Speaking to Sin Chew Daily reporters after an international conference on Dec 14, Abu Kassim explained that the complaint that MACC received pertained to abuse of a public loan, not abuse of authority; and hence, it is a case under the Criminal Procedure Act to be investigated by police, and not a corruption case that falls under the jurisdiction of MACC.
I presume Abu Kassim was referring to the complaint about the use of part of a RM250 million government soft loan to purchase luxurious condos and other personal properties by the family of Wanita Umno chief and Minister of Women, Welfare and Community Development, Shahrizat Abdul Jalil.
But hasn’t Abu Kassim been acting rather amateurish as the nation’s top corruption buster, akin to the blind man touching the proverbial elephant?
Like an elephant, which is made up of many features, this NFC scandal is a multi-faceted monster that gobbles up large quantities of public funds.
How did Shahrizat’s family qualify?
A major government project was dubiously awarded to an incompetent and unqualified family of a minister, for which a huge government soft loan was granted. The loan was disbursed under highly questionable circumstances that enabled the project recipient to squander it on improper purposes. This resulted in a project failure that not only thwarted an important food production scheme but also imperilled the recovery of public funds of that nature.
Needless to say, in such a scandalous project failure, more than one minister, and more than one ministry’s officials could be incriminated in offences that encompass corruption, collusion, breach of trust and criminal negligence – in the award of project and subsequent disbursement of funds.
In this entire chain of criminal acts, the purchase of condos is only one link and not the most important one.
The bigger question is: Why was the project awarded to Shahrizat’s family? Who decided it?
The next question is: Who should be responsible for failing to control the proper disbursement of loans, and for failing to monitor the proper utilization of the funds?
On the first question, the culprits at the forefront are present and past ministers of agriculture and agro Industries (Noh Omar, Mustapa Mohamed, Muhyiddin Yassin), and present and past ministers of finance (Najib Razak, Abdullah Badawi) for having been involved in the award of project and subsequent disbursement of funds.
Political handshake?
Readers will recall that Shahrizat was engaged in a heated contest against her predecessor Rafidah Aziz for the Wanita Umno chief position in the last Umno party election, and succeeded in ousting the latter. Many observers believed the outcome as fulfilling the wishes of the top party leadership.
Under the circumstances, it may not be entirely far-fetched to ask whether there was any link between this RM250 million project and Shahrizat’s successful mission to oust Rafidah. This is an aspect that no conscientious investigator should overlook in his probe on the scandal.
On the second question of disbursement of loan that resulted in splurging of funds for improper purposes, both the agro ministry and finance ministry cannot possibly shirk their responsibility, as it is under their joint scrutiny and approval that every disbursement was made. For that reason, the two ministers, as well as officials concerned from the two ministries have to be probed.
With such abundance of corrupt activities going on at the political leadership as well as the administrative level, can you imagine our MACC telling us that there is nothing it can do regarding the scandal?
Can you imagine Abu Kassim telling Sin Chew reporters that the problem with the people is that they don’t understand the law and cannot distinguish white from black, and that they’re simply tangoing with the opposition to condemn MACC?
Abu Kassim further said: “Our biggest problem is how to change people’s mindset and how to convince them that MACC is independent. Under the present political atmosphere, corruption is politicized and MACC’s alleged lack of independence is used to topple the government”.
Hearing such comments, one can’t help feeling that Abu Kassim is taking the people to be fools.
What about the S’wak CM?
If MACC is independent, can Abu Kassim tell us why there has been no response whatsoever over the mountains of evidence and numerous reports lodged with the commission over the now world famous timber baron of Sarawak, Taib Mahmud the chief minister?
A Sarawak NGO called Movement for Change Sarawak (MoCS) submitted a 2-inch thick report in March, documenting Taib Mahmud’s corruption – no response to date.
Sarawakian Willie Kajan submitted his second report by travelling all the way to Putrajaya in January – no response. Sarawakians James Wong and John Brian Anthony submitted their reports in June and August 2010 at Shah Alam and Putrajaya respectively – no response. Many others including political party leaders have also submitted their reports to MACC and met with the same indifference.
As for the current NFC scandal, why is Abu Kassim acting like a blind man, oblivious to the swirling controversy that has exposed voluminous evidence of corruption and abuse of power through numerous press conferences and Internet postings over the last two months?
Why is it that Abu Kassim can’t see the word “corruption” when it is staring at him from all directions?
We understand why Abu Kassim (and the MACC under him) is acting the way he does, but at least spare the people the insult of treating them like fools.
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