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Thursday, July 23, 2015

BEWARE THE 'KAYU TIGA' IN 1MDB TASK FORCE: 2 arrests, one linked to Tabung Haji's chief - Najib SWEATS

BEWARE THE 'KAYU TIGA' IN 1MDB TASK FORCE: 2 arrests, one linked to Tabung Haji's chief - Najib SWEATS
I BELIEVE the chips are falling in the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal.
I believe too, albeit with slight reservation, that the 1MDB Task Force is serious about uncovering the truth and acting, without fear and favour, against the guilty parties.
My slight reservation is based on my observation of media statements that suggest a certain member of the Task Force is still playing "kayu tiga".
But with two arrests in two days, the Task Force cannot be engaging in play acting or an act of deceit involving the Attorney General, the police, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Agency and Bank Negara. They have to be serious.
On July 20, an executive director of a publicly traded construction company was arrested at KLIA as he was about to board a plane bound for Taiwan.
The 39-year old is believed to be a Chinese Malaysia. He has been variously identified as Jerome Lee Tak Loong and his company is Putrajaya Perdana Berhad.
The Big 4 or '4 Stooges' to critics are Attorney General Gani Patail, BNM chief Zeti Aziz, IGP Khalid Bakar and MACC chief Abu Kassin Mohamad
If the information is correct, his arrest has another twist to it. According to the company’s official website, its chairman is (Datuk Panglima) Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim, the Barisan Nasional MP for Baling and the chairman of Tabung Haji. Tabung Haji is one of the many government agencies embroiled in the 1MDB debt saga.
The 39-year old must be a very important person in the 1MDB saga because his lawyer is the high-profiled (Tan Sri) Muhammad Shafee Abdullah. Not every Dollah, Tong and Harishan (the Malaysian version of Tom, Dick and Harry) can afford or would need his services.
So logically Lee’s arrest must have been very significant to the case so as to warrant Muhammad Shafee’s services.
Media reports quoted Muhammad Shafee as saying that his client was remanded for fours day for investigation under Section 17 (a) of the MACC Act. He said he did not know the grounds for his client's arrest but was told it was on "investigation on national grounds".
Then yesterday afternoon a high level executive identified as (Datuk) Shamsul Anwar Sulaiman was also arrested and was this morning remanded for five days in relation to the same investigation.
He is the managing director of Ihsan Perdana Sdn Bhd, the company that undertakes corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes for 1MDB's charity foundation, the Yayasan 1MDB.
Ihsan Perdana was one of the entities mentioned in the Wall Street Journal expose of July 2 as being part of the money trail involving billions of ringgit that led to Mohd Najib's personal accounts.
The MACC prosecutor Ahmad Sazilee Abdul Khairy today said that Shamsul, 54, was met at The Curve and taken to the agency's headquarters where he was arrested under Section 17 (a) of the MACC Act.
Is the PM’s Propaganda Backfiring?
Sources said the arrests were partly hastened by the heightened campaign to discredit the investigation by Mohd Najib’s propaganda machine.
Mohd Najib’s propaganda outfit, led by his Strategic Communications Chief, MP Abdul Rahman Dahlan, had gone on high gear to discredit the Prime Minister's critics and to create doubt about official and unofficial investigations into the 1MDB scandal and its link to Mohd Najib.
The latest to be rolled in the offensive was a little known Sarawak reporter by the name of Lester Melanyi who “confessed” that he knew about the “falsification and adulteration” of 1MDB documents by Sarawak Report (SR), a claim which had since been rubbished by the latter. In addition, SR is taking legal action against Abdul Rahman, the New Straits Times and others for malicious falsehoods.
The emergence of Abdul Rahman and the rolling out of Melanyi and other unknowns coincided with the news that the high-profiled public relations man, (Tan Sri) Lim Kok Wing had hastily resigned as Mohd Najib’s media adviser.
Lim’s resignation is telling. It appears that even he could not burnish Mohd Najib’s sagging reputation. I have known Lim since the 1970’s. He was involved in the advertising aspect of Barisan Nasional’s election campaign over several general elections. In my days, editors did not always agree with him or his role. Some barely tolerated him.
In joining Mohd Najib he must have thought he could repeat and replicate what he did for (Tun) Dr Mahathir. But even in the worse of circumstances, Dr Mahathir’s problems were pale by comparison to what Mohd Najib is going through now. Even the flamboyant Lim could not burnish Mohd Najib’s image and reputation.
Lim is wealthy and has reputation to protect. He could easily say no to Mohd Najib’s money or, maybe, he was doing it for free.
Before Lim jumped onto Mohd Najib’s media bandwagon, many seasoned media and PR personalities had tried to build and burnish his image. They failed and gave up. (Tan Sri) Jalaluddin Bahaudin aka Jalal was one of them. He was Dr Mahathir’s former Press Secretary and Special Assistance.
Medium Is The Message
Now the PM and his protectors (the likes of Abdul Rahman and Ramesh Rao Naidu) had to rummage through the woodwork to find people who would be willing to play the roles once performed by Jalal and other seasoned media people like (Datuk) Khalid Mohamad (former editor-in-chief of Utusan) and (Datuk) Hardev Kaur (the former group editor of NST).
Mohd Najib’s predicament reminded me of the final days of Almarhum Tunku Abdul Rahman in the early 1970’s when chief editors, news editors and senior journalists progressively stopped covering his functions and leaving the task to junior reporters.
I was one of those greenhorns assigned to cover him. It was an honour for me to cover him although I was once threatened with a sack by his Political Secretary, the late Tan Sri Shariff Ahmad, for not following his instruction on how to report Tunku’s speeches.
What is happening to Mohd Najib’s media campaign today defies the very core of journalism and communication as taught by the great journalism guru, late Marshall McLuhan.
This Canadian writer, communicator and philosopher was the originator of the terms “Medium is the Message” and “The Global Village” back in the 1960’s.
He argued that the message is embedded in the medium. If the medium is credible, the message it carries will be believed. On the other hand, if the medium is not credible, even a truthful message will not be believed.
So who is a more credible medium, Dr Mahathir or Abdul Rahman, Melanyi or Clare Rewcastle-Brown, Ho Kay Tat or Ramesh Rao Naidu?
FOOTNOTE: I am sorry I forgot about the Singapore Police freezing two bank accounts relating to an investigation into 1MDB in the republic. In a statement today it said: “On 15 July 2015, we issued orders under the Criminal Procedure Code to prohibit any dealings in respect of money in two bank accounts that are relevant to the investigation.” I think the door is also closing in Singapore. -http://kadirjasin.blogspot.com/

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