Tidak Yakin Dengan Ketelusan PDRM dan SPRM Kerajaan Selangor akan Gunakan Penyiasat Luar Untuk Menyiasat Sharizat Jalil

Kuching

Sunday, 4th December 2011

Adakah wajar rancangan Ketua Menteri Selangor Tan Sri Khalid untuk mengupah penyiasat luar bagi menyiasat Ketua Wanita UMNO Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil dan keluarga? Tindakan ini berikutan daripada penyataan PDRM yang mengatakan bahawa tidak ada kes salah laku di dalam projek ternakan lembu yang dikelolakan oleh Perbadanan Fidlot Kebangsaan (NFC)yang menelan belanja RM 250 juta. Kenyataan Timbalan Ketua Polis Negara Datuk Seri Khalid Abu Bakar yang mengatakan tiada unsur pecah amanah atau penyelewengan merupakan sesuatu yang bertentangan dengan persepsi majoriti rakyat Malaysia. Untuk mengetahui samada projek ini ada melibatkan pecah amanah atau penyelewengan, mari kita buat ujian berikut :-

Sekiranya keluarga Sharizat tiada kaitan dengan UMNO atau penyokong Pakatan Rakyat atau neural dari segi politik, adakah kerajaan akan memberikan RM 250 juta kepada keluarga Sharizat yang kosong pengalaman di dalam bidang ternakan lembu?"...Sekiranya tidak, maka adalah wajar Tan Sri Khalid menggunakan khidmat penyiasat luar.

Seperti yang dilaporkan oleh Free Malaysia Today, Tan Sri Khalid (atas) memaklumkan bahawa Kerajaan negeri Selangor sedia memperuntukkan dana bagi tujuan membiayai kos penyiasatan oleh pakar luar negara berhubung skandal projek ternakan lembu yang dikelolakan oleh Perbadanan Fidlot Kebangsaan (NFC).

Katanya, kaedah menggunakan penyiasat dari luar negara merupakan pendekatan yang sering diguna-pakai oleh kebanyakan negara maju bagi menyelesaikan jenayah kolar putih atau jenayah bersifat korporat.

Saya serahkan kepada pengarah strategi PKR, Rafizi Ramli dan setiausaha PKR, Saifuddin Nasution. Mereka akan membuat pembentangan kepada pihak polis dan MACC supaya menunjukkan pekara yang perlu diperhatikan oleh pihak polis.“Ini adalah perkara baru di Malaysia tetapi perkara ini sangat dijaga di Britain dan Australia,” katanya dipetik oleh TV Selangor.

PKR sebelum ini mendakwa sejumlah RM250 juta dana awam diberikan kepada syarikat berkenaan yang dikaitkan dengan suami Menteri Pembangunan, Wanita dan Keluarga Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil. Bagaimanapun wang itu didakwa telah disalahguna sehingga projek tersebut dikatakan dalam ‘kucar-kacir’ seperti dirumuskan dalam Laporan Ketua Audit Negara 2010.

PKR kemudiannya mendedahkan wang tersebut digunakan oleh NFC bagi membeli dua buah unit kondominium mewah di Bangsar bernilai RM13.8 juta. Selain itu, PKR turut mendakwa sejumlah RM5 juta pula dibelanja untuk membeli kereta Mercedes Benz dan tanah di Putrajaya serta RM588,585 disalurkan kepada syarikat-syarikat milik keluarga menteri itu.

Selain PKR, Jawatankuasa Kira-kira Wang Negara (PAC) juga berpendapat siasatan awal mendapati beberapa kelemahan yang berlaku pada awal perancangan dan juga perlaksanaan.

Bagaimanapun, Khamis lalu Timbalan Ketua Polis Negara Datuk Seri Khalid Abu Bakar (atas) berkata tiada unsur pecah amanah atau penyelewengan dalam isu dana NFC dan pembelian kondominium mewah berkenaan.

Isu projek lembu juga mencuri tumpuan pada perhimpunan agung Umno 2011 dengan sebahagian besar perwakilan menuntut penjelasan lanjut daripada ketua wanita Umno itu.

Kita berharap, sekiranya betullah tiada tiada unsur pecah amanah atau penyelewengan dalam isu dana NFC dan pembelian kondominium mewah, kerajaan pusat seharusnya menyokong tindakan kerajaan Selangor untuk mengupah penyiasat luar. Walaupun Bukittunggal tiada data yang sah/resmi tetapi daripada komen yang diperolehi daripada blog-blog di Malaysia rata-rata daripada mereka percaya bahawa berlaku unsur pecah amanah atau penyelewengan dalam isu dana NFC dan pembelian kondominium mewah.

Saya percaya, untuk mengembalikan keyakinan rakyat terhadap ketelusan serta bebas rasuah kerajaan pimpinan beliau, saya percaya beliau akan menyokong tindakan Tan Sri Khalid untuk mengupah penyiasat luar.

  

Malaysia's Najib and the Crony Culture

Kuching
Thursday, 8th July 2010

The government backs down on a tycoon's sports betting plan

The Malaysian government has portrayed its recent decision not to legalize sports gambling as the action of a responsible administration responding to public opinion and keeping its promise to be more open and accountable.

In fact, the episode is a sharp reminder of how deeply entrenched the crony culture is in the country and how little has changed under the leadership of Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak.

While Najib has pleased many Malaysians by refusing to allow businessman Vincent Tan to expand his gambling empire, the prime minister's image has suffered because of his secretive attempt to revive sports betting.

In the public outcry over the proposal, Najib was also outmaneuvered by the political opposition through its control of key states in peninsular Malaysia. By reversing course, he underlined his growing reputation to backtrack on policy in the face of protest, as he has done over his ambition to dismantle certain parts of the New Economic Policy, the affirmative action plan that has benefited ethnic Malays for four decades.

Malaysians were kept in the dark this year as Vincent Tan, invoking an unpublicized agreement negotiated with the government decades ago, geared up to begin accepting bets on the World Cup in South Africa. With little warning, his company, Ascot Sports Sdn Bhd, announced that it had obtained exclusive rights to a business that could top RM20 billion annually – without competitive bidding or public discussion.

Dramatic as the news was, it wasn't the first time that Tan had been on the brink of starting Malaysia's first legal sports betting operation.

In 2004, months after becoming prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi discovered that a license had been issued to Tan in 2003 by Premier Mahathir Mohamad in his capacity as finance minister.

Abdullah's aides said Mahathir had awarded the license not long before retiring, but the former premier denied being "personally responsible" for it.

Worried that his administration would be open to criticism by conservative Muslims, especially the opposition Parti Islam Se-Malaysia, which had long campaigned to close existing gaming outlets, Abdullah vetoed the gambling concession.

Tan's revived plans burst into the open in early May in a filing with the stock exchange. Tan's publicly listed Berjaya Corporation Bhd. said it was buying his 70 percent stake in dormant Ascot Sports for RM525 million. (His son holds the remaining 30 percent.)

Berjaya said, "The Ministry of Finance has given its approval for the re-issuance of the license…upon certain terms and conditions." Berjaya subsequently made it known that the "re-issuance" took the form of a "letter of approval" it had received from the finance ministry in January. Najib acts as finance minister as well as premier.

In the uproar that followed, some of the mysterious history of the sports betting proposal emerged.

It transpires that Dr. Mahathir's government first issued a license to Tan in 1987, without informing the public. After suffering losses, Tan surrendered the license in 1990, but apparently negotiated for Ascot Sports to be given the right of first refusal if a new license was issued.

At first, the Najib government did not dispute Berjaya's claim to have obtained the license. But as opposition mounted to more legalized gambling – betting is permitted by non-Muslims on horse racing and lotteries and in a casino -- Najib, wearing his finance minister's hat, stunned the country by declaring that the license had not yet been issued after all.

In a written reply to members of Parliament, he said the government was "still getting feedback from various quarters" and had not finalized the terms and conditions. Najib's hesitation in following through on the letter of approval his ministry sent to Berjaya four months earlier reflected his political dilemma.

A strong element in the backlash was the memory of the Mahathir era, when well-connected businessmen, widely termed cronies, were given privatization and other government contracts without any tendering process. Vincent Tan was the chief non-Malay crony.

Moreover, Tan made his initial fortune when granted the privatized lottery Sports Toto, until then controlled by the Ministry of Finance, in 1985. The deal was kept secret initially, erupting into what became the "Sports Toto Scandal" when word of it eventually leaked.

By seeming to allow the license to go to Ascot Sports in a non-transparent fashion, Najib drew attention to what looked like his broken promises to be more open. He also appeared to be condoning gambling, which is forbidden in Islam and opposed by many Malays.

The government attempted to frame the widening debate as an effort to curb underground sports betting, which is known to be rampant in Malaysia.

But in reality Najib needed increased gambling tax to help reduce Malaysia's officially projected budget deficit from 7 percent to 3 percent of gross domestic product by 2015. One industry group estimated illegal sports betting turnover at RM20 billion to RM30 billion, and calculated potential government revenue at RM1 billion to RM3 billion.

Najib was also outflanked by the opposition. The Penang state government, led by the Democratic Action Party, declared a ban on sports betting, followed by Kedah and Selangor. Kelantan, controlled by Parti Islam and the only other state in opposition hands, forbids all forms of gambling.

Narrowing Najib's options further, sections of his United Malays National Organization, including UMNO Youth, opposed the move. Terengganu state, in UMNO hands, also said it would not allow sports gambling, according to local press reports.

After a meeting of UMNO's Supreme Council, Najib capitulated, saying the decision was taken "after much deliberation on the impact it will have from the perspective of religion and politics." Left unsaid was why Najib felt bound by a tainted agreement entered by a past administration, and whether more such deals might surface.

Barry Wain, writer-in-residence at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, is author of Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times. The original article was published in the  Asia Sentinel on 7th July 2010

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Raja Petra To Najib : Then Who Do We Trust?

Kuching
Monday, 5th July 2010

RPK said...News Strait Times belonged to UMNO and the Star owned by MCA, then we should not trust those two newspaper right ? RPK

Fugitive blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin has scoffed at Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s accusation that he is funded by Pakatan Rakyat (PR) and therefore untrustworthy.

Referring to other media outlets in Malaysia which are either owned or controlled by the Barisan Nasional (BN) government, the controversial Malaysia Today writer rubbished the prime minister’s suggestion that political backing equated to a lack of credibility.
“Well, isn’t New Straits Times backed by Umno? The Star, by MCA?” he said here yesterday.

Najib had said the people should not believe the claims made by the blogger, who has fled to London, and challenged the Malaysian government to bring charges of sedition, criminal defamation and an appeal against his release from the Internal Security Act to the United Kingdom’s courts.

“If Raja Petra is funded by the opposition, it means that his statements are politically-motivated. We should weigh them carefully and not merely [accept] them,” Najib told reporters after opening a Pekan Umno meeting yesterday.

Speaking to The Malaysian Insider here, Raja Petra said that all media outlets were backed by investors with some kind of agenda, regardless of whether they affected the editorial direction.

“So is he saying that we shouldn’t trust any media?” he retorted.

The member of the Selangor royal household has been a thorn in Najib’s side even before he stepped up to the premiership, with the most prominent allegation being over the latter’s involvement in the murder of Mongolian translator Altantuya Shariibuu.

When quizzed on whether he was receiving any money from the federal opposition, Raja Petra replied that “I am trying to raise money for Pakatan, not take it from them.”

He said that his reason for doing so was his desire to see a two-party system established in Malaysia, instead what was described as BN hegemony.

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