UMNO'S HYPOCRISY: BARRING CHIN PENG'S ASHES BUT ALLOWING NAJIB TO SELL NATIONAL LAND TO CHINA

In one of my previous articles, I asked, “Aren’t the jigsaw puzzle pieces coming together now?” Unfortunately, because of the long weekend break, not many people had the chance to read the article.

In it, I tried to piece the jigsaw puzzle together and asked if it was indeed the flamboyant Malaysian young man Low Taek Jho, who sponsored Psy’s performance at Han Jiang College in Penang, when Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak was campaigning during the last general election.

You have to read the article in order to appreciate why I was making such speculations, which for now, will remain as nice speculations until we someday come to know the truth.

I also asked why Petro Saudi International was incorporated by a few young people, but a former 1MDB executive, Casey Tang, was willing to even lie to the board about its ownership, by trying to link its ownership to former Saudi King Abdullah.

Too many spins

Ordinary people like me have to keep our fingers crossed each time we read an official statement by the 1MDB management or Najib himself to see if there is some hidden truth. Up till yesterday, there was only scanty information about the sale of the 60 percent share of Bandar Malaysia to a consortium consisting of Iskandar Waterfront Holdings and China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC).

Therefore, when queried by DAP publicist Tony Pua about the price of the sale of Bandar Malaysia, 1MDB president Arul Kanda Kandasamy had to admit that the figure RM7.41 billion quoted earlier was based a “valuation of land sale”.

He did not deny that the 1MDB will only be paid RM5.279 billion for the 60 percent stake in Bandar Malaysia Sdn Bhd. Fortunately, the Hong Kong Exchange, like the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has earned the trust of the people, or else, we would have been deceived.

For ordinary Malaysian citizens like me, a corporate man like Arul Kanda should have been more professional in dealing with facts of the transactions.

Whatever the reasons may be, it is wrong to hoodwink the public using two separate figures without telling us what each figure represents! From the outset, he could at the very least mentioned that the 60 percent stake in Bandar Malaysia was sold at RM5.279 billion, although the land valuation had pegged the price at RM7.41 billion.

Thanks to Pua, we now know that the deal was not that sweet after all! I guess Arul Kanda thought that he could get away with the “white lie” (let’s see what Arul Kanda has to say in his rebuttal to Pua) had Pua not picked up the discrepancy!

Because of this kind of prevalent ‘corporate culture’ in Malaysia, many of us are wary of the corporate reports that we read. I remember years ago, when I was working with a public listed private education group, I was told to mention that the group has 18,000 students throughout its colleges in the country.

Over time, of course, some of us started feeling suspicious with the figure provided by the chief executive officer, but we had no way to verify the figures except to say that the figure was most likely boosted many times to look good to unsuspecting parents and members of the public who buy the shares.

About 10 years ago, I was comparing the claims made by a well-known local water filter brand against that from another American brand. The American brand’s claim of being National Sanitation Foundation (NSF)-certified could be verified from the NSF’s website, but nothing of the local water filter appeared in NSF’s website despite it claiming to be NSF-certified.

After studying the brochure further, it became apparent that the company was making its claim based on certain parts of the filter which were NSF-certified. This is how Malaysians have become so easily hoodwinked by certain claims that appear more like a scam to me these days.

I can therefore understand why Pua is saying in his latest statement, that the figure RM7.41 billion was used to intentionally make Najib look good in the eyes of the people.

Arul Kanda may have his other reasons to prod up the figure, but it is certainly unethical for a corporate figure to use land valuation as the sale price, when it is not! The big difference of RM2.131 billion is not even enough to pay back the Middle Eastern ‘donation’ made into Najib’s personal accounts.

This is one reason why I am always wary when I hear either Najib saying that the winter is over for 1MDB or Arul Kanda making some announcements about 1MDB. There are just too many spins that have been created, and they are easily exposed.

When reading such news reports, sometimes, at the back of my mind, I also ask: “Is there some hanky-panky here?” Would this so-called price difference of RM2.131 billion eventually end up in someone’s personal account again? I believe my fellow Malaysians also feel the same scepticism with Najib’s administration.

Our scepticism where we are asking whether there is anything new in 1Corrupt Malaysia, where on paper, it is done above board but, behind the scene, there is another ‘hidden’ transaction.

Impression that 1MDB is desperate

My question to Arul Kanda now is this, supposing I have done a property valuation for my house, and it says the house is now worth RM500,000, but I ended up selling it in a hurry for RM280,000, what is the real price of the transaction? How much would I expect the purchaser to pay into my bank account at the conclusion of the sale?

Was it a good price that I have obtained? Or, was it a sign of desperation that I had to sell the property in a hurry at a lower than the valuation price? Najib said that the winter for 1MDB is over, and the sale was profitable.

The truth appears to suggest the contrary - that 1MDB was indeed desperate to sell the national assets at a discount to another country. Am I right?

After all one does not simply buy assets using loans, then sell off the assets to pay back the loans. This is not what a good investment guru would teach. What’s worse, is like someone suggested with a tongue-in-cheek, would this township be known as Bandar Mao Zedong?

We have sold away the prime land at a discount to a country that once supported the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) and I wonder if this would hurt the sensitivity of the veterans who fought against the late Chin Peng and his comrades after all the brouhaha over his ashes!

Along with a friend and a columnist in The Malaysian Insider, Thomas Fann, I repeat Fann’s words: “We need every Malaysian to lay aside his religious, ideological, social-cultural differences and be united in this great mission to save our country. If we have time, give time; if money, give money; if talent, offer it; if leadership, lead; if organising skills, organise; if writing, write; if serving, serve. Doing nothing is not an option.” - MKINI