Malaysia’s 13 best scams

The biggest scams in Malaysia are those conceived by the BN federal government.

COMMENT

Forget about the African-based black money scam. The biggest scams in Malaysia are those conceived by the Barisan Nasional federal government.

It is they who are professional scam-masters par excellence and they have two types of scams: the Money Scam and the Concept Scam.

This write-up will list both types of scams for your perusal.

First of all, the Money Scam:

1. SARA (Skim Amanah Rakyat) – This is the greatest investment scam ever. Dump in RM5,000 cash at one go and you will get RM13,000 in five years’ time. This is just too good to be true because the returns are more than doubled but still there will be many gullible “investors”. However, there are some who say that this is a scheme by the government to obtain the rakyat’s money to finance handouts to the rakyat during the campaign duration of the 13th general election. Whether there is any truth to this or not, only the wise can tell.

2. 1Care – this will just involved the rakyat paying more to the government and its cronies where health facilities are concerned. This scam is targeted at enriching the elite and the well-connected as is the purpose for all the scams.

3. EPF Housing Loan Scheme – this scheme is dangerous to the EPF contributors and could lead to a similar situation akin to the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the US if there are too many loan defaulters. EPF is rightly named the government’s Eternal Pilferage Fund and has now ended up as the government’s treasure chest. All the private sector workers who contribute to this fund have to protest. This shows that the BN government has run out of money in trying to help the rakyat and is now using the rakyat’s money to help the rakyat.

4. 1Malaysia products, badges, stickers, mugs, whatever – the purpose of these products is to enrich the corny manufacturer. Enough said.

5. BR1M (Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia) – has all the money (more than RM2 billion) allocated for this purpose been distributed? Some opined that part of the funds will be channelled into BN’s general election campaign machinery. No prizes for guessing, though, as BR1M is much shrouded in secrecy. All those who applied for this RM500 aid should be getting this cash because only those eligible will apply. Therefore, it defies logical explanation when there are still people who fail to obtain this cash aid. Thus, this has given rise to speculation that applicants staying in opposition areas where BN has no chance of winning will not be given this aid. This then begs the question where the remaining undistributed allocated funds will be chanelled to, a question which the BN government will surely find difficult to answer.

Next comes the Concept Scam:

6. 1Malaysia – the most prominent Concept Scam which is engineered to create a mind-numbing cult following with everyone chanting “1Malaysia, 1Malaysia” in a hypnotised state similar to what goes on in cult sessions. There is no solid foundation to this concept although Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak has the gumption to state that this is a philosophy. Even those in his own camp do not adhere to this philosophy, not to mention practise it wholeheartedly 24/7. 1Malaysia is thus a concept to delude the masses, to cheat the people into voting for BN.

7. GTP (Government Transformation Programme) and ETP (Economic Transformation Programme) – these twin transformation programmes have transformed the pockets of government cronies from millionaires into billionaires and maybe even trillionaires. As for the rest of the ordinary rakyat, all we get is nothing but hot air.

8. NKRAs (National Key Result Areas) and NKEAs (National Key Economic Areas) – lengthy names but more of the same fluff.

9. NEM (New Economic Model) – is this dead and buried?

10. EOC (Equal Opportunities Commission) – this IS dead and buried. It should have been part of the NEM but was omitted due to intense pressure-lobbying from certain quarters.

11. Talent Corp – much money has been channelled into this corporation to promote Malaysia as a place of golden opportunities in order to attract Malaysian talent living overseas to return to these golden shores. Has the success rate of Talent Corp been published? Seems to have gone into near-oblivion.

12. E-mail scam – why must money be paid to a certain company just for sending out e-mails when there is free-of-charge e-mail service readily available on the world wide web?!

13. The 13th general election – this has been labelled the “mother of all battles” by the BN leaders and therefore it follows that this must be the mother of all scams because it involves money, concept (BN’s sloganeering) and the future of the nation; this is big-time scamming indeed. In this scam, foreign workers are given citizenship and their names inserted into the voter rolls to enable them to vote in the coming general election. This scam can result in the negation of Malaysian votes and therefore the true election results are subverted.

From the above listing, it leaves us no doubt that we are living in scam-country. The ideas that go into each scam is elaborate and simple at the same time. And really so many ideas!

By the way, has anyone noticed that Najib is the one and only prime minister who has spewed forth the most number of acronyms showcasing his so-called bold initiatives?

It is time for the rakyat to wake up to all these “bold initiatives” which are in fact well-designed scams. It is also a salient point to note that suddenly the SARA and BR1M scams are running concurrently so close to the general election. Is there anything to this? Mind you, these scams can generate much funds for the government.

All said and done, we must put an end to all these scams. Otherwise, it will seem that we enjoy getting duped by a bunch of crooked professional scammers.

Selena Tay is a FMT columnist.