Recently Malaysiakini reported as follows:-
Close to RM200 billion of dirty money was siphoned out of Malaysia in 2010, putting the country second only to Asian economic powerhouse China in global capital flight.
Washington-based financial watchdog Global Financial Integrity (GFI), in its latest report which tracks capital flight, says the level of illicit flows from Malaysia in 2010 was the highest in 10 years.
GFI has introduced a new and more conservative methodology in its estimates of illicit financial outflows, which help to zero in exclusively on dirty money. As such, estimates from its previous reports have been revised.
I downloaded the GFI Report from the web and read it for myself.
Para 27 on page 19 of the report reads as follows:-
The private sector in developing countries transfers illicit capital into the global shadow financial system through different channels, depending on the country of origin. For instance, while trade mispricing is the preferred method of sending illicit funds out of China, the balance of payments (captured by the HMN method) is the major channel for transferring unrecorded capital from oil exporters such as Nigeria, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia.
In short, GFI has developed a mechanism to measure the flight of unrecorded capital from countries like Malaysia. You can read about the methodology in the report itself. Whilst the methodology has its shortcomings, it is about the closest measure that GFI can possibly get to in the absence of complete transparency in reporting. The GFI therefore adopted a conservatively focused Hot Money Narrow method adjusted for trade mis-invoicing (HMN+GER). The operative word here is “conservative” – in other words, the total outflows could actually be worse than reported!
Now you know why we had to buy the Scorpenes!
The report also says :
"Mexico and Malaysia are the only oil exporters where trade mispricing is the preferred method of transferring illicit capital abroad”.
An example would be the Scorpene submarine deal. “Trade mispricing” basically means marking up the cost of goods and services. That is probably the easiest way of siphoning money out of the Treasury. What is absolutely gut wrenching is the amount of money involved. In the 10 years since 2001, the Rakyat have been financially raped to the tune of almost RM1 trillion (US$285 billion) by the rogues, thugs, pirates and gangsters who purportedly serve the nation and the Rakyat. RM 1 trillion! 1 TRILLION folks – TRILLION! Can anyone imagine how much money that is?
Where did all that dirty money go to!
However, what caught my notice about the report was the lack of any information about where all this money was ending up. I mean, come on, if GFI could measure financial outflows, surely they can measure the corresponding “inflows” somewhere else. It stands to reason. All this money wasn’t flowing out of China, Mexico. Malaysia and other 3rd world countries and just vanishing into thin air! In the 10 years from 2001, total illicit outflows from China alone was (US$2,742 billion {US$2.742 trillion} or close to RM10 trillion). You cannot just miss accounting for that kind of money surely. It has to show up somewhere.
So, I got in touch with GFI and asked them to explain the deficiency in their report. Why have they not identified where all this money is ending up? I specifically asked if it was because the monies were ending up in 1st World banks, encouraged by their governments. In less than 24 hours I got a response from the Director of Communications at GFI. I reproduce below the relevant parts of his e-mail:-
“We actually wrote a report in May 2010 looking at the absorption of illicit money flowing out of the developing world.
Indeed, we found that most of the money is ending up in tax havens like Switzerland and Singapore … as well as in developed country banks in places like New York, London and Tokyo.
We have no qualms about criticizing the U.S., U.K. and others for their role in facilitating the outflow of this money from the developing world. Indeed most of our work is geared toward getting countries like the U.S., U.K. and international groupings like the G20 to improve their own laws, crackdown on tax havens, and curtail the absorption of this money out of the developing world.”
All of the best.
Clark.
Clark Gascoigne
Communications Director
Global Financial Integrity
1100 17th Street, NW, Suite 505
Washington, DC 20036 USA
Can we get back even 10%?
So you see why it is that the shysters in 3rd world countries can loot and pillage our coffers and get away with it? It’s because it benefits the Western world. All this money ends up in their financial system and they thrive on it. Countries like the US accuse the 3rd world of harboring and aiding and abetting terrorists whilst they aid and abet in the financial rape of our peoples and laugh all the way to the bank. The US and Switzerland are resistant to more transparency in their financial systems whilst wanting the 3rd world to lay bare their financial dealings to them. It is okay for the US and the UK to aid and abet the “financial terrorists” of Malaysia, China and Mexico but castigate other countries for even the slightest misdemeanor against them. Such is the world socio-economic order!
The question is, after we install a new government in Putrajaya, can we possibly recover at least some of this money? If we can recover say just 10%; that will amount to RM100 billion back in the treasury’s coffers. Hopefully, once the task at hand to replace our robber barons has been achieved, our celebrated lawyers like Gobind Singh Deo, Sankara Nair and others will then set about trying to figure out how to recover our money for us so that it can be put to good use. They will be up against very powerful adversaries, but I reckon they are more than able to take on the challenge.
May God help us all!
http://www.malaysianwarriors.blogspot.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.