Tahniah, Penanti. Manik Urai menanti....

Tahniah kepada PKR yang menang dengan selesa di Penanti. Namun, satu lagi PRK menanti di Manik Urai. BN kini beriya-iya hendak bertanding di Manik Urai kerana merasakan peluang bagi mereka cerah. Artikel di baah sebagai satu ingatan dosa rasuah dan pembaziran BN, yang hendak di tebus dengan suapan RM100 di Manik Urai... fikir-fikirkan.

(from Malaysiakini)
BN blunders and plunders
Dean Johns | May 20, 09 10:24am

That millions of Malaysians still seem prepared to support the political coalition that has systematically robbed them of their rights to a free media, free assembly and equality under the law is one thing.
MCPX

As highlighted by former US President Bill Clinton’s famous axiom - "It’s the economy, stupid" - the majority of people everywhere are concerned not about principles, but about their own financial interests.

But if this is the case in Malaysia, as it certainly appears to be, I keep wondering how so many self-interested citizens can tolerate the fact that the same thieves who’ve stolen their priceless if undervalued liberties have also cost them countless billions in cold, hard cash.
najib and bn penanti by election 180509I was reminded of this inexplicable tolerance for Barisan Nasional’s disastrous financial blundering and plundering by premier Najib Abdul Razak’s recent announcement that BN has decided not to contest the forthcoming Penanti by-election because it is "not interested in wasting public funds".

On the face of it, BN’s new-found reluctance to turn a by-election into a buy-election through the massive and arguably illegal expenditure of public money seemed like a step in the right direction.

But in fact, as many have commented before me, it’s obviously just a smoke-screen for the government’s eagerness to avoid yet another humiliating electoral defeat.

Even more crucial, however, for a regime already under heavy clouds of suspicion, is need to appear financially prudent in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary reportedly contained in the Pricewaterhouse report on the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ).

Despite alleged demands by senior BN figures that the media play it down, The Edge and theSun and the Lim Kit Siang blog have published leaked details of the report, which reveals the PKFZ as an outrageously expensive example, as if the nation needed another one, of BN’s blundering, plundering ways.

port klang free zone pkfz auditThe cost of the PKFZ project has apparently so far ballooned from an estimated RM1.85 billion five years ago to RM4.6 bilion, RM8 billion or even RM12 billion, depending on whose estimate you accept, through what theSun called "a damning disclosure of clandestine deals, conflict of interest and a total disregard for transparency and accountability...".

In other words, it’s yet another in a long, long list of misbegotten schemes characterised by the mismanagement, misappropriation and outright theft of public money by BN and its cronies over the years.

Catalogue of corruption

I’d love to be able to compute what BN blundering and plundering has cost Malaysia as a nation and each Malaysian personally, but thanks to media suppression, partisan regulation and legislated secrecy, nobody really knows.

Some idea of the staggering amount can be gleaned from an excellent article that one of my contacts sent me from MalaysiaToday.
Written by ‘ez42get’, it reminds me that in the March 15, 2004 issue of Time Asia magazine, Daniel Lan, the Southeast Asian economist with Morgan Stanley in Singapore, was quoted as estimating that Malaysia "may have lost US$100 billion (RM320 billion) since the early 1980s to corruption".

The article also contains a long, long catalogue of crimes and incompetency, although these are just "the tip of the iceberg" according to its author. They include:

* The Bank Bumiputra scandals of the early 1980s (Cost, RM3.2 billion)


* Maminco’s 1980s attempt to corner the global tin market (RM1.6 billion)


* Bank Negara losses on foreign exchange futures in the 1990s (RM30 billion)


* Perwaja Steel losses (RM2.56 billion)


* Bank Islam scandal (RM700 million)


* Wang Ehsan from Terengganu oil royalty (RM7.4 billion)


* Shoring-up of Valuecap Sdn Bhd with public funds (RM10 billion)


* Commissions to Perimeker Sdn Bhd and IMT Defence Sdn Bhd on fighter and submarine deals (RM910 million)


* Non-itemised IT equipment purchased for schools (RM2.21 billion)


* Soft loan to PKFZ (RM4.63 billion)


* Customs, Immigration and Quarantine complex for cancelled crooked bridge to Singapore (RM1.3 billion)


* Compensation to Gerbang Perdana for cancellation of crooked bridge contract (RM300 million)


* Two bailouts of Malaysian Airlines System (RM7.9 billion)


* Bailout of Putra LRT system (RM4.5 billion)


* Bailout of STAR-LRT system (RM3.256 billion)


* Bailout of Kajian Makanan dan Gunaan Orang Islam (RM8.3 billion)


* Compensation paid to 20 highway companies, as announced in 2006 (RM38.5 billion)

I make that about RM126 billion so far, or, according to my possibly somewhat suspect arithmetic, around $4,680 for every man, woman and child in Malaysia. But we’ve barely even started yet.

Financial atrocities

The roll of dishonour compiled by ez42get goes on to list dozens more examples of blunder or plunder or both.

Among these are the RM100 million renovation of the Parliament building, an estimated RM500 million spent each year on the National Service Programme, the National Astronaut Programme, the Eye on Malaysia, Le Tour de Langkawi, massive quantities of unused electoral indelible ink and bailouts of the national sewerage service provider, Port Dickson Highway and Kuching Prison projects.

Also included, though impossible for us innocent bystanders to cost, are the notorious Approval Permits scandal, the "wholesale distribution of tens of millions of shares in Bursa Malaysia under the guise of the NEP" and "alienation of tens of thousands of hectares of commercial lands and forestry commissions" to relatives of BN leaders and ministers.

Missing from the list, I notice, are a few my own favourites, like the redundant Bakun Dam project and the undersea cable now mooted in an attempt to make it appear worthwhile, the Maika Holdings/Telekom shares mystery and several of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s many so-called growth or economic corridoors.

But surely nobody could possibly recount and cost all of BN’s financial atrocities. Suffice to say that they’ve been, and continue to be, an outrageously expensive burden on every honest, upstanding citizen.

So here’s hoping that when BN goes shopping for supporters in future elections that they’re prepared to contest, increasing numbers of Malaysia’s more mercenary electors will realise how badly they’ve been cheated and refuse to sell their votes as in the past.

Or at least demand much more than the customary RM100, or free meal, or a few long-overdue civic improvements. After all, they might as well make the most of BN before it finally bribes, blunders and plunders its way to extinction.

7 MAY- hari hitam untuk malaysia.

Takziah kepada rakyat Perak khususnya yang menyaksikan kemuncak kemusnahan demokrasi dan sejarah hitam di lakar di layar sejarah.Hari yang memalukan ini sebenarnya tidak perlu berlaku sekiranya peraturan dan perlembagaan yang ada di ikuti. Tetapi bagi BN, peraturan yang ada adalah peraturan ikut suka aku, aku suka aku ikut, aku tak suka, engkau peduli apa. Ini lah nasib malang rakyat Malaysia. Harapan saya sejarah ini menjadi satu azam bagi rakyat Malaysia untuk melakukan perubahan yang besar dan mengajar BN dalam PRU 13. Terasa malu sendirian pula melihat wajah-wajah ceria rakyat Thai berbaju merah berdemontrasi menuntut kerajaan mengembalikan stesyen radio Thaksin di Bangkok! We've got a loooong way to go.