Tun M said above, he and his Cabinet members then were "stupid" (Tun M said himself, not me) and did not read the toll concession agreements properly before signing then.

Even more cheekily, Tun had then advised his predecessor governments to not to be like him and be more careful in signing future concession agreements.

However, Tun M did not comment how the present government should resolve the bad agreements he had signed before though as government cannot simply break agreements without paying compensation.

In any case, in 2011 Najib solved the biggest Toll headache by getting Khazanah (51%) and EPF (49%) to take over the biggest toll operator PLUS highway Bhd - thus renegotiating the toll rates and also making sure very dollar it makes goes back to either the govt or to the rakyat (via EPF) instead of crony companies previously.

And Najib will avoid this mistake of Mahathir by making sure the 2,200km Pan Borneo Highway he is building will be completely toll-free.

JMD HALF-TRUTH NUMBER THREE:  Subsidi beras murah untuk orang Miskin di hapuskan terus.

As for the ST15 rice subsidy scheme, The 2013 AG report clearly shows there are issues. In in March 2015, the PAC itself which includes Pakatan members has asked to stop this program.

Also, it was found out that a lot of the consumers of this rice were foreign workers and our subsidy money were going directly to them instead of to Malaysians.

This problematic scheme is being replaced with another scheme - it is not abolished. Read here for more details:


JMD HALF-TRUTH NUMBER FOUR: Subsidi tepung dihapuskan, secara sembunyi tanpa dihebahkan kepada rakyat.
This was due to certain weaknesses and leakages and everyone including the NGOs were asking government to stop this program as it was being misused.

Persatuan Pengguna Islam Malaysia (PPIM) mendesak kementerian pengguna menghapuskan subsidi tepung gandum kegunaan am dalam paket 25 kilogram.
Seorang pegawai PPIM Mohd Mustaffa Hamzah berkata subsidi berkenaan tidak memberi manfaat kepada pengguna tetapi hanya memberi keuntungan yang melampau kepada pengusaha dan pengimpot yang memonopoli industri tepung.
Subsidi itu juga tidak relevan dan membebankan kerajaan yang perlu menanggung subsidi berjumlah puluhan juta ringgit setiap tahun, jelasnya.
Sedangkan pengimport dan pengusaha tepung berkenaan tetap menjual bahan kawalan itu mengikut harga pasaran, katanya.
"Kos pemberian subsidi kepada poengimpot merugikan kerajaan. Sebaliknya ia boleh dimanfaatkan dengan pemberian subsidi kepada sektor lain yang lebih menguntungkan pengguna," katanya kepada pemberita hari ini.

And again, not only were some of the flour companies pocketing the subsidies, it was discovered that many of the buyers of the subsidised flour were foreign workers again. In fact, we ended up subsidizing Singaporeans when these subsidized flour ended up being sold in Singapore!

In any case, worldwide wheat and flour prices have fallen greatly in the past year - thus such subsidies will no longer be needed.

You must remember that this subsidy was introduced when prices of wheat (of which flour is made of) was high but since the price have dropped, such subsidies are  no longer needed.

JMD HALF-TRUTH NUMBER FIVE:  Kadar elektrik akan naik bulan depan.

In reality, it was announced this week that electricity rates base price have not increased but the rebates announced in Mar 2015 have been reduced from 2.25sen/kWh to 1.52sen/kWh - resulting in minimal increases in prices from Jan 1.2016 onward but still lower than the Jan 1, 2014 price.
2) These ICPT rebates only apply to users of electricity who consume 300kWh or more per month as prices for electricity for users using 300kWh and below have not changed since 1997- these users constitute 70.6% of all households in Malaysia.
The ICPT fund which pays these rebates are the result of continuous savings from reduced fuel cost as well as savings form IPP costs resulting from fairer IPP contracts.
3) Users whose electricity use is RM20 and below will continue to get the full rebate - meaning a bill of ZERO from Jan 1, 2016 onwards. This subsidy has been continued despite certain opposition leaders claiming otherwise.
4) The reason why there is reduction of the rebate is that there was fuel cost increases which includes some recovery of gas prices and coal prices - but the main factor is the continued reduction in subsidies to the IPP and power plants.
The price charged by Petronas to the power plants have increased from RM13.70/MMBtu before the subsidy rationalization exercise started in 2014 to RM18.20/MMBtu as at Jan 1, 2016.
The actual market price for gas at the moment is about RM33.00/MMBtu.
Gas subsidies for the power plants are a legacy from the days of the unfair lop-sided power purchase agreements signed when Tun Mahathir started the IPPs in the early 1990s - which caused Petronas to lose tens of billions in revenue every year to the IPPs.
As these lop-sided agreements have mostly expired or renewed at much fairer rates in the first ever open tender for power plants called in the year 2012 after 1MDB entered the power-generation business.

Really, with the small decrease in rebate, the increases are quite small - and only affects 30% of the highest electricity consumers in Malaysia.

It is a fact that electricity prices next month in Jan 2016 will still be cheaper than in Jan 2015 and Jan 2014.

JMD HALF-TRUTH NUMBER SIX:   tidak hairanlah apabila statistik terkini menunjukkan peningkatan sebanyak 22% orang yang tidak berkerja di negara ini berbanding tahun lepas.Kadar pengaguran makin meningkat.

This is the worse lie from them - downright dastardly. What JMD have done is to compare the unemployment numbers from Sept 2015 with the numbers from Sept 2014 - completely ignoring the fact that unemployment numbers rises and falls.

 As you can see from the graph above, the number of unemployed people rises and falls all the time and there were more people unemployed at the end of 2013/beginning 2014.

In fact, the current unemployment rate as at Sept 2015 is 3.1% - below the 4% level that economists consider as full employment. There will always be people leaving their jobs before starting a new job or graduating from school and entering the job market - hence it is impossible to have completely zero unemployment persons.

But as you can see from the chart above, total employed people have increased over the same period - showing a growing economy and not a failed state.

JMD HALF-TRUTH NUMBER SEVEN: Kadar ringgit berbanding dollar jatuh teruk. Begitu juga berbanding Pound Sterling, Euro, dan Singapore Dollar. Ini memberi impak negatif terhadap import makanan seperti susu dan daging.

Firstly, out Ringgit has dropped about 30% over the past year and a half but do you really see prices of milk and meat increased 30%?

No. Of course not. It is just more scare-mongering and lies from JMD. And the reason is simple.

Due to the very factor of low global commodity prices affecting our Ringgit, the price of most commodities including Milk and meat have plummeted too.

In fact, global milk prices have slumped and excess milk is actually being poured away.

Global Beef prices too have dropped sharply over the past year too.

Okay, what about our currency? How shitty is that?

Mahathir actually started with USD1 to RM2.40 but ended up going as weak as USD1 to RM4.88 before he cowardly pegged it at USD3.80 by implementing tough capital controls. which scared of investors for many years until he resigned. 

This was one of the first major policy reversal that Pak Lah did when he removed the peg in 2005

And this is why Najib does not want to implement a currency peg - which is the easiest thing for Najib to do amidst loud criticism by Tun Mahathir about the recent currency weakness. 

How come Tun M does not know that Najib can do whatever Tun M did by cowardly pegging the currency? 

But Najib doesn't do that as it knows the long-term harm it does for the economy and bites the bullet the let the currency find its true level amidst weakening of other currencies too.

Most people have short memories and forgot that for many years, USD1 to RM3.70 was the normal range. 

We got used to the last 6 years when our currency appreciated from RM3.73 when Najib took over to as high as RM2.96 in May 2013. Of course Najib never got praises for this.

It is a fact that we are still trading within a +/- 20% range of the currency when Najib took over. See the graph below.

Our Ringgit has since appreciated somewhat from the low level of RM4.44 to USD4.19 close on last Friday.

And the main reason why our Ringgit have dropped was mainly because Malaysia is deemed as a major primary commodities net exporting country (rubber, timber, palm oil, oil and gas) and the world commodities prices have slumped since late 2014.

Malaysians have a very short-term view and very selective vision.

Here are the currency charts of similar primary commodities exporting countries vs our Ringgit.

The following past 5 years charts shows how much One Ringgit can buy of their foreign currency - which means the higher the chart is, the stronger our currency is against those countries.

These countries are Australia, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Brazil, Russia and the favorite of many Pakatan leaders and supporters - Norway.

As you can see from the above charts, Malaysia has appreciated against those countries over the past 5 years - mainly because those countries depends more on primary commodities exports than Malaysia.

Over time when our transformation policies take place we become more industrialized and depend less on commodities, our currency will be less volatile and will eventually appreciate too.

Summary - why Malaysia has not become worse and actually became better in the 6 years since Najib became Prime Minsiter

Here are a bunch of chart - the Stock Market and the GDP chart.

Najib first 6 years GDP

For the year 2015 so far

And strong exports growth - for example, the Oct 2015 trade results which was just announced last Friday where we completely blew away market expectations to achieve our largest surplus in 4 years.

Malaysia reported a RM12.16 billion trade surplus in October of 2015, up ten fold from RM1.19 billion a year earlier - the largest trade surplus since October 2011, as exports surged.
Malaysia's exports in October surged 16.7% from a year earlier, increasing for a fifth consecutive month, supported by demand for electrical and electronic products, government data showed today.
October's exports had the highest year-on-year growth since April 2014, more than twice the 7.9% growth forecast by economists in a Reuters poll.

Here are the car sales table since 2009,

And here is the list of shopping centers in the Klang Valley - many of which opened in the past 6 years.

1 1 Utama Shopping Centre	45 M3 Mall Gombak
2 1Shamelin Shopping Mall	46 Main Place USJ21 Mall
3 AIM Point Plaza	47 Maju Home Concept
4 Alam Sentral (Shah Alam)	48 Melawati Mall
5 Alamanda Putrajaya	49 Mid Valley Megamall and The Gardens
6 Amcorp Mall	50 Mitsui Outlet Park KLIA
7 Ampang Park Mall	51 Nu Sentral
8 Anggerik Mall	52 Ole Ole Shopping Centre
9 Atria Shopping Ctr	53 One City @ USJ 25
10 Avenue K	54 One Mont Kiara
11 Bangsar Shopping Center	55 OUG Plaza
12 Bangsar Village Shopping Centre	56 Palm Mall
13 Berjaya Times Square	57 Paradigm Mall OUG
14 Brem Mall	58 Paradigm Mall PJ
15 Bukit Bintang Plaza	59 Pavilion
16 Bukit Raja Shopping Centre	60 Pearl Point Shopping Mall
17 Cascades Kota Damansara	61 Pertama Complex
18 Cheras Leisure Mall	62 PKNS Komplex Shah Alam
19 Cheras Sentral Mall (previously Plaza Phoenix	63 Plaza Damas
20 CITTA Mall	64 Plaza Masalam Shah Alam
21 Digital Mall	65 Publika Shopping Gallery
22 DPULZE Shopping Centre	66 Pudu Plaza
23 Empire Shopping Gallery,	67 QUILL CITY MALL
24 Encorp Strand Mall	68 S*PARK (Plaza Salak Park) 3.8
25 Endah Parade	69 SACC Mall Shah Alam
26 F&N Point (pretty much empty)	70 Selayang Star City
27 Fahrenheit88	71 Setia City Mall
28 Galaxy Ampang Shopping Centre	72 Shah Alam Mall
29 Gamuda Walk Kota kemuning	73 Sogo Shopping Center
30 gateway@klia2	74 South City Plaza
31 GM Klang Wholesale City	75 Space U8
32 Great Eastern Mall Ampang	76 SS2 Mall
33 IKEA Cheras	77 Star Avenue
34 IOI Puchong	78 Star Hill
35 IOI PutraJaya	79 Subang Parade
36 IPC Shopping Centre	80 Summit USJ
37 Jaya One	81 Sungei Wang Plaza
38 Jaya Shopping Centre	82 Sunway Putra Mall
39 KL Festival City Mall	83 Sunway Pyramid
40 Klang Sentral	84 Suria KLCC
41 KWC Kenanga Wholesale City	85 The Curve and eCurve
42 Lion Klang Parade Bhd	86 The Mines
43 Low Yat Plaza	87 Viva Shopping Mall Pudu
44 M Square Puchong	88 Wangsa Walk Mall

And the above is not counting all those numerous Giant, Aeon, Tesco, Segi fresh, Mydin stand-alone complexes - of which there are many in the Klang Valley.

And not only that, these are the upcoming shopping malls due to open within the next one to two years.

1 Bangsar Trade Centre	21 Pingat Bazaar
2 Bukit Jalil City Mall (Proposed/Future)	22 Pinnacle Retail (Empire State Of Art) , Seksyen 52 PJ (On-Going)
3 CentralPlaza@i-City (i-City Mall) (2016)	23 PJ Sentral Garden City Retail (On-Going)
4 Centrus Cyberjaya Shopping Mall (On-Going)	24 Plaza Rakyat (Renovated Soon/Next Year)
5 Da: Mén USJ	25 Roppongi Cyberjaya
6 Damansara Sentral Retail Centre (Future)	26 Sky Park Cyberjaya (On-Going)
7 Datum Jelatek (2017)	27 Subang Jaya City Centre (Proposed)
8 Empire City	28 Sunway Geo (2016)
9 EVOLVE Concept Mall	29 Sunway Nexis
10 F&N City Shopper's Mall PJ (Future)	30 Sunway Nexis Phase 1/Phase 2 (2014/2015)
11 Four Seasons Place Kuala Lumpur	31 Sunway Velocity
12 Icon City PJ (2017)	32 The Altium Retail, Damansara Perdana (Proposed/Future)
13 KL Eco City (2016)	33 The Robertson KL (On-Going)
14 KL Gateway (On-Going)	34 The School @ Jaya One Enrichment Mall [Mall for Kids] (Q3 2013)
15 KL Metropolis (Future)	35 The Starling @ Damansara Uptown/Damansara Uptown Mall (2015/2016)
16 MCT Mall @ One City (Future)	36 Tropicana Avenue Retail (2015)
17 Nucleus Damansara, Mutiara Damansara (On-Going)	37 Tropicana Gardens (2016)
18 Pan'gaea Shopping Mall (2016)	38 Tropicana Metropark (On-Going)
19 Pantai Sentral Park Retail Mall (Future)	39 Tun Razak Exchange (Future)
20 Pavillion Damansara

Remember that we used to have only a few malls such as Ampang Park, Sungai Wang and Pertama complex, now there are literally more than a hundred in Klang Valley alone.

So, please tell me how Malaysia is failed state or pengemis country?

Don't tell me pengemis are the ones going to these shopping malls?

And why are they building so many of these malls?

Because the developers have done their homework and know that Malaysians have become increasing more prosperous and willing to spend their money.

PENGEMIS and FAILED STATE indeed. Only morons  and Tun M bloggers would say that Malaysia is a failed state or pengemis country



If you really want to know, in Najib's first 6 years in charge, his track record overshadows Tun Mahathir's track record, Have a read here, if you dare.