Building World Class Infrastructure means creating more personalised ATM Machines.

Najib thinks he can pull wool over our eyes. He says he's determined to provide Malaysia with first class infrastructure. What he is really saying is, I want to do more projects so that we can steal more money. The ordinary Malay paisan will get his RM30 and a few loafs of Gardenia bread.

Can a person who stole RM3 million, tell a judge to give him time to return the money? He tells the judge, he can find another RM3 million to replace what he has stolen. If you give a person enough time, all problems will be solved. If the judge gives the person enough time, he can pay. How he gets the money is no concern to others. He may steal from someone else and replace the stolen.

In a businesslike solution, he can indeed replace every single sen that was stolen. To the unscrupulous businessman, this is all right because he has replaced the stolen money. But what about the crime of stealing? It is still a crime which must be punished.  Otherwise we come to the ridiculous conclusion, that a crime can be forgiven, if it is fully compensated.

That is exactly what Najib is asking us, collectively his judge, to do. He asks us to give him time so he can carry out dastardly plans to replace the money he has stolen. The key word is, stolen. More than half of the 1MDB 50 billion was stolen, spirited away, stashed somewhere. So, given enough time, can the debts/pilferage accumulated by 1MDB be paid off? They can be.  

You see, the answer to the issue is not like the person who wrote everything can be recovered by just monetising all our assets and paying off 1MDB. Hell , we can monetise our future. 

1MBB was not a legitimate business. It was an evil plan set up to steal money from the public. It was a giant ATM machine for some people to steal money and have the money replaced before anyone realise or know about it. Unfortunately we all did come to know about it.

We are not only interested in recovering the money but also to see the crime and criminal punished. We cant have a leader who steals lead the country.

The easiest way is by selling off assets belonging to Malaysia. 1MDB has been would up. The whole thing is transferred to MOF. Since it has no businesses to speak off, what we have transferred are the assets and liabilities.  It has no income generating businesses. It once had private electricity and energy companies. That generated income  but all has been sold to China.

What do we have then. Assets we bought on the cheap such as remaining parcels and landed interests in TRX. It didn’t develop TRX and wants to sell off what it still holds. That way it does that is just like all those unscrupulous but well connected person who got largesse from the government. Sell the land to the higher bidder. That was how all the Malay businessmen and some MBs did. Sell the land without thinking the conduct reduces land holding that was supposed to be kept under Malay title. Just like one blogger likes to say- let the malaiyoos fuck their mothers.

1MDB has landed interests. So they transfer these assets to MOF and is planning to sell them off. It didn’t develop Bandar Malaysia. It has ownership of the land. That too it wants to sell, by finding a purchaser who is willing to buy at a better price. It has ownership of fund units. This is hardly a business. It owns some assets.

Sell them at exorbitant price, sure we can pay. Or as the finance con-sultans say- monetise our assets. It simply means selling the family jewels.

What do we have? We have a balance of land acreage in TRX not already sold. That can be sold off at a higher price in the future. We have a share in a JV development with an Australian company, which we can cash out. Of course these do not concern the ordinary Malays- the peons and farmers, the pasar malam vendors, the scroungers.

We have sold of of EDRA. We now have 100% ownership of Bandar Malaysia since we ejected the JV Company. Najib may have spent the RM741million deposit. MOF- i.e. the government now pays for it. Who gives Najib the authority to do business this way? Henejoys the RM741million deposit but now the government pays for it.

We can sell this off later or look out for a better partner. If it were we who kicked out the partner after signing up with all the attendant festivities, this tells us that Malaysia is not a business partner which can be trusted. That is because the man doing the business is not to be trusted.

And here is another thing. We cannot discount the possibility of some people around the PM may have gone shopping around to be get better deals after 1MDB signed with IWH consortium.

This is a double whammy for us. Already the first deal was questionable to some of us- selling off 60% of Bandar Malaysia under a cloud of convoluted deal making.

There is indeed no honour among thieves.

We have the unverifiable fund units stashed in pirate island Caymans. Now, here is the puzzling thing-why would IPIC arranged for one of its company to buy out these fund units and then used the sales earnings to pay off the debt owed by 1MDB to IPIC?

So you see dear readers, Najib doesn’t care as long as he can cover the holes he dug. And so to the practical business analysts- we say, this whole business with 1MDB is not the dig hole-cover hole variety. It’s not using one credit card to pay off the other credit cards.

But that is not the point. The point is who gives authority to Najib to sell off our family heirloom so to speak? Nobody does. He has abused our trust. He has stolen from us. He has lied to us repeatedly. That is the issue. We have a leader who lied, stole money from us and cannot be trusted. Why must we allow him to cover up his wrongdoings by giving him chance to monetise our assets?

That makes the leader of this nation an unscrupulous deal maker.  Where do we throw the basic ingredient behind a good government? which is, good government depends on good people.

Posted by Ariff Sabri (with permission)