Just like a salesman desperately wanted to meet his quarterly sales quota, or else risk being axed, the same can be said about Prime Minister Najib Razak. While the salesman needs P.O. (purchase order) from customers to justify his existence, Najib needs document from Saudi royal family to justify that the controversial RM2.6 billion was indeed a donation.
Salesmen can cook up great stories (and they do that every time during sales meeting) about their sales funnel. However, at the end of the day, their sales managers still need P.O. to filter genuine sales from fake sales. Similarly, the time for sing-song, talk-c*ck, karaoke and entertainment at prostitution and massage centre are over for salesman Najib.
It’s been a quarter since PM Najib claimed the RM2.6 billion discovered in his private bank account was a donation. But he hasn’t provided a single piece of document to prove or back up his story. Instead, his hand-picked new Attorney General Apandi Ali cleared him of any corruption, money laundering and misappropriation charges. Thereafter, both Najib and Apandi declared the scandal was over.
Like a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bomber, the Wall Street Journal continues dropping bombshell, one after another. The WSJ’s finance editor Ken Brown told the world they had “evidence” that the money found in Prime Minister Najib Razak’s personal accounts were from companies and bank accounts“related” to 1MDB.
Later, the WSJ reported Najib had received not only US$681 million (of which A.G. Apandi claimed the son of Razak had returned US$650 million or 90% back to Saudi royal family) but more than US$1 billion. Like a broken record, 1MDB and Najib administration repeatedly cried and bitched that the WSJ has lied (again) with baseless and unproven allegations.
Mr. Brown confidently declared: “Our reporting has shown for months now that the money did not come from the Saudis, but it came via a bunch of companies and bank accounts related to 1MDB. Our story hasn’t been called into question yet and we have lots of evidence to back that up.” In short, the WSJ was telling Najib to either go play marbles or sue the newspaper.
Therefore, Najib has no other choice but to produce documents to support his self-proclaimed donation. Not only he urgently needs an official document from the Saudi, it has to be designed in such a way that the date of the document does not create another scandal of forgery (*grin*). The problem is King Abdullah has died and there’s little reason why King Salman should help Najib.
Producing such document may sound like chicken feed to the Government of Malaysia. But in Saudi, it’s not easy to forge a piece of paper even though the kingdom is controlled by the House of Saud. There’re thousands of princess and princesses fighting for a piece of the kingdom’s fortune and treasure. The late King Abdullah himself married about 30 times, and had more than 35 children.
When King Salman was crowned as the new King of Saudi Arabia on 23 January 2015 following the death of his half brother, he immediately booted Prince Turki (King Abdullah’s 7th son) as the governor of the Riyadh Province and replaced him with Prince Faisal bin Bandar Al Saud. Interestingly, Prince Turki was the same person involved with Najib and Jho Low in the 1MDB scandal.
Hence, it’s not hard to see the quiet crisis in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Back-stabbing, bribery, drugging, kidnapping and all sort of politicking is happening within the House of Saud. With Prince Turki out of favour after his father’s death, Najib Razak has been working doubly hard sucking up to the new King Salman.
In fact, his bootlicking exercise requires Najib to travel to the kingdom frequently, so much so that the Saudi royal family found it quite annoying. PM Najib is so desperate for Saudi’s document acknowledging the RM2.6 billion donation that the prime minister willingly sent army to the Northern Thunder military exercise, indirectly pledging Malaysia’s military support for Saudi.
Najib also shamelessly called Saudi his brother. Still, there’s no document from the office of the Saudi royal family to clear Najib’s RM2.6 billion donation scandals. His minions were reduced to telling all and sundry that the prime minister’s VIP treatment from Saudi was proof about the donation’s claim, despite the fact that it was merely protocol by virtue of Najib being the head of state.
If the WSJ’s claims about having lots of evidence that the RM2.6 scandal did not come from the Saudis is true, there’s simply no way how Saudi could provide any documents to help Najib Razak, no matter how close the brotherhood is. Clearly, the WSJ is enjoying itself toying with PM Najib Razak, and Saudi royal family for that matter.
Here’s the problem. If King Salman agrees to scratch Najib’s back now, even though he wasn’t sure if there was a donation to begin with (since he wasn’t a king then), the WSJ might publish some damning evidence later to shame not only the Malaysian prime minister but also King Salman. That would drag King Salman into the scandal, would it not?
One has to remember everyone is holding a dagger at the back in the House of Saud. King Salman is no God and is vulnerable as 8 of his 11 surviving brothers are eyeing the throne too. A double tragedy in Mecca last year – the collapse of a crane that killed more than 100, followed by a stampede last week that killed 700 – had invited call for change in leadership.
An anonymous prince, one of the grandsons of the state’s founder, Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, apparently wrote two letters calling for King Salman to be removed. The prince told the Guardian – “The king is not in a stable condition and in reality the son of King Salman is ruling the kingdom”. The prince was conspiring with his uncles and other nephews to overthrow the king.
The Syrian War and the Yemen War together with the tumbling oil prices mean King Salman’s leadership is under microscope by rebellious princes and brothers. The last thing the king wants is committing suicide by involving in Najib Razak’s 1MDB scandal, which has since blown into an international scandal.
After Oman, Moody’s Investors Service has cut its outlook for the debt ratings of Saudi Arabia and three other Gulf states – U.A.E., Kuwait, and Qatar – while lowering Bahrain’s rating to junk, due to concern over the impact of low oil prices on their finances. Saudi Arabia’s AA3 rating is in great danger of beingdowngraded. S&P has already cut Saudi’s rating by 2 notches to “A-minus”.
Therefore, there’s very little incentive for King Salman to jump into the muddy RM2.6 billion scandal. Furthermore, the donation was between King Abdullah, Prince Turki and Najib Razak. It had nothing to do with King Salman and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed. Even if the king wishes to help out of sympathy, why not squeeze more juices from Najib first?
Make no mistake about it. There’ll be no document from the Saudi to clear Najib. The consolation prize – Najib had extended an invitation on behalf (or rather using the name) of Agong (Malaysian King) for King Salman to make a state visit to Malaysia. Government-controlled media and paid bloggers could then twist the visit as another proof endorsing Najib’s RM2.6 billion donation.
-financetwitter
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