ANYTHING GOES in Malaysia: Politicians who plunder with impunity

Sabah and Sarawak are two of the poorest states in the country despite being in the Malaysian federation for the past 49 years. These states are endowed with natural resources that could have made them flourish but this has not materialised under BN (Barisan Nasional) government.

In the penetratingly criminogenic political settings of today, many international banks have been alleged to have become the accessory to corruption in the third world where the money is most needed for development.

Some major banks are known to be accessory to international money-laundering cases involving corrupt leaders. As they say, it takes two to tango. Some banks are ever willing to do business with corrupt regimes.

And by doing so they indirectly sponsor corruption and the plundering of natural resource revenues – denying some of the world’s poorest people a chance to escape poverty.  In these symbiotic deals moral obligation to the poor is never their prime concern.

Perpetuate poverty

Financial frauds of this nature are perpetrated by the government on the naïve population, and by the rich and politically powerful on the poor. A government that permits this to happen is complicit in a vast crime.

In most cases, natural resource revenues offer a possible way out of poverty for many developing countries, including Malaysia. But too often, resource revenues that could be well spent on development are misappropriated or looted by politicians and senior government officials, or are used to prop up regimes, enrich individuals, sponsor elections and eventually oppress their own people.

This synergetic modus operandi denotes that the international banking system is complicit in helping to perpetuate poverty and corruption in some countries. It has become a serious matter of public interests in countries whose natural resources ought to be used for development.

Failures by banks and the governments that regulate them have caused indescribable damage to the economies of some of the poorest countries in the world. By doing business with dubious customers in corrupt, natural resource-rich states, banks are actually abetting corruption and state burgling, which deny these countries the independence to come out of the poverty cycle.

When banks work in cahoots with corrupt leaders and devious businessmen the people will be the end losers. If the system has insubstantial laws, an ineffective corruption agency, dubious judiciary system or no political will to censure such deceitful practices then the onus is on the people to “blow the whistle for the sake of social justice.

Discouraging whistle-blowers

In many cases, the government’s strategy is to cover up how bad things are like what had happened to the BMF (Bumiputra Malaysia Finance) scandal in the early 1980s – the first biggest financial scandal in the country involving the RM2.5 billion when no  one was held criminally responsible in the country for the financial malpractices, abuse of power and gross breach of criminal trust even though it claimed one innocent life – the cold-blooded murder of the young BMF Assistant General Manager in Hong Kong,  Jalil Ibrahim.

Being an insider, he was made the sacrificial lamb for the crime committed by those “well-connected” just because he knew too much about the real issue. This was a heinous “crime without criminals” that ended up with a huge bailout of the bank using Petronas dollars.

In fact, politicians were then alleged to have “created” the environment which greatly encouraged the fraud by refusing to exercise all due diligence when hinted by whistle-blowers on the loan processes. The ripples then grew into unstoppable waves that crippled the bank.

Discouraging whistle-blowers will not do justice to the people as there is always a propensity for those with vested interests and in power to hide the truth such as debt-hiding accounting guiles by some big banks

In 2004, the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) warned publicly of “an epidemic of mortgage fraud” in the US. But the government just ignored, delivering instead low interest rates, deregulation and these were clear signals that laws would not be enforced.

There followed every manner of scheme to rip off the unsuspecting customers.

The real problem to politics and corruption is the malignant, symbiotic relationship between politicians, corrupt officials, criminal corporate leaders, businessmen and the banks.  Without this tumorous relationship, neither side could cause so much damage.

When trust is not restored in the financial system the people will have no confidence in the government.

Timber kickbacks

Banks have damaged the world’s richest economies, but by facilitating corruption and sneaky transactions they help perpetuate poverty in the world’s poorest countries. They continue to willingly do business with these dubious customers for huge profits.

By accepting these customers, banks are – directly or indirectly – assisting those who are using the assets of the state to enrich themselves or maltreat their own people. Corruption is not just done by politicians who have control over natural resource revenues. They need a bank willing to take the money. Again it takes two to tango.

Sabah and Sarawak despite having vast natural resources are among the poorest states in the country. They are both poverty-stricken states with income gaps between the rich and poor so huge. It has been alleged that money derived from timber kickbacks and other loots of Borneo’s resources are being stashed in foreign banks by those in power.

After 49 years under Malaysia, these two states have only seen more poverty among the Orang Asal of the states. Today Sabah has been snowed under with illegals that account for than 40 percent of the population, many of whom have allegedly been given legal status as Sabahans.

The poverty and illegal problems affecting Sabah have also affected the West Malaysian states under BN rule.

Banks help stash their wealth

Today BN is increasingly being consumed with questions of integrity and leadership issues. The poverty problem in both these poverty-stricken Sabah and Sarawak is undeniably affecting the integrity and performance of BN sponsored leaders.

Banks have been alleged to have stashed wealth of the corrupt leaders. Apparently, money laundering has become “legal” when it involves political figures.  For instance, the money-laundering case being investigated by Switzerland, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia involving state leaders in the country of late has badly tarnished the image of BN.

It has been alleged that accounts are set up in foreign banks under individual names and also held as trust for a dominant political party.

Investigations have exposed hundreds of millions of dollars alleged to be from timber kickbacks are stashed with the Swiss UBS, one of the world’s three largest banks. Banks for that matter – in many cases – have worked in tandem with corrupt leaders.

Suspect transactions are often kept tight-lipped by banks until when it is exposed by the inside source.

For instance when it was exposed that a staggering S$38 trillion of suspect transactions was exposed in the bank-politician scandals of late, the HSBC’s global head of compliance had resigned, acknowledging the bank had turned a blind eye to suspect transactions in the past.

In the same league

The people now want to know how much of this money did come from Sabah or Malaysia. If so, Malaysian politicians and their links are slurping the country dry and this could be the reason why Sabah, Sarawak and some other Malaysians states have remained the poorest in Malaysia despite the fact that these states are rich in natural resources.

If all the allegations are true on the bank-politician symbiotic modus operandi to suck the country dry, then Malaysia will soon be in the same league as many other corrupt regimes in the world where the leaders have amassed so much wealth in foreign banks leaving their countries impoverished.

Sabah and Sarawak would continue to be at the losing end as long as corrupt and greedy leaders are helming the states. The ill-gotten money siphoned into bank’s personal and political accounts would have done wonders to improve the livelihood of the natives and provide better basic infrastructures in the two states.

Institutional corruption is killing people’s trust in the government and the institutions, which is one of the reasons why the country’s economy is faltering and the people living still living in poverty.

Corrupt government officials, politicians and banksters should be hauled up and put behind bars. Those deceitfully using bank transactions to commit CBT (Criminal Breach of Trusts) should also be put in prison. And to stop these fraudsters the country need more whistle blowers. As in most cases corruption and CBTs involve the nation’s resources and the people’s hard-earned money.

Countries have been looted

Many of the resource-rich countries have been looted by the very politicians who have been entrusted with developing those economies.

Banks that have been noted to have done businesses with corrupt regimes are the world’s largest banks, including Swiss UBC, HSBC, Citibank, and Barclays. They have done businesses with some of the world’s most corrupt regimes, such as Equatorial Guinea, former Egypt, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Charles Taylor’s Liberia and many other African, Arab and Asian nations.

Is Malaysia also included in this long list of corrupt regimes? Regrettably, law-makers, international organisations, regulators and the banks themselves are tight-lipped and not making serious efforts to make it harder for corrupt politicians to access the financial system.

Beyond that, stringent laws or influence imposed by corrupt governments have made it almost impossible for most of these scams to be exposed.

To vote the government out

Banks allowing corruptly-acquired funds into the country are doing injustice to the people. Why allow corrupt politicians and shady businessmen access the financial system with their money?

When there is a shady deal that involves the country’s resources the onus is on the bank (the insiders) to expose the matter for public consumption, especially when the “laws” are seen to protect the roguish sprites more than the plights of the ordinary people.

Exposing the truth that concerns public interests cannot be deemed as an offence.  This is a moral obligation to the people and a fundamental requisite of the syariah principles.

For instance, just lately a bank insider exposed that Teodorin Obiang, son of the President of the oil-rich West African state, went on a multi-million dollar shopping spree in the US, including buying a US35 million mansion and a private jet when the people of the state are dirt poor.

In fact most corrupt leaders in the past and present were found to have stashed their massive wealth in foreign banks. That much is their patriotic feelings towards their nation.

When a government has more or less made it an unwritten policy not to prosecute fraudsters making use of the banking facilities to do immoral transactions, and instead go after the whistle-blowers to do everything necessary to cover up its wrong doings the people then have all the rights to vote the government out.

Malaysia Chronicle