The Sungai Buloh Prison may soon receive a new inmate, joked PKR president Anwar Ibrahim, who was a prisoner there.
In a swipe at embattled former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak, who is on trial for seven of his 42 1MDB-related charges, Anwar said that his former jail cell is yet to be occupied.
“I treated almost 250 Sungai Buloh prison officers to dinner at my house and I asked them if my cell was still empty. They said yes.
“So I asked them to clean it up because there might be a new inmate coming in,” he said in jest during a by-election ceramah at Kampung Pasir in Linsum, Rantau, last night.
The audience responded with shouts of “Bossku!”, referring to Najib’s self-styled persona following BN’s loss in the 14th general election (GE14).
Anwar was formerly interned at Sungai Buloh for almost three years for his Sodomy II charge, which he insists was a politically motivated attack on him.
He was freed after Pakatan Harapan won government in GE14, and accorded a full royal pardon for both sodomy charges.
‘Umno leaders also heading to jail’
Anwar, who is also Port Dickson MP, added that many Umno leaders are facing a similar fate as Najib.
“Umno knows it cannot fight (Harapan) anymore. Its (Umno’s) leaders are all queuing up to go to jail.
“Where will they go after this?” he asked, to which the crowd responded saying “Sungai Buloh”.
Among the Umno leaders facing criminal charges are former deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, former Federal Territories minister Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, former Felda chairperson Isa Samad and former Tabung Haji chairperson Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim.
Anwar went on to urge the voters to support Harapan in the coming April 13 Rantau by-election.
“I ask that the Rantau voters choose the best candidate, not a thief.
“This is a by-election, but it involves big issues. If you don’t vote for Harapan but for Umno-PAS, I believe our country will not be safe,” he said, adding that Malaysia belonged to all races.
The by-election will see incumbent and Umno acting president Mohamad Hasan square off with Harapan’s Dr S Streram, who is from PKR, as well as two independent candidates – homemaker R Malar and retired lecturer Mohd Nor Yassin.
The by-election was triggered by Streram’s successful election appeal against Mohamad’s uncontested win in GE14, after Streram was barred from entering the nomination centre for not having an Election Commission pass with him. – mkini
Would a thief leave RM174 billion in Petronas, asks Najib
FORMER prime minister Najib Razak denied allegations that he stole from the government when he was in office, saying his administration had left state oil company Petronas with a cash reserve of RM174 billion.
Najib said it was Pakatan Harapan which has used those funds for federal expenses when it took over Putrajaya, after which the national debt saw a sudden rise.
“The national debt during my time stood at RM686 billion, as confirmed by Bank Negara Malaysia. Today, the national debt is RM777.1 billion – it has gone up by RM85 billion in 10 months.
“And because of that, they (government) took Petronas’ money, as much as RM82 billion. If I were really a thief, which thief would leave as much as RM174 billion in Petronas?” he said during a ceramah in Bandar Sri Sendayan, Negri Sembilan, last night.
Najib is facing 42 criminal charges including of money laundering, abuse of power and criminal breach of trust in relation to his brainchild, 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) and its missing billions.
He is on trial now for seven of those charges, which are linked to SRC International, a former 1MDB subsidiary. The trial opened on Wednesday in the high court in Kuala Lumpur.
In November last year, Petronas announced that it would be paying an additional RM30 billion in special dividends in the 2019 Budget to help the government pay RM37 billion in goods and services tax and income tax refunds.
Petronas, in a statement, said the special dividend payment would not adversely affect operations.
Petronas announced a 12% revenue increase to RM251 billion last year from RM223.6 billion in 2017, driven by higher average realised prices for its key products.
Najib said that while he was in power, he had only taken a small portion of dividends from Petronas so that it would have more money to invest in new sources of income. – the malaysian insight
mkini / the malaysian insight
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