Why Are Umno And Malaysia So Corrupt?

If I were asked to give an educated guess, I would put a figure of RM500 billion to RM1 trillion. But your guess is as good as mine. Someone told me Umno’s real wealth is between RM2-3 trillion but I really don’t know because even the party and its leaders do not know what it really is.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

An idealist (or Malaysian with his/her head buried in the sand) will want a corrupt-free Malaysia. A realist knows this can never happen. You may change the government or prime minister, but at the end of the day it is still the same old system that the new government or new prime minister inherits.

Hence, in short, nothing changes. It is just putting old wine in a new bottle. And that old wine in a new bottle turned sour a long time ago.

Back in the 1940s and 1950s, no one wanted to become an Umno leader. You had to beg them to lead Umno. And everyone they approached would decline and would ask that someone else be chosen instead.

In Tunku’s days no one wanted to lead Umno and when Tunku took over he had to sell a lot of his personal property to fund Umno

Tunku Abdul Rahman was one example of a reluctant leader. But then the British coaxed him to lead Umno. The Special Branch reported that if Tunku Rahman did not take over the leadership of Umno then the socialists would take over and Umno would become a socialist party, something the British soon after WWII did not want to see happen.

Tunku Rahman had to sell off a lot of his personal property to fund Umno. When Umno formed an alliance with MCA, a party of rich Chinese towkays, they learned that you need huge funding to run a political party. Political parties need to work with businesses or businessmen. You help them get rich and they donate money to your cause.

But it was not until the 1980s that money-politics became huge. When Umno was formed in 1946 right up to the 1970s, those in Umno were teachers, academicians, intellectuals, writers, poets, journalists, civil servants, etc.

In fact, 70% of the committee members were from the teaching profession.

This was the first big project that earned Umno a lot of money in the 1980s

After Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad took over in 1981, they changed the rules. Teachers and civil servants were no longer allowed to hold positions in Umno. That was when the corporate and business people took over.

Umno was supposed to be the defender of Malay and Bumiputera privileges, Article 153, and the New Economic Policy (NEP). Hence the corporate and business people had more interest in Umno than teachers, academicians, intellectuals, writers, poets, journalists, civil servants, etc.

It was then when Umno’s leadership profile began to change. You now had to win party elections no longer by promising to serve your country, race and religion. You had to pay to win votes. And it started to become very expensive so the poor teachers, academicians, intellectuals, writers, poets, journalists, civil servants, and so on, began to disappear and were replaced with corporate and business people.

The Umno HQ was funded by ‘donations’ from businessmen who were awarded government jobs

There are roughly 21,000 Umno branches and 191 divisions. You need a million or two to win a branch post and anything from five to ten million for a division post. And there are more than one candidate contesting each of these 21,00 branches and 191 divisions.

And for all the many candidates — say 100,000 people — contesting the 21,000 branches and 191 divisions, how many billions do you think is spent every three years? Cash handouts, expensive gifts and presents, overseas holidays, add it all up over the last 30 years since the 1980s. You will fall off your chair to realise we are talking about RM100 billion and more.

Yes, becoming an Umno leader is an expensive game.

The North-South Highway was mooted in 1977 and launched in 1981 after Mahathir became Prime Minister

In 1988, after Umno was deregistered and Umno’s cash and assets were frozen, it was decided that Umno’s wealth must no longer be placed in the name of the party. Umno will appoint the President, Deputy President and Treasurer as the party’s trustees and Umno’s cash, fixed assets, investments, etc., would be held by the trustees.

The trustees will then appoint proxies or nominees to hold these cash, fixed assets, investments, and so on. These will be people the trustees can trust, of course, because one day they will need to return all this wealth to the trustees or to the party (unless the party gets deregistered or the trustee dies, which means no one is going to know about it).

And for 30 years from 1988 to 2018, this was how things were done. Umno finds ways to get money. Umno’s cash, fixed assets, investments, etc., would be held by the trustees. The trustees will use proxies and nominees to do all the deals and to hide Umno’s wealth.

Even Mahathir and Daim do not know how much Umno is really worth

So, how much is Umno worth? No one really knows, not even Umno itself. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad does not know. Tun Daim Zainuddin does not know. Najib Tun Razak does not know. Ahmad Zahid Hamidi does not know.

If I were asked to give an educated guess, I would put a figure of RM500 billion to RM1 trillion. But your guess is as good as mine. Someone told me Umno’s real wealth is between RM2-3 trillion but I really don’t know because even the party and its leaders do not know what it really is.

Now do you know what the Umno internal fight that started in 2014 is all about and why Najib Tun Razak needed to be ousted? This is all about money and plenty of money. We are talking about hundreds of billions and maybe even RM1 trillion. This is not about saving Malaysia, as they tell us. This is about saving the huge Umno wealth that Mahathir wants back.

When Anwar took over as Finance Minister in 1991 he built up his own set of cronies and syphoned out billions

Today we are seeing Umno leaders and even their wives being charged for corruption. As the months go on, many more are going to be charged. These are people who are alleged to have received hundreds of millions in kickbacks and under-the-table money. Are these people really crooks? Or did these people just do what the system expected them do since it was set up by Mahathir and Daim 30 years ago in 1988?