Now that Bersih is over (part 2)

 

According to what Najib’s people are claiming, Abdullah Badawi received almost RM500 million in ‘donations’ to approve this project, a project that so many countries such as China rejected. Even the Latin American and African countries rejected this project. No one wanted it. But Malaysia agreed to accept it for the RM500 million in donation that was paid. 

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Any turn-around manager will tell you that to turn around an organisation in dire straits or an organisation in distress you must attack the top three problems plaguing that organisation. In most cases the top three problems result in 80% or 90% of an organisation’s problems. And the remaining problems can sometimes solve themselves once the top three are resolved.

So what are the top three problems facing Umno and Barisan Nasional? These can change from time-to-time. However, if Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak were to hold the 13th General Election today, I would say that the top three problems facing Umno and Barisan Nasional are Bersih, Lynas and the NFC. If Najib can resolve these three issue then he can dissolve Parliament this month and hold the general elections within 30 days of that.

Lynas is actually a more serious problem than many people realise. And I am not talking about the ecological or potential health problem but the political fallout to Umno and Barisan Barisan. Lynas is a project in Najib’s home state of Pahang. Pahang, like Johor, has always been regarded as Umno’s fortress (Kubu Umno, as the Malays would say). But because of the Lynas project, that is about to change. Pahang may no longer be that fortress that it used to be. And this is worrying Najib like hell. 

Najib can easily solve this problem by killing the Lynas project. That would, of course, be in theory. Just kill Lynas and the problem would go away. But they can’t do that. And they can’t do that for many reasons. Hence Najib is caught between rock and a hard place. He knows that Lynas is bad news but he can’t do anything about it.

Actually, Lynas is not Najib’s project. It is Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s project. And what Najib can’t seem to understand is why was Lynas given this licence to print money? And if Najib wants to close down Lynas to make the problem go away then he would be opening a whole can of worms that can actually work against Umno and Barisan Nasional rather than save them.

According to what Najib’s people are claiming, Abdullah Badawi received almost RM500 million in ‘donations’ to approve this project, a project that so many countries such as China rejected. Even the Latin American and African countries rejected this project. No one wanted it. But Malaysia agreed to accept it for the RM500 million in donation that was paid. 

RM500 million sounds like a lot of money. But RM500 million is actually pittance if you consider that the company is expected to make RM1 billion a year and has been given a tax holiday of 12 years. That would mean RM12 billion tax-free profits for a mere RM500 million in kickback.

If Najib wants to kill the project he can always get Umno to refund the RM500 million that was paid. Surely RM500 million is not that big a sum for Umno, which can easily get its hands on billions of Ringgit. Okay, the project has been completed at a cost of RM1.2 billion and is ready to run. So the government must also compensate Lynas for the RM1.2 billion it already spent. 

That comes to only RM1.7 billion in total, not too great a sum to make sure that Pahang does not fall to the opposition. And if Pahang falls to the opposition, like Penang did in 2008, then just like what happened to Abdullah Badawi, Najib too would be ousted from office.

But this is not just about the RM1.7 billion. What about the ‘loss of profits’ amounting to another RM12 billion over 12 years? Can the government also compensate Lynas that RM12 billion loss of profits as well? That is something that the government can ill afford.

Furthermore, this is not only about the money. The Royal Family is also involved. And how much would the government have to pay the Royal Family as compensation as well? How many billions would they also want?

Sure, kill the project and the problem would go away. It only needs money to achieve that. But the money we are talking about may finally come to RM20 billion or RM30 billion. And Malaysia does not have RM20 billion or RM30 billion to pay out as compensation to kill the project.

What will happen if Pakatan Rakyat takes over the federal government and Anwar Ibrahim becomes the new Prime Minister? Can Anwar do what Najib cannot do? Can Anwar or the Pakatan Rakyat government kill Lynas? Will Malaysia have RM20 billion or RM30 billion to pay as compensation to kill the project? 

Najib inherited this project just like Anwar will if he takes over as Prime Minister. And Anwar’s hands will be tied just like how Najib’s is. The cost to kill this project will be extremely expensive for the country. And whether Najib stays on as Prime Minister or Anwar takes over, it will still be a costly exercise to kill the project.

How the hell did Malaysia approve a project that so many other countries refused to take? And why give them a 12-year tax holiday on top of that when they are going to be making RM1 billion a year? They don’t need any tax breaks! Instead, Malaysia should whack them for as much tax as we can. And, most importantly, did the RM500 million really go to Umno or did it go into the pockets of certain Unmo people?

According to Najib’s people, Umno did not receive the money. They said that the money went into Abdullah Badawi’s pocket. So how can Umno refund money it did not receive?

Would Abdullah Badawi dare do something like this? Okay, maybe he knew he was at the end of his term and that he was about to get kicked out. Nevertheless, Lynas is a very high profile issue and surely you can’t keep a high profile issue such as Lynas below the radar screen.

It seems Lynas is not the only disaster created by Abdullah Badawi that Najib had to inherit. The NFC project is yet another. This is another disaster that was left by Abdullah Badawi and which Najib has now inherited. And it seems Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is pissed big time about this.

When the NFC proposal was first mooted, Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin rejected it. Khairy Jamaluddin then pushed it to the Ministry of Finance and got his father-in-law to approve it. After it was approved by the Minister of Finance cum Prime Minister, the project was pushed back to the Ministry of Agriculture. And now it is Najib’s problem, an inheritance left by Abdullah Badawi.

Yes, how does Najib solve the Lynas and the NFC matters? He can’t. And the voters do not care that both these disasters were Abdullah Badawi’s doing and that Najib merely inherited the problems. As far as the voters are concerned, both Lynas and the NFC are Umno’s and Barisan Nasional’s doing. And the voters are going to punish the ruling party in the coming general election, never mind which Prime Minister is guilty of these crimes.

Again, I will stop here for the meantime and will continue in part three the other issues that are preventing Najib from calling for the general election in June as he had originally planned. So stay tuned as I take you through my series called Now that Bersih is over.