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How to fill RM28 billion hole at 1MDB?

P Gunasegaram
Malaysiakini
2 Aug 2016

QUESTION TIME Desperate people are dangerous people – not just to themselves but to all of those around them. The more powerful you are when you are desperate and the more influence you have, the more dangerous you are to more and more people. What dangerous, despicable things will desperate people do to fill up that RM28 billion hole at 1MDB?

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) civil filings to recover over US$1 billion in assets purportedly belonging to our disgraced “strategic development company” 1Malaysia Development Berhad or 1MDB very comprehensively explained how over US$3.5 billion (US$3.657 billion to be exact or RM14.6 billion at current exchange rates) was allegedly stolen from the country.

The DOJ filings painstakingly detailed the money trail for the over US$3.5 billion purportedly stolen from 1MDB, which is wholly owned by the Minister of Finance Inc, an arm of the Finance Ministry, showing that a total of US$730 million went into Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s bank accounts, of which US$620 million were returned to one of the accounts from where it came. Continue reading “How to fill RM28 billion hole at 1MDB?”

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Dangers of passing a law to impose hudud

Koon Yew Yin
Malaysiakini
04.8.2016

COMMENT In two months from now, Parliament will be sitting again. What is at stake for the nation is nothing less than our way of life and our Malaysian dream.

This is because a Private Member’s Bill to amend the Syariah Court (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965 will be tabled and debated at that sitting.

PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang has been going around to claim that this bill is only to upgrade the Syariah Courts and that it has nothing to do with non-Muslims.

PAS-oriented analysts and ulama leaders have also commented that it is not really a “Hudud Bill” and that it’s passage is only intended to pave the way for PAS to enforce its version of the Islamic penal code in Kelantan. Hence they argue that its effect will be limited.

However, Hadi and his supporters are only trying to fool the public. Continue reading “Dangers of passing a law to impose hudud”

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No Break for Worst Asian Currency as Clouds Gather Over Malaysia

Y-Sing Liau
Bloomberg
August 4, 2016

The bad news just doesn’t stop for Asia’s worst-performing currency.

Already reeling from a renewed slump in oil prices and a political scandal that just won’t go away, the Malaysian ringgit is now facing the prospect of another cut in interest rates. It’s the region’s biggest loser in the past month and analysts still see scope for it to drop more than 2 percent by year-end.

The currency’s slide highlights all is not well as the nation’s economy heads for its worst performance this decade. Crude oil’s plunge to a four-month low this week undermines the finances of net oil exporter Malaysia, while the appeal of its relatively high bond yields is being tempered by the scandals surrounding a troubled state investment fund. Rabobank Group and UBS Group AG both predict Bank Negara Malaysia will add to its first rate cut in seven years in coming months. Continue reading “No Break for Worst Asian Currency as Clouds Gather Over Malaysia”

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Lamenting 1MDB

Meredith L. Weiss
New Mandala
04 AUG, 2016

The damage from Malaysia’s latest financial scandal runs deep. Here’s how it will impact politics in the long-term.

The beans have been counted, the (foreign) prosecutors have stripped off their gloves, and the convoluted flowcharts have been pasted across the blogosphere.

1 Malaysia Development Berhad, better known as 1MDB, has once again lifted Malaysia to the world’s front pages—as usual, for all the wrong reasons. The saga and spectacle are both terribly disappointing and terribly predictable, after decades of eroding checks and balances. Continue reading “Lamenting 1MDB”

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Why no White Paper or Government Statement in past fortnight to clear Malaysia’s name and reputation from being named a kleptocracy in US DOJ’s legal suits to forfeit over US$1 billion 1MDB-linked assets in US?

The past two weeks had been Malaysia’s most dark and shameful fortnight as three infamous things happened to Malaysia during this period:

• On 20th July, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed its largest single action to forfeit over US$1 billion of assets in the United States, United Kingdom and Switzerland (making it also the world’s largest single action of forfeiture) embezzled, defrauded, misappropriated or money-laundered from 1MDB, the Malaysian national sovereign wealth fund.

• Overnight, Malaysia became notorious worldwide as a kleptocracy with the DOJ civil action under the US Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative (KARI) 2010 for forfeiture of over US$1billion 1MDB-linked assets out of US$3.5 billion embezzled, defrauded, misappropriated or money-laundered from 1MDB which compelled 1MDB auditors, Deloitte Malaysia to disavow the reliability of its audit of 1MDB in 2013 and 2014 on the ground that they would have been impacted if it had known at that time the information contained in the DOJ lawsuits. “Kleptocracy” literally means ‘rule by thieves’.

• The inability of the Malaysian Government to issue a White Paper or a Statement in the past fortnight to clear Malaysia’s name and reputation from being named as a kleptocracy and ranked as one of the world’s top countries afflicted with global corruption.

Continue reading “Why no White Paper or Government Statement in past fortnight to clear Malaysia’s name and reputation from being named a kleptocracy in US DOJ’s legal suits to forfeit over US$1 billion 1MDB-linked assets in US?”