From Libya to Tok Bali, let us move over to something nearer home that involve you and me : The millions of 'small bumiputra men and women' all across Malaysia,who hope one day we can really rely on our ASB and ASN savings to sustain us when that magic KWSP dwindled to a halt in our retirement days.
I was shocked to read the HARAKAH headline today enblazoned on the front page:
AKHIRNYA NAJIB MENGAKU RM52 BILLION LESAP .!
KEMEROSOTAN TERUK SAHAM BUMIPUTRA DARIPADA RM54 BILLION KEPADA HANYA RM 2 BILLION MEMBUKTIKAN KEGAGALAN DASAR MEMBANTU BUMIPUTRA YANG DICEMARI AMALAN KRONISME, NEPOTISME DAN RASUAH.
I am not an economist ,neither am I an accountant. I hope this is not right.
I dont read papers nowadays, be it NST, tabloid or even Harakah. My wife, a non card carrying member of any political party like me, however has her favourite read : HARAKAH. She got her Harakah illegally though on a weekly basis from her Indian news vendor. It is illegal to read and sell Harakah nowadays you know unless you are card carrying members of PAS. Both of us are neither PAS, nor Amenu , not even PKR, or DAP or MIC.
CNN and BBC are getting tedious even to see. Al Jazeera even has changed since Qatar joined the Alliance on the Libya issue!
We got tired of politics, even international politics ! I just watch The Iron Chef nowadays. My wife sticks to her KBS.
And the KLSE index is not even at sub 1000 or 900. It is currently at an all time high of 1515 ! What happened ?
Let us examine the possible loses or rather the 'anatomy' of such massive loss over the years that in a way impacted on the ASB slimming down to just 2 billion :
BBMB bailout , a total of 4 times - RM10.4 billion.
Perwaja Steel - RM10 billion.
Indah Water Konsortium (IWK) - RM200 million.
Konsortium Perkapalan Berhad - RM1.7 billion.
Hicom (Proton) losses over the years- RM1 billion.
MAS bailout from over repayment above market value of shares - over RM1 billion
KWSP, for Danaharta and Khazanah buyout of Timedotcom shares not taken - RM3.3 billion.
Bailout of LRT PUTRA and STAR - RM6 billion.
Bailout of Renong/UEM - RM12 billion.
Bakun Dam, settlement - RM 1 billion
InventQjaya - RM228 million
Crooked bridge, settlement - RM257 million
Broga Incinerator settlement- RM500 million
Agusta loss- RM510 million
Port Klang Free Zone 'extravaganza' - RM4.6 bilion
Offshore Petrol Vehicle scandal(PSC-NDSB) - RM6.75 bilion
Blok L dan M - RM 380 billion
Sime Darby - RM 1.6 billion AND COUNTING !
Pos Malaysia - RM 546 million
Felda - RM 8 Billion
'Additional', miscellaneous from Khazanah - dunno just yet !
...of course not all coming from ASB, some from GLC's etc etc....Somebody somewhere need to pay these losses. It is great that we still have our Petronas.
My God !
PS :
additional, Bank Negara Malaysia, some 15 years ago, courtesy of current 2nd Finance Minister's dabbling in money market - 10 billion.
He subsequently got promoted after it.....Oh Malaysia
5 comments:
matimSorry, even Petronas willl not be able to help as you will see in the csae of Indonesia where even Pertmina could not help and the government.They had to take a hair cut by effectiverly devaluing the currrency. Given the rate at which the cash of Petronas is being used not for projects but for bailouts and fuel corruption it only a matter of time when our output of oil will only be able to sustain the high lifestyle operational expenses of Petronas and the Prime Ministers Deaprtment that controls Petronas.And that is YAA Tun's gift to all of us including Malays.
But do not worry we still have some fat to expand. As I personally withessed in Zimbabwe, they were where we are now in 1999 and within ten years they had removed 36 zeros from their currency and the economy was sent onto a tail spin. We may not have to remove 36 zeros from our currency but even if we have to remove one sixth of that i.e six zeros we will see our economy sent into a tail spin that we will never recover from. May be by that time people like you and me may not be around. We will only have our children and grand children to cusre us.
This plunder of state funds must come to an end and only the people like you and me can do it.I am not sure if it can be done through the Ballot Box because that process has become toxic with the Chairman of the Election Commission unable to see right from wrong. Like our symbol of justice he blind and does not know who is manipulating the scales. Our situation is best described by Leo Tolstoy when he said " The most difficult subject can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man is he is firmly persuaded that he knows, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him"
Many of our very Senior Civil Servants are playing 'bodoh' beccaue they are also reaping the harvest and refue to hear the voice of reason. I am afraid that we will pay a big price for this folly and may be may be not recover once we hit rock bottom. Thank You
TQVM for your very insightful comment Matim. I hope they are wrong with the figures but they are unlikely to be wrong otherwise PM would not conceded so .
Looking across the board I am quite pessimistic that there would be a change in government. The ballgame is quite depressing:We Malays are quite 'feudal' in our thinking,the non Malays vote along racial lines whatever they might say. Our politics is one of patronage and our lack of transparency in institution allows for massive deception institution, even in the judiciary, when critical things matters.
Given all these, the prognosis for change is poor.
Just look at DSAI for instance. He is 64. If NTR had his way, DSAI will spend another 5 years of his life in jail until a decent Agong come along and pardon him. If the Judiciary is fair to him, he may escape jail, but the inuendoes and perception would affect him adversely. He may , if he is lucky be an opposition leader for anther 5 years.
That is the hard fact on the ground. The soft fact of course is with God : A socio-political Tsunami has already hit us in this Nusantara of ours, if we open our hearts to it like what the hardened Arabs did, then we can have real change...
"Allah would not change the fate of a people until they themselves change their 'hearts'"...or something to that effect.
Huwallahualam.
Government have that much money for all those bailouts and still manage to spend on developments? That much money enoughn to enrich the World bank let alone a tiny 3rd world (albeit a progressive one at that) country.. Must be some kind of whizzical maths; not the one we learn at school..
Gukito, you must certainly be referring to the B and L package...300 over billion. That I think would represent loss of future income from that petroleum 'field' of possible income. OK, I agree this is not fair, take it out...I agree, take it out.
These figures I dont make up myself, a friend of mine sent it to me...but even taking away potential earning, from that 'field' we are still left with significant 'leakages', too significant for a small coutry like ours even though blessed with 'wealth': You throw some seeds in the grown you got palm oil and rubber. Dig under the grown, you got manganese and tin. Dig under the sea, you get oil!
Even being blessed like this have its bottomline...Petronas is not going to be there forever to bail us out, if the politicians who run our coutry can comprehend that.
In 6 months time the caretaker CEO of petronas will finish his tenure. It would be interesting to see who takeover the post from him or whether his will be renewed.[ mind you he is older than Hasan Marican, that is why I have the impression he is just there to let some still ' wet in between the ears' green horn who is totally wired to Sri Perdana or Ringgit Malaysia to take over the helm.]
Huwallahualam . Allah forbids for the sake of us all !
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