By Admin
The Prime Minister of Malaysia's BN/Umno Regime, Najib Razak (pic above) claimed that the country’s finances were sound, insisting a strong domestic economy had helped fund the government’s “Bantuan Rakyat 1 Malaysia” (BR1M) cash handout program.
Najib Razak added that the program had not worsened the country’s budget deficit, saying instead the deficit had decreased despite the additional cash handouts. The Scribe would like to ask the BN/Umno Regime this "If Malaysia has extra money from the local economy Malaysia should pay its creditors. This will reduce interest. We owe our creditors in billions of dollars. Pakatan Rakyat ruled Penang & Selangor have excess funds as they manage their finances properly (i.e the absence of corruption unlike BN/Umno ruled states). That's why they can pay their own citizens using these excess funds. No one has heard that we have to borrow to pay our citizens just to show you care for them. This shows the P(C)rime Minister knows nuts about the financial crisis we are in. If the BN/Umno Regime continues to rule Malaysia after the next General Election,Malaysia will surely go bankrupt if it is not bankrupt already!"
In the first place,what's the objective of the RM500 handout to families who earn less than RM 3000 a month? Is it to alleviate the financial burden of those whose incomes are less than RM3000? Pure irony in that Najib Razak is claiming that the domestic economy is strong at an event where he is handling out money to a massive number of households with incomes below RM3,000.If the benefits of a strong, domestic economy is not helping them, who is it helping? We know the answer to that,don't we.
If that's not what is then the objective if not an electoral sweetener? We're not fools, and we're sure there will be plenty of those who won't be taking this RM500 form of corruption even though they're eligible.
Meanwhile in another "You help me,I help you" vote buying scam, Malaysia's Employee Provident Fund (EPF) closed a five-year 300 million pound ( close to RM 1.64 Billion) loan, its first offshore loan, to fund the acquisition of three London-based properties. EPF's loan was increased from an initial 240 million pounds. Citigroup was the lead arranger, bookrunner and sole underwriter on the deal. Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, OCBC Bank, Scotiabank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp also joined the deal as equal status arrangers.
EPF unit, KWASA UK solo Ltd, was the borrower on the deal, which will fund the acquisition of three properties in London for 490 million pounds (close to RM 2.42 Billion). While EPF financed the remainder of the purchase price with cash from the 'Rakyats' (Peoples) EPF contribution.
The loan was tightly priced at a margin of 123 basis points over sterling Libor with an upfront fee of 110 bps, translating to an all-in of 145b over. EPF did not provide any guarantee for the loan, although there is a put option where EPF has to buy the properties from KWASA at a price that is at least equal to the outstanding amount on the loan should there be defaults. There goes your retirement fund folks. Still wanna vote for BN/Umno?
I think you should study the nature of this business. No matter what people who want to politicize things want to say, EPF has got experts who are not stupid to invest in something which doesn’t benefit them – you should look at their track record. Its people’s money so of course they need to do their research. To me this is what you call currency hedging. It’s not wise to pay the properties in cash because what if the currency goes down. It’s all about minimizing currency risk. I’m sure the interest rate they’re getting on the loan is less than the yield they`re getting from the properties.
ReplyDelete