Our Government is guilty at best of collective incompetence and at worst of collective complicity.
If you can’t beat them, join them. If you can’t join them, break them. And if you can’t break them, co-opt When you’ve dug yourself into a deep hole using a pickaxe, it’s tough to dig yourself out using a toothpick. That, in essence, is the Najib government’s predicament: the harder it tries to extricate itself from the quicksand of scandal-tainted RM336.64 million national cattle farming project. the deeper it gets sucked in.
Over the better part of last year the country has been engaged in a debate on corruption and misuse of position to enrich families Some ministers have gone to jail and Anwar started a mass movement. Paranoia is a psychotic disorder in which a person feels persecuted by others. ... examples everyday of people who are not to be trusted: corrupt politicians, ...
Misuse of a position of power; ... In this light petty corruption appears as a defensive strategy that people must resort to because thei
WA fish rots from the head down – never from the tail up. This embedded culture of corruption has led to squalid misgovernance. The rot is reflected in leakages in MNREGS which hurts the poor the most. It abets the builder-mafia-politician nexus which drives millions to live in slums as land is appropriated illegally. It is responsible for corrupt municipalities, power and water shortages, a slow judiciary and a brutalised, politicised police force.
To stem the rot, reform must begin from the top. The Indian public, long a mute spectator to its own plunder, has finally awoken – thanks partly to Anna Hazare’s crusade as well as to sections of the media still uncompromised by vested business and government interests.
It is for the people now to assert their collective will on those we elected to serve us but who have betrayed our trust. The message to them at the next election must be unequivocal: govern or goithin months, the companies he favoured, which had no sectoral competence or background in
“Who can give this clarification?”
fact 1Illegal, unlawful
“The loan agreement signed in 2007 covers a loan period of 20 years with a grace period of three years. The repayment scheme is to commence from the first day after the end of the grace period by way of annual instalments over 17 years at 2.0% per annum.
Umno Women’s chief Shahrizat Jalil, who is now a senator and appointed minister in the Najib administration, was at that time overshadowed by Wanita veteran Rafidah Aziz aka Mrs AP or Authorised Permits (for motor vehicles). To be under the shadow of such a tough and bossy Rafidah is not easy at all.For Shahrizat, it was indeed the lowest ebb of her political life; nothing she did turned out right. She was defeated by PKR’s Nurul Izzah Anwar in her long-held Lembah Pantai parliamentary seat during the 2008 general election. She also no longer held much interest in her old law firm. Her husband, Salleh Ismail, was also at the end of his academic and research career while their three young children had not started out on their own careers
yet.Indeed, the situation was so bad for Shahrizat that she had to approach her boss Badawi for
some kind of help. She did not know it then but she was going to be very fortunate.
Muhyiddin part of the KJ jigsaw puzzleMuhyiddin, who during the time when Mahathir Mohamad had retired in favor of Badawi, had been suggested as an alternative to Najib Razak for the post of Deputy Prime Minister. But Muhyiddin ended up being the Minister of Agriculture, which is seen as one of the lower
ranking ministries.Muhyiddin was very disappointed, more so since he had no control and had no guaranteed
support from Johor UMNO. In fact, Muhyiddin’s position in UMNO was rather precarious despite
being a minister. He was not the Johore UMNO head; Mentri Besar Ghani Othman was and still is. Muhyiddin had to have some sort power base or at least be relevant in UMNO activities.
For that to happen, he had to find some sort of strong support, i.e. influential patrons and power-brokers.
When Shahrizat approached Badawi, she was ‘naturally’ referred to Khairy, who was notoriously possessive in wanting to screen anyone who wanted to see his dad-in-law first. In a flash, Khairy saw an opportunity to wave his powerful magic wand and kill two cows with one stone, so to speak.
The MoA under Muhyiddin was then in the midst of embarking on an agricultural ‘transformation’; yes, the ‘T’ word was popular in Putrajaya even before Najib, the current PM, stole it for his Government Transformation Programme and Economic Transformation Programme.KJ called Muhyiddin – the rest is history Badawi was very interested in getting Beef Valley set up as a small legacy of his own that was different from the previous prime ministers. It wasn’t easy having to compete with Mahathir’s Cyberjaya, Putrajaya, Twin Towers and what-not.So it was that Badawi was said to have asked Khairy to help Shahrizat by
getting her involved in the NFC project. When Khairy allegedly called Muhyiddin, the then Agriculture minister, he was more than willing to help because this kind of favour to Khairy and Badawi could only boost his political future and add to his war chest of favors owed.Of course, with Khairy then the “de facto” PM, by showing obedience, Muhyiddin figured he would also be demonstrating his flexibility and loyalty to a future PM. Future PM as meaning Khairy, although right now it is difficult if not impossible to imagine how KJ could ever fill that post.According to the Umno grapevine, Khairy decided that the agricultural transformation plan must come on sooner than planned so as to please his father-in-law. He instructed the “scheme” to be implemented in his home-base state of Negeri Sembilan so as to bring about some development there. He awarded it to Shahrizat’s husband taking the proposal from LAT as the project’s framework. It was not a bad choice actually because the Gemas-Gemencheh area already had some sort cattle farming activities going on.Lamberts Agricultural Trade (M) Sdn Bhd knew what was coming and there was no need for them to further waste money, effort and time doing farming business in Malaysia anymore; so they ‘killed the dog’ and quickly backed out.Doomed from the startNow, can Malaysian figure out why NFC was doomed from the start. The whole idea behind the NFC was not at all what was initially envisioned. The original plan was a professionally laid-out and detailed program to incubate, grow and develop a flourishing livestock industry. It had vision and mission ideals such as achieving set goals like food security and supplying 40% of the nation’s beef consumption. Sad to say, what wasactually eventually floated was all about politics, political survival and money – lots of money.
The NFC was the ultimate tool; a scheme within a larger scheme where power was wielded and money changed hands. As usual, Mr Oxford graduate Khairy Jamaluddin thought he had all corners covered. But not all the power in the world can turn mutton into lamb.And it looks like no university in the world, no matter how prestigious, can teach this simple basic lesson of universal goodness and retribution. When an idea born out of good and positive wishes is turned into a selfish and self-serving plan, no amount of packaging or public
relations can save it. It is only a matter of time before the plot turns awry and for the Shahrizats and NFC, it took only a quick 3 years for their dream to come crashing down again.Apart from karma, NFC failed because it was not implemented in full to ensure success. Only a ‘quickie’ was pushed through to give an aura of work-being-done. Just the feedlot part of the complex plan was hastily worked out under the guise of “Projek Berimpak Tinggi” or High Impact Project. It was implemented without much thought and proper planning; the NFC was doomed from the start Now UMNO has to bear the brunt of the impact of its less than perfect leaders. Shahrizat is being accused of letting everyone down and being very ungrateful for getting both Badawi and Khairy into hot soup. It is sad because such thinking only goes to show how far gone UMNO is on the down road to perdition. Stealing and free-for-all corruption is regarded as its right.As long as you do it properly and well and spread it around, like Mahathir and sons have been accused of doing, then you are a good leader who is deserving of top party positions, even as high as the presidency. But if you don’t know how to ‘wipe your mouth’ after partaking of the ill-gotten spoils, then you are letting the party down.
Now, who was it who described Umno as a pirate ship – is that description unfair or is it bulls-eye!The self-righteously indignant will denounce the immorality of public servants privately tutoring the future generation to shirk instead of work. Tick them off by asking whether corporators/MLAs/MPs should set up schools for bribery and corruption instead.
That we are among the most corrupt societies in the world needs little reiteration. But that's not the real bad news. The real bad news is that our corruption has several layers - in fact layers upon layers - which may make it all but...
one were to trace the genesis of the epidemic of corruption it could be argued that the disease could well have been spawned during MAHATIR's regime and the licence raj inevitably fostered both the generation of black money and the unholy nexus between politicians, bureaucrats and big business. With its catchy slogan of 'BERSEH CEKAP AMANAH' and its populist gimmicks i's asocialism was in fact the legitimising of a mahatirmafia.
Corruption is not about money and power alone. It is anything and everything that compromises morality. And today morality is the first casualty everywhere — from Parliament to dirtiest Toilet
If you can’t beat them, join them. If you can’t join them, break them. And if you can’t break them, co-opt When you’ve dug yourself into a deep hole using a pickaxe, it’s tough to dig yourself out using a toothpick. That, in essence, is the Najib government’s predicament: the harder it tries to extricate itself from the quicksand of scandal-tainted RM336.64 million national cattle farming project. the deeper it gets sucked in.
Over the better part of last year the country has been engaged in a debate on corruption and misuse of position to enrich families Some ministers have gone to jail and Anwar started a mass movement. Paranoia is a psychotic disorder in which a person feels persecuted by others. ... examples everyday of people who are not to be trusted: corrupt politicians, ...
Misuse of a position of power; ... In this light petty corruption appears as a defensive strategy that people must resort to because thei
WA fish rots from the head down – never from the tail up. This embedded culture of corruption has led to squalid misgovernance. The rot is reflected in leakages in MNREGS which hurts the poor the most. It abets the builder-mafia-politician nexus which drives millions to live in slums as land is appropriated illegally. It is responsible for corrupt municipalities, power and water shortages, a slow judiciary and a brutalised, politicised police force.
To stem the rot, reform must begin from the top. The Indian public, long a mute spectator to its own plunder, has finally awoken – thanks partly to Anna Hazare’s crusade as well as to sections of the media still uncompromised by vested business and government interests.
It is for the people now to assert their collective will on those we elected to serve us but who have betrayed our trust. The message to them at the next election must be unequivocal: govern or goithin months, the companies he favoured, which had no sectoral competence or background in
This is not a news item that is likely to make the government or its vast machinery sit up and take note. After all, in all 'fairness', we have a humongous machinery in the name of government that does not sit up and take note of anything for that matter, does it?
Clearly, service mentality and the Government rarely go together in our part of the world. This is because by definition, one is supposed to have no service or performance matrix for government servants. By definition, no one in the government sector may easily be penalized, leave alone lose his or her job, for such cavalier treatment of those they are supposed to serve. And yet, the same government servants will be at their servile best before political masters who often demand services they are not entitled to.When I look at Najib, Muhyiddin, Mahathir, Ibrahim Ali - all those bombastic self-proclaimed Ketuanan Malay “leaders,” I do think of Hang Tuah! Huh! All they remind me of are Field Marshall Idi Amin Dada, Mobutu Sese Seko, Robert Mugabe and His Excellency Benito Mussolini Head of Government, Duce of Fascism, and Founder of the Empire. Yes at one time or another they were all leaders of their people, all striding to the sound of brass bands and traveling around in motorcades flanked by armed guards. Leaders they might be but they were all totally oblivious to the look of contempt and disgust from the very masses that they consider themselves to be Lord and Master over. Totally oblivious of the massive harm they have done to the country they ruled. Totally oblivious to the crumbling ruins of their government because all they see are the trappings of power and their personal needs. Never the misery of the people they rule.I want you all to understand this. When in power these kinds of leaders will do what they want. They would not investigate themselves. MACC, the AG, the Judiciary and PDRM (among other Government entities) are there to ensure that these leaders are given the means and leeway to do what they want. And what they want is to stay in power and make money for themselves and their cronies.
And who are the people who have been in charge in Malaysia? For 22 years of the last 30 years it has been this man call Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad.
“Tell me, which UMNO leader does not have problem?” she asked as reported by the paper on December 18.
“Who can give this clarification?”
fact 1Illegal, unlawful
“The loan agreement signed in 2007 covers a loan period of 20 years with a grace period of three years. The repayment scheme is to commence from the first day after the end of the grace period by way of annual instalments over 17 years at 2.0% per annum.
DAP’s Lim Kit Siang pushed the federal government to explain the prime minister’s asset freeze announcement on the scandal-tainted RM336.64 million national cattle farming project.
The veteran lawmaker said that the government needed the clear the air over allegations of confusion between which NFC it had acted on, whether it was the national feedlot centre project, or the national feedlot corporation that it picked to run the operations.
“With the claim that the Auditor-General had confused the two entities, NFC and NFCorp, Malaysians want to know whether the freezing of assets announced by the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak earlier this month was with regard to NFC or NFCorp or both,” he said in a statement today.
“Who can give this clarification?” Lim (picture) pressed.
The Ipoh Timor MP denounced NFCorp chairman, Datuk Seri Mohamad Salleh for fussing over “semantics” instead of taking responsibility for a multi-million ringgit national project using taxpayers money.
He said the husband to minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil deserved public censure for trying to divert attention by claiming that the Auditor-General had confused the two entities that share the same NFC initials, when Tan Sri Ambrin Buang had done no such thing in the 2010 audit report.
“Is Mohamad Salleh seriously claiming that the NFCorp owes no duty of public accountability and responsibility for any misuse of public funds given to NFCorp,” he asked.
He pointed out the massive sums of money involved, from the RM73.64 million from the Agriculture and Agro-based Industries Ministry in development and operational costs to the RM13 million start-up grant approved to NFCorp in September 2007 and to the RM250 million soft loan awarded to the corporation in an agreement signed on December 2007.
Ambrin was reported saying again today that there were several weaknesses in the implementation of the feedlot centre project.
“Why else would the government have, in May 2009, postponed the implementation pending viability and business model studies on the centre?” he was quoted as saying today by The Star newspaper.
“Whether there are elements of misappropriation is for authorities like the police and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate,” he was quoted saying, adding that his audit department made no mention of misappropriation of funds as it was beyond the scope of its powers.
Ambrin said the audit was to determine whether the centre had been carefully planned, prudently carried out and met its objective.
“Audit analysis showed the objective of the centre had not been fully met and this was due to various factors as explained in the Auditor-General’s Report 2010,” he said.
In his report, the project did not meet its production target of 38,600 head of cattle in 2010 because the Entrepreneur Development Programme involving 130 satellite farm entrepreneurs had not been implemented.
He also said NFCorp was a RM1 share registered company with the Ministry of Finance Incorporated, adding that the RM1.1 million in paid-up capital had been contributed by Agroscience Industries Sdn Bhd, owned by the Agriculture and Agro-based Industries Ministry.
The publicly-funded company hit the headlines following last year’s Auditor-General’s Report, and has continued to hog the limelight after it was linked to minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil’s family.
PKR has since made several revelations relating to the scandal, including NFCorp’s purchase of two luxury condominium units in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur, and the alleged use of project funds to pay for Shahrizat and her family’s personal expenses.
The opposition party has also alleged that Shahrizat’s family used nearly RM600,000 from NFCorp’s funds to settle their credit card bills in 2009.
But the management of NFCorp has maintained that the credit card expenses were solely for business purposes.
Umno Women’s chief Shahrizat Jalil, who is now a senator and appointed minister in the Najib administration, was at that time overshadowed by Wanita veteran Rafidah Aziz aka Mrs AP or Authorised Permits (for motor vehicles). To be under the shadow of such a tough and bossy Rafidah is not easy at all.For Shahrizat, it was indeed the lowest ebb of her political life; nothing she did turned out right. She was defeated by PKR’s Nurul Izzah Anwar in her long-held Lembah Pantai parliamentary seat during the 2008 general election. She also no longer held much interest in her old law firm. Her husband, Salleh Ismail, was also at the end of his academic and research career while their three young children had not started out on their own careers
yet.Indeed, the situation was so bad for Shahrizat that she had to approach her boss Badawi for
some kind of help. She did not know it then but she was going to be very fortunate.
Muhyiddin part of the KJ jigsaw puzzleMuhyiddin, who during the time when Mahathir Mohamad had retired in favor of Badawi, had been suggested as an alternative to Najib Razak for the post of Deputy Prime Minister. But Muhyiddin ended up being the Minister of Agriculture, which is seen as one of the lower
ranking ministries.Muhyiddin was very disappointed, more so since he had no control and had no guaranteed
support from Johor UMNO. In fact, Muhyiddin’s position in UMNO was rather precarious despite
being a minister. He was not the Johore UMNO head; Mentri Besar Ghani Othman was and still is. Muhyiddin had to have some sort power base or at least be relevant in UMNO activities.
For that to happen, he had to find some sort of strong support, i.e. influential patrons and power-brokers.
When Shahrizat approached Badawi, she was ‘naturally’ referred to Khairy, who was notoriously possessive in wanting to screen anyone who wanted to see his dad-in-law first. In a flash, Khairy saw an opportunity to wave his powerful magic wand and kill two cows with one stone, so to speak.
The MoA under Muhyiddin was then in the midst of embarking on an agricultural ‘transformation’; yes, the ‘T’ word was popular in Putrajaya even before Najib, the current PM, stole it for his Government Transformation Programme and Economic Transformation Programme.KJ called Muhyiddin – the rest is history Badawi was very interested in getting Beef Valley set up as a small legacy of his own that was different from the previous prime ministers. It wasn’t easy having to compete with Mahathir’s Cyberjaya, Putrajaya, Twin Towers and what-not.So it was that Badawi was said to have asked Khairy to help Shahrizat by
getting her involved in the NFC project. When Khairy allegedly called Muhyiddin, the then Agriculture minister, he was more than willing to help because this kind of favour to Khairy and Badawi could only boost his political future and add to his war chest of favors owed.Of course, with Khairy then the “de facto” PM, by showing obedience, Muhyiddin figured he would also be demonstrating his flexibility and loyalty to a future PM. Future PM as meaning Khairy, although right now it is difficult if not impossible to imagine how KJ could ever fill that post.According to the Umno grapevine, Khairy decided that the agricultural transformation plan must come on sooner than planned so as to please his father-in-law. He instructed the “scheme” to be implemented in his home-base state of Negeri Sembilan so as to bring about some development there. He awarded it to Shahrizat’s husband taking the proposal from LAT as the project’s framework. It was not a bad choice actually because the Gemas-Gemencheh area already had some sort cattle farming activities going on.Lamberts Agricultural Trade (M) Sdn Bhd knew what was coming and there was no need for them to further waste money, effort and time doing farming business in Malaysia anymore; so they ‘killed the dog’ and quickly backed out.Doomed from the startNow, can Malaysian figure out why NFC was doomed from the start. The whole idea behind the NFC was not at all what was initially envisioned. The original plan was a professionally laid-out and detailed program to incubate, grow and develop a flourishing livestock industry. It had vision and mission ideals such as achieving set goals like food security and supplying 40% of the nation’s beef consumption. Sad to say, what wasactually eventually floated was all about politics, political survival and money – lots of money.
The NFC was the ultimate tool; a scheme within a larger scheme where power was wielded and money changed hands. As usual, Mr Oxford graduate Khairy Jamaluddin thought he had all corners covered. But not all the power in the world can turn mutton into lamb.And it looks like no university in the world, no matter how prestigious, can teach this simple basic lesson of universal goodness and retribution. When an idea born out of good and positive wishes is turned into a selfish and self-serving plan, no amount of packaging or public
relations can save it. It is only a matter of time before the plot turns awry and for the Shahrizats and NFC, it took only a quick 3 years for their dream to come crashing down again.Apart from karma, NFC failed because it was not implemented in full to ensure success. Only a ‘quickie’ was pushed through to give an aura of work-being-done. Just the feedlot part of the complex plan was hastily worked out under the guise of “Projek Berimpak Tinggi” or High Impact Project. It was implemented without much thought and proper planning; the NFC was doomed from the start Now UMNO has to bear the brunt of the impact of its less than perfect leaders. Shahrizat is being accused of letting everyone down and being very ungrateful for getting both Badawi and Khairy into hot soup. It is sad because such thinking only goes to show how far gone UMNO is on the down road to perdition. Stealing and free-for-all corruption is regarded as its right.As long as you do it properly and well and spread it around, like Mahathir and sons have been accused of doing, then you are a good leader who is deserving of top party positions, even as high as the presidency. But if you don’t know how to ‘wipe your mouth’ after partaking of the ill-gotten spoils, then you are letting the party down.
Now, who was it who described Umno as a pirate ship – is that description unfair or is it bulls-eye!The self-righteously indignant will denounce the immorality of public servants privately tutoring the future generation to shirk instead of work. Tick them off by asking whether corporators/MLAs/MPs should set up schools for bribery and corruption instead.
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