Records vs wreckords

After spending, or rather, as I see in retrospect, squandering well over a decade watching and writing about the Umno/BN regime’s alleged criminal misrule of Malaysia, I find it hard to get a laugh out of the antics of this gang of crooked clowns any longer.

But last week I couldn’t help having if not a giggle, at least a snide snigger, at its staging of the latest in a long, long line of allegedly record-breaking events designed to divert attention from its own disgraceful wreckage of formerly promising nation.

This latest attention-diverting extravaganza involved the setting of what was billed as a national record for, of all idiotically trivial achievements, gathering the highest number of people to eat together cross-legged (duduk bersila).

And I used the word ‘billed’ in the previous sentence advisedly, as doubtless the cost of transporting the more than 21,000 participants in this ridiculous charade to and from the venue, plus the food they ate cross-legged and the tents erected to shelter them from the elements, was billed not to Umno/BN but to the endlessly put-upon Malaysian public.

Eat-in triumph for Umno

But whoever was paying, guest-of-honour, or rather, given what a bad joke it was, jest-of-honor Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak hailed the eat-in as a triumph for Umno.

And I guess it was in a sense, considering that it was held in the heartland of the long-imprisoned de facto leader of Malaysia’s opposition, Anwar Ibrahim.

Though it seems to me that the ‘cross-legged’ seating attitude required of the attendees could well have been misinterpreted by some as suspiciously suggestive of Christianity, and thus should by rights, Islamically speaking, have been specified as ‘crescent-legged’.

But Najib was apparently blissfully unaware of this trifling possible terminological problem, as it provided him with the opportunity to rebut claims that he was unable to sit cross-legged, and into the bargain boast that he’s fighting-fit.

As indeed he sorely needs to be, in light of the fact that this cross-legged-eating record will do nothing to blunt the appetites of those of us in Malaysia and around the world who are eagerly hungering for justice following the world-record 1Malaysia Development Berhad (MDB) swindle.

The litany of wreckords

Plus, of course, the Scorpene Submarines kickback scandal and the associated murder of Mongolian ‘model’ and interpreter Altantuya Shaariibuu.

And nor will the currently-mooted royal commission of inquiry (RCI) into the billions of ringgit ‘lost’ in the forex fraud back in Mahathir’s premiership divert us from the fact that the Umno/BN regime has an unforgivable record, indeed wreckord.

Having for decades gradually wrecked Malaysia’s constitution, civil and religious institutions and civil services for the express purpose of eternally empowering its leaders, members, and cronies to plunder the country’s natural resources and public funds.

Here, for anybody whose memory of older scandals has been impaired by more recent ones, or by cross-legged-eating and other ridiculous ‘records’, is just a partial summary of the Umno/BN regime’s appalling financial wreckord:

• The Bank Bumiputra scandals of the early 1980s (Cost, RM3.2 billion).
• Maminco’s 1980s attempt to corner the global tin market (RM1.6 billion).
• Bank Negara losses on foreign exchange futures in the 1990s (RM30 billion).
• Perwaja Steel losses (RM2.56 billion).
• Bank Islam scandal (RM700 million).
• Wang Ehsan from Terengganu oil royalty (RM7.4 billion)
• Shoring-up of Valuecap Sdn Bhd with public funds (RM10 billion).
• Commissions to Perimeker Sdn Bhd and IMT Defence Sdn Bhd on fighter and submarine deals (RM910 million).
• Unitemised IT equipment purportedly purchased for schools (RM2.21 billion).
• Soft loan to PKFZ (RM4.63 billion).
• Customs, Immigration and Quarantine complex for cancelled crooked bridge to Singapore (RM1.3 billion).
• Compensation to Gerbang Perdana for cancellation of crooked bridge contract (RM300 million).
• Two bailouts of Malaysian Airlines System (RM7.9 billion).
• Bailout of Putra transport system (RM4.5 billion).
• Bailout of STAR-LRT transport system (RM3.256 billion).
• Bailout of Kajian Makanan dan Gunaan Orang Islam (RM8.3 billion).
• Compensation paid to 20 highway companies, as announced in 2006 (RM38.5 billion).

Other plunders and blunders

I hope somebody out there has been keeping a reliable master-list, however, as the above is just a sample that I compiled for a column titled ‘BN Plunders and Blunders’ back in 2007, and thus doesn’t include even some of my own favourites since, like the RM250-million National Feedlot Corporation (NFC) fiasco and the as-yet-incalculable Felda Global Ventures (FGV) scandal.

Or, for that matter, the case of the RM1120 million that was reported as missing from the department of youth and sports some time ago, and has been little if at all mentioned since, despite the stated determination of the responsible minister, Khairy Jamaluddin, to get to the bottom of the alleged loss.

Just as Najib has undertaken, at various times and utterly without result, to investigate the timber and real-estate empire amassed by former Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud, and to ‘leave no stone unturned’ to bring to book those responsible for the suspicious deaths of Teoh Beng Hock and many others.

In fact, in light of the alleged abysmal wreckord over which Najib and his predecessors have presided, the apparent inability of the Umno/BN regime’s police, prosecutors, and so-called anti-corruption authorities may itself constitute something of a Malaysian if not a world record.

But let’s cross our fingers that, now that the 1MDB fraud and money-laundering scam has aroused of the US Department of Justice and many other similar authorities around the world, Umno/BN’s record wreckord is finally about to be broken.

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DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors writers and authors and practises as a writing therapist. Published books of his columns for Malaysiakini include ‘Mad about Malaysia', ‘Even Madder about Malaysia', ‘Missing Malaysia', ‘1Malaysia.con’ and ‘Malaysia Mania’. - Mkini