The Malaysian Insider
Thursday December 10 2009
Pakatan leaders sceptical about PKFZ arrests
By Syed Jaymal Zahiid
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 10 — Pakatan Rakyat national leaders were unimpressed and sceptical about today’s arrests made in connection to the RM 12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal, calling it a scapegoating exercise where the main culprits still remain free.
DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang said the arrests were a small move and had yet to prove the federal government’s will to get to the bottom of the scandal that involved bloated land valuations and double charges.
“Although we are seeing some movement, the arrest is a very small piece of a larger picture,” said the Ipoh Timur MP, who has been at the forefront of the Pakatan campaign on the PKFZ scandal.
“And unless there is a greater political will to deal with those responsible for the mother of all scandals and this only touches the surface of the problem,” he told a press conference in Parliament here.
The police, together with graft-busters MACC, today arrested former general manager of the Port Klang Authority (PKA), Datin Paduka OC Phang, along with two others. All three were later charged for criminal breach of trust (CBT) and other offences at the Klang Sessions Courts. The trio were released after posting bail.
So far it is unclear if more personalities — such as former transport minister Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy or Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing, who controls PKFZ contractor Kuala Dimensi Sdn Bhd (KDSB) — will face any action.
PKR de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar brahim speaking to reporters in Parliament also shared Lim’s scepticism over the arrests.
“We welcome this move albeit it being a small move but just as what had happened to Perwaja, the smaller fishes were caught while the bigger sharks escape so in the PKFZ case, I hope this is not the beginning of a cover up on the issue,” he said.
Anticipating public doubt, the Attorney-General has said that the arrests of the three will not be the end of the PKFZ probe.
He said more are expected to be arrested and charged this Monday, with one of them being a KDSB engineer.
What’s new, anything and everything this government does is sceptical.
1.reinstating a racist called ahmad ismail..what a blow to our chinese brothers
2.reinstating tan sri isa who was suspended for money politics to run for bagan pinang.
yeah surely this is nothing much, prosecuting the small fries involved in the PKFZ scandal and let the big fat fishes swim away. Boo-Hoo
So sad for Phang and other ikan bilises.
Those who work under political masters must always be wary…they don’t simply rubber-stamp or sign away their lives and liberty for a few sweet, nice words or crabby shark’s fin soup or even pennies that fall off the tables.
So sad – how politicians bastardise the system and make suckers of their staff and friends.
Dun just catch the small flies. Go after the big sharks like Mahatiu and LLS!
In Malaysia, the biggest crook is always Chinese. Typical Barisan Nasional sandiwara.
u mean the woman is the only 1 responsible and she carries more calls and shoots than prime minister and ministers?
MCA and Gerakan, all good for nothing! Selling out your own kind!
A season for scapegoats starting from Altantuya and now PKFZ and watch Teoh Beng Hock!!!!! The BN gomen and their yes men show. What an international joke!
Hmmm one stone killing a few birds:
1. The government is serious with getting rid of corruption. We are now investing and all those involved will be charged. So be careful you corrupted fellows.
2. You Chinamen are really dirty filthy fellows. Give you one ministry and one project to take care, you fellows must makan cukup cukup. You Chinamen are so corrupted.
3. How can we ever trust more Chinamen to have a great say in running this country?
4. Besides PKFZ, other failed projects/programmes are all due to incompetency or poor management and have nothing to do with corruption or abuse of power.
Stop insulting our intelligence!! No way in the world you can convince any member of the public that the ex GM and the COO can be charged with CBT in the hundreds of millions and their bosses are not aware.
If the sharks are not charged it can only mean one thing. They are afraid of the fallout if this goes any higher. They will find scapegoats and made sure they are properly compensated and asked to take the rap. That is why it took so long for the case to go to court. Then the High Court will find them guilty followed by the Court of Appeals or the Federal Court which will acquit them. This is the standard script for these cases.
So a smaller specie of the ikan bilis, a KDSB engineer, will be charged this coming Monday? And the incoming MACC new boss says that the negative perception of the public of MACC is just perception. Maybe he has his own definition of the English word-PERCEPTION.
So, under BN, truly 1Malaysia n muhibbah
Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans, etc – all makan n invovled in corruptions
Did Phang receive a call or SMS fr CKC or LLS that said no worry, you will b out soon
Ala B Razak fr another N Razak
OC Phang will be the highest ranking PKA officer to be charged. All board members of PKA which included MCA nominees will not be charged, notwithstanding that they all signed of on board minutes and resolutions. On the KDSB side, Tiong and Faisal are too important to BN to be charged, so the scapegoat is the chief operating officer.
A big yawn indeed.
Come on guys it’s like a cinderella story if ever Tun mamakthir or Ling liong sick is indicted in this scandal.
TDM has screwed the judiciary system, stripped the sultanate of its jurisdiction, legalised cronysm and nepotism and so how is this any more difficult to sort out? They never gonna nail these punks.
The AG has clarified that this is just the beginning of the process. More will follow soon. Let’s hope he and MACC do not keep us waiting too long…must maintain the momentum.
Otherwise, it is another talk kok session.
Come on guys it’s like a cinderella story if ever Tun mamakthir or Ling liong sick is indicted in this scandal.
TDM has scrwed the judiciary system, stripped the sultanate of its jurisdiction, legalised cronysm and nepotism and so how is this any more difficult to sort out? They never gonna nail these punks.
See what happened to that guy Ahmad Ismail? He got his 3 years suspension just lifted. The same will happen to these so called scapegoats. Look where is that chap by the name of Baginda ? The BN gomen think the rakyat are blind.
Razak Baginda acquited of altantuya murder..he was the key suspect and yet..and of course 500million ringgit richer he is not settled in the UK happily ever after.
The scripts of the Umno/Bn sandiwara are always the same.The ikan billis get caught,the sharks go free. No wonder none of the many sandiwaras have ever won an award since 1963. I think it’s time to change the script writer,the director and the producer.The rakyat now want a good and viable script writer,a director who can direct credible,efficient and competence good action and a producer who can genuinely deliver an award winning movie.In a nut shell,we want genuine movie,not the half past six type one.
Hi guys ,seriously speaking,how can we expect these guys to catch the big sharks when they don’t have balls.This is one story.The other is, tool don’t move by itself. It needs a hand to direct its movement.It’s because of this hand,that all sharks are free.Destroy this hand,replace it with a good one,then only it will catch both billis and sharks.It’s pretty simple,right guys !
Expecting justice fr a gomen ruled by a party whose founding president MMK has openly admitted 2 b both racial n racist is beyond 1’s imagination
Also the same racial n racist party abused OSA in d name of national security 2 hide things fr d rakyat, d actual masters
Did anyone find d Bukit AB report of national security that deserved 2 b kept secretive under OSA by Umno until PR forced it 2 b made public 2 all?
Total abuse of OSA 2 protect d culprits n cronies n 2 prevent d victims fr seeking justice n proper compensation
I wonder what agreement has been made among the trio – the government, the big sharks and the ikan billis.
Logic tells us that if the ikan billis are charged, surely they will point fingers at the big sharks shouting “they also had a part in the looting”. If the ikan billis choose to keep silent, then it makes me suspect that an agreement has already been worked out among the trio – the ikan billis allow themselves to be charged but will receive compensation from the government and the big sharks.
Waaa lan eh. 12.5b and only 3 peeper lesponsible ah. They must be world best crook. But look hoh. Umno gobermen project wat and they hoh ask mca to handle ma. Why they all umno and mca peeper never get caught one.
Lessons to all civil servants and business people. Keep away from politicians esp the smelly and greasy umnoputras and the monkeys in mca. They will sacrifice you all when trouble comes just to save their own backsides.
Were eric Chia and kasitoh Gaddam were to be tried in the West, even when defended by Queen’s Councils et all, they would had been found guilty and jailed long long ago.
Let’s say the real mastermind/s have years of experienced at this type of grand theft.
Just look at the l-o-o-n-g time it took to get to this stage.
The chief architects have been able to gain a lot of time to cover their tracks. The PR should make PKFZ one of the salient election plants in the next GE.
Maybe offer a reward and protection for those who can provide information.
Even the investor group from Dubai may be willing to disclose why they withdrew so suddenly.
I just can’t wait to see how this “drama” unfold. Anyway,most sober M’sians already anticipated the outcome. Come GE13, do we need more ammunitions to shoot these crooks down?
Pakatan leaders’ scepticism is well founded based on knowledge/experience on how our political patronage system works.
It always follows a well established system: award a big contract of inflated values, financed from public purse, to connected parties who will skim the extras and make a round tripping back to political patrons.
Such a system has evolved a mechanism of in-built firewalls to absorb the risks of public exposure. GMs, finance officers and consultants at corporate level are the lower tier ‘kaki tangan’ who make out the vouchers, accounting entries, make out the cheques, arrange for bank withdrawals etc. For their “service” they are allowed to profit (miniscule compared to the ‘directing will’) but even then it might be handsome enough for some to fly 100 special guests (business class) to a Medieval castle or a Renaissance villa in Florence, Tuscany in host of their children’s wedding reception!
The ‘directing will’/decision maker will interface with the main political patrons and distribute spoils amongst them depending on importance to the project.
The ones in power are in a political-economic incestuous circle protect themselves against each other by holding each other’s secrets.
Contributing a part of the spoils to one’s political party is an important safeguard – for the party is the mother patron/goose of all affiliated to it, past present and future, so that if anyone is threatened with exposure with withdrawal of political protection, he could counter-threaten to implicate the very party that all affiliated to and depend on it to get largesse and benefit, present and future, will have an interest in not implicating and destroying. This is the insurance of protection. Worse come to worse there’s also excuse that the feelings and pride of the particular party’s constitutency need to be protected. They will feel humiliated if sheninegans of their community leaders are exposed.
The mechanism to protect the system from disintegrating in the face of public exposure also operates on basis of in-built safeguards at enforcement level : selective investigative techniques, presentation of reports from investigating agencies etc. At prosecutorial level there is prosecutorial discretion. Prosecution obviously cannot proceed if there were deliberate omission of investigation or if there were, half baked ones. Even if procecution proceeds, one has discretion to choose under which offence to charge – something that implicates heavy punishment or something a slap on the wrist. Even if a serious charge of (say) murder or homicide charge, what is there to guarantee the prosecution cannot “bungle” when contesting a good defence lawyer that gets the accused an acquittal?
So what we have here is fantastic system that thrives with in built checks and balances and fire walls that keeps it running at transaction and enforcement levels, ever ready to take challenge of managing public perception and damage control in a case of a major public scandal erupting as in this case of PKFZ. Because PKFZ is a scandal of mega financial proportions, the system must rise up to the occasion to manage damage control effectively or else the whole system will be fractured. PKFZ is the test. Here because so much public money will be lost (to be recovered via heavier taxes, whether Real Property Gains Tax or GST) the attention of ordinary men is also attracted (not just the more Opposition leaders and sophisticated Malaysians familiar with how the system – and country- works).
All feel hurt, and like the Romans in the Coliseum braying for blood of those responsible. Their lust for blood (accountability) of not just ikan bilis but sharks must be gratified or else they may put thumbs down on their rulers in next election.
So now the task is to sift amongst all implicated to determine who are to be sacrificed to the mob and who to shield. The weakest in the food chain is served as Hor’Dourves appetizers on the table (like a full course western meal) with a part of the Entree and desserts promised in the weeks to come. Already I am feeling hungry!
It is important we recognise this. The political patronage system has in-built firewalls/checks and balances preserving itself./
At the same time – at governance and constitutional level – we have no in-built firewalls/checks and balances against the abuse or corruption of this political patronage system.
Thats what we’re up against – and thats the irony.
They expect us to believe that OC Phang, together with the COO of KDSB and some lowly technical guy had the brains to siphon off hundreds of millions of ringgit of rakyat’s money. They expect us to believe that these people could hoodwink the Transport minister (two of them, in fact) to issue letters of “support”. They expected us to believe that these people could overrule the senior civil servants from the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Transport and the EPU who were then nominated to the board of KPA.
Such wonderful things can happen in Bolehland…
ooops.. typo
“The PR should make PKFZ one of the salient election planks in the next GE.”
This thing leads to a few big fish in UMNO. Nothing else but a big fish in UMNO get hang out to dry will satisfy people.. THIS IS ABOUT UMNO REFORM. Nothing less.
Haha.. I like Jeffrey’s reference to food… that’s good and appopriate as it conjures up visions of a hearty and sumptious dinner. Can’t wait for the main course and dessert.
And after we finish the entire course, we can choose to eat at a different restaurant the next time.
That’s what you do by voting in a new government at the next elections.
“…but even then it might be handsome enough for some to fly 100 special guests (business class) to a Medieval castle or a Renaissance villa in Florence, Tuscany in host of their children’s wedding reception!” Jeffrey
This is nothing compared to the fact that a big shark from Bolehland probably owns the castle or villa !
Phang has problem with cash flow projection, who was the hiring manager then? Was this the intention so that everything was nice and easy?
Phang, Chan and Tiong singing at their Christmas gathering
We Three Cheats
We three cheats of Bolehland are
Cleaning out banks we traverse afar
Take and run, stuff and grab
Following the PKFZ star
In China, more transparent
Civil servants, ministers, n ex-ministers found guilty of gross corruption
Just do it – jalan sehala, face d firing squad
Here, maybe C4, possible ah?
Waah, so touching, almost tears flowing down d faces of 1Malaysians
A full page advert in the Star yesterday by two nonMalay 1Malaysians n their companies
Wishing Selamat Hari Jadi 2 beloved RM
Full of praises n sweet sweet message
So so touching – were there similar full page adverts 4 previous PMs’ wives ah?
Y no B’day Wishes fr LKS 2 RM 1?
what a joke. From 1-2 billion skyrocket to 12.5biliion, the minister of finance and all don’t know about this except oc phang and a few minnows. You ingat kita bodohkah?
Who recently tried to smuggle 10mil out of the country thru mamak money changer??? That’s from only one guy u know. Join the dots la.
Ah keat, sold your sold and fellow countrymen again huh?
“They expect us to believe that OC Phang, together with the COO of KDSB and some lowly technical guy had the brains to siphon off hundreds of millions of ringgit of rakyat’s money.” Godfather
See. It is soooo easy to cheat our umno gobermen.
Well,what to do,it was we voters who voted this clowns to power.To my sensible knowledge i don’t think there is is even one MP or ADUN in BN who is right and straightforword thinking. Everyone who are tagging along the serving masters’ are for personal gains only.The saying “make hay while the sunshine” is in place now. For example Rafidah in the AP issue has made close to 1 Billion,Ling in PKFZ has also made 1 billion,Samy toll etc.etc.etc and the list goes on also made more than 1 billion and after they left the govn. they are very free now.Nobody can even scratch their asses.It is all because of Mahathir,the mother of all corruptions,mismangement,tyranny and the list goes on.Of course Mahathir has made close to 200 Billion.Mahathir did’nt want IMF to malaysia,not because it was very uneconomicial but because Soros did’nt want to pay the patent 10% commision which Mahathiar usually charge.So it is natural for the law i.e police,judiciary and whatever crab we have to go for the big guns. Even the arrest and charge is only cuci mulut.After that malaysian mudah lupa.
They carried out the C4. Without their efforts, PKFZ will not rise to RM 12.5 billion. What they got in return cannot be a basis to determine whether they are big fish; it was their ability to bargain.
How was state land where PKFZ stands alienated to private use just in time to be sold to the PKFZ project. Is it not insider trading?
Uncle Kit, you make sure this issue is a live. if not this 2 giant octopus will run off the net, if you got this Lim & chan giant octopus, sure the following giant lobster will fall. Lets us BBQ this lobster together. big fish is only some cheap actor in this scandal only…
Why is the Minister of Transport who signed the document …not arrested?
What games are these people are playing?
In all multi billions arrests…in any developed country…it is always the CEO.
Phang is a General Manager.
Minister of Transport was the CEO..and Mahathir was the overall Commander.
Why are these people let loose?
How many times…UMNO wants to make fools of Malaysians?
They need to…as all are big crocodile crooks.
If you read how Bala was forced to leave the country…you can imagine what happen to Phang’s family …if she does not toe the line.
Those who master-minded the PKFZ debacle certainly knew all about cash-flow.
But the cash flow was into their own pockets and not for the taxpayers’ benefit!
PR,Sabah should also be sceptical of Jeffrey Kitingan who now wants to link up with Hindraf to form a 3rd force.This will be in favour of Umno/Bn.
Jeffrey Kitingan together with Ibrahim Ali and other political rejects should form Parti Katak Malaysai so that they can be buried for good in the 13 GE, expected to be in 2010. Useless buggers of the saiful type