Tag: 1MDB

Najib Razak: Singaporeans Should Not Judge Malaysia Based On Social Media Postings And Politically Motivated Statements

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said that amidst the time of opportunity between Malaysia and Singapore now, it was hoped that Singaporeans would not judge Malaysia by what they read on social media, or by politically motivated statements from certain quarters running down the country.

In a posting on his blog Najibrazak.com titled “Moving Forward In A Spirit Of Mutual Benefit”, the prime minister said both countries were enjoying the results of closer relations as seen in projects such as the High Speed Rail that will benefit the peoples of both countries.

“I am pleased with the results of our closer relations, and look forward to achieving more. The construction of the High Speed Rail linking Kuala Lumpur and Singapore will certainly transform the way Malaysians and Singaporeans interact with each other, facilitating travel between both capital cities, enhancing business linkages and improving people-to-people ties.

“At this time of opportunity between our nations, I urge Singaporeans not to judge Malaysia by what you may read on social media, or by politically motivated statements from certain quarters running down our country,” said Najib in a posting written in conjunction with Singapore’s 50th national day yesterday and 50th year of diplomatic ties between Malaysia and Singapore.

Najib said the changed approach between the two countries has been emphasised soon after he became Prime Minister in 2009, and it had led to breakthroughs in ties between the two neighbouring countries.

“The win-win solution of the Points of Agreement in 2010 – after a 20 year deadlock – was an example of how we chose to move forward in a spirit of mutual benefit, and put a longstanding stumbling block behind us.”

Najib said that he and his Singaporean counterpart Lee Hsien Loong had agreed that both countries should not be encumbered by any issues associated with the past.

“The days when some considered agreement to be a form of weakness are gone. Our future is as partners. Indeed, recently there have even been suggestions that our two countries should formulate an Olympic bid together.”

While admitting there had been differences before this, Najib said both countries managed to achieve the most when they worked pragmatically together.

“In 1967, we were among the five founders of Asean, an organisation that has kept peace in the most ethnically and religiously diverse region on earth.

“We came together in the Five Power Defence Arrangement in 1971; we cooperated closely at the United Nations in the 1980s to ensure a settled future in Indochina; and today we are linked in so many ways,” he said.

Source: https://sg.news.yahoo.com

August 12, 2015
Singapore Watching Developments In Malaysia Closely

The Republic is watching political developments in Malaysia closely, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who expressed his hope that the country remains stable.

“When something happens which could cause either a political upset or social or security worries, I think we have to watch very carefully,” said Mr Lee today (July 31). He was interviewed by Ambassador-at-large Chan Heng Chee for A Conversation with the PM: Our Future, Our People, which is airing on Channel NewsAsia and Channel 5 on Sunday (Aug 2).

Professor Chan, who is also chairman of Lee Kuan Yew Centre For Innovative Cities at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, had asked Mr Lee whether the political developments in Malaysia would affect Singapore, and how.

Mr Lee noted that Malaysia is Singapore’s closest neighbour, not just geographically, but also linked by “very big trading ties and investments”.

“We have a lot of people who live and work in Malaysia, a lot of Malaysians work in Singapore…and so when something happens in Malaysia, we watch very carefully and are very concerned how it affects us,” he said.

Malaysia has been in a state of political turmoil of late, with Prime Minister Najib Razak under fire over some US$700 million allegedly funnelled from companies linked to state-owned firm 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) into his personal bank accounts. Earlier this week, he sacked his deputy Muhyiddin Yassi — who had called on Mr Najib to explain the scandal engulfing 1MDB — as well as four other ministers, and replaced the Attorney-General.

Mr Lee reiterated that Singapore has very good relations with Malaysia. “I personally have very good relations with Prime Minister Najib, so we hope that Malaysia will remain stable, that we will be able to have a Government there which we can do business with and cooperate with, as we have been doing the last few years,” he said.

Foreign Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam, who was separately responding to media queries on Malaysia’s recent developments, said when any two countries are as close as Malaysia and Singapore, they will want stability in each other.

“Malaysia and Singapore are linked by an umbilical cord…The total trade between Singapore and Malaysia is S$111 billion and we are amongst each other’s top trading partners and top investors,” said Mr Shanmugam, who reiterated that Singapore is following developments very closely.

He said: “Any instability in Malaysia will also deeply affect Singapore, both economically and in other ways. We depend on Malaysia for water everyday, protected by a treaty. You really don’t want any instability. We hope that there will be stability that is good for Malaysia and good for us.”

Source: www.todayonline.com

August 1, 2015
David Cameron Challenges Najib Razak On Corruption

David Cameron has confronted Najib Razak, the Malaysian prime minister, over the deepening corruption scandal that threatens to bring down his government.

Allegations that $700 million (£450 million) in state development funds ended up in Mr Najib’s personal bank accounts overshadowed a visit by the Prime Minister designed to build trade ties.

During a long, one-to-one meeting, Mr Cameron on Thursday urged Mr Najib to clean up his government.

In a pointed move, he then met with civil society leaders, including journalists, the G25 group of campaigners and lawyers, who are campaigning for greater democracy and a free press.

Mr Cameron also challenged Mr Najib over the treatment of Anwar Ibrahim, the opposition leader in jail on sodomy charges.

Sir Kim Darroch, Mr Cameron’s national security adviser, met with Mr Anwar’s daughter who is playing a leading role in the opposition movement.

They discussed building a free press and her father’s treatment.

The encounters followed demands from some opposition figures that Mr Cameron cancel the visit, during which he courted investors to fund the so-called Northern Powerhouse infrastructure projects in Britain.

The Prime Minister said: “It is right to go ahead with the visit, but nothing should be off the table. We should talk about these issues including the specific ones now,” he said.

“We always have discussions with civil society figures, anti-corruption campaigners, opposition leaders and all the rest and that will happen on this visit too.

^{David Cameron meets Najib Razak (centre right) at his offices in Kuala Lumpur (PA)}

“I don’t think it helps not traveling to a country and turning away. It is better to go and talk about these things.”

UK officials stressed the visit was to build relationships between “peoples”, not leaders.

After the one-to-one meeting, Mr Cameron is understood to have repeated the message to a wider gathering of Malaysian government figures in front of Mr Najib.

In an address in Singapore on Tuesday, Mr Cameron denounced corruption as the “enemy of progress” that held back growth and fuelled al-Qaeda and migration.

“We have a strong relationship and that enables us to talk difficult issues. I want to raise some of the issues I raised in my speech earlier in the week, such as ethics in business and fighting corruption,” he is understood to have said.

“We should be working together for an open society and open economy.”

Mr Najib is facing growing calls to resign over the allegations, which he denies. He this week fired attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail, who was investigating the scandal, and Muhyiddin Yassin, who had criticised him over the affair.

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

July 31, 2015
Sarawak Report: Attorney-General Fired Preparing Arrest Warrant For Najib Razak

Sarawak Report has acquired documents, now verified, which explain exactly why Abdul Gani Patail was dramatically fired on Monday.

The Attorney General was on the brink of bringing charges for corruption against the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

We have acquired the secret draft charge sheet documents, which Gani Patail was in the process of drafting.

They include a charge sheet for corrupt practices under Section 17 (a) of the MACC Act, allowing for punishment of a sentence of up to 20 years in prison under Section 24 of the Act.

In an unprecedented situation the person being charged was none other than the Prime Minister “Dato’ Seri Mohd Najib Bin Tun Abdul Razak” along with a company director, Dato’ Shamus Anuar Bin Sulaiman.

The explosive information hits Malaysia in the middle of a highly controversial visit by the British Prime Minister, who had been widely warned against making such a visit in the midst of Malaysia’ biggest political scandal in decades.

The documents, which were being worked in their final draft stages by the Attorney General, were sent to Sarawak Report following the sacking of Gani Patail and have now been verified by other senior parties.

In English the first of two draft warrants spell out the charges being brought by Malaysia’s most senior law officer (who was unconstitutionally dismissed by the Prime Minister the day after these drafts were printed).

The warrant cites that the Prime Minister and Shamsul Anuar and “another person still at large Nik Ariff Bin Faisla Kamil” on 26th of December 2014 at the AmIslamic Bank, Bangunan Ambank Group in Kuala Lumpur, as an agent of the Malaysian Government, namely the Prime Minister of Malaysia and special advisor of SRC International, did secretly obtain a sum of money amounting to RM27 million that was paid through the company Gandingan Mentari and Ihsan Perdana to “your account at AmPrivate Banking -1MY no 211201101880″ with the principal aim of obtaining a loan from Kumpulan Wang Persaraan pension fund.

“As such you have committed an offence under Section 17(1) of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Act of 2009, under which you can be punished according to Section 24 of the Act, to be read with Section 34″.

The punishment cited at the base of the document is imprisonment of not more than 20 years and a fine not less than five times of the value of the bribe taken or RM10,000, whichever is higher.

Raiding Malaysia’s public pension fund KWAP!

The crime referred to has already been widely reported following exposes by Sarawak Report and the Wall Street Journal at the start of this month.

We produced documents from the task force investigation into 1MDB, which showed that its former subsidiary SRC International (whose CEO is Nik Kamil) had made a number of payments into the Prime Minister’s personal accounts totalling millions of ringgit over a period from last December to this February.

The payments went through the companies Gandingan Menteri Sdn Bhd, of whom the Director was Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil (also wanted for questioning) and Ihsan Perdana Sdn Bhd, whose Director Shamus Anuar is also cited in the warrant.

Criminal Breach of Trust

A second, alternative draft charge was being worked on by the Attorney General, which Sarawak Report has also obtained.

The second charge relates to the same act on the same day, but refers more specifically to the Prime Minister’s position of trust with regard to the company SRC. In English it reads:

“Secret

The first draft of the charge (alternative)

That you on 26.12.2014 in AmIslamic Bank Berhad, AmBank Group Building, No. 55 Jalan Raja Chulan, Kuala Lumpur Federal Territory as an agent, as Prime Minister and Finance Minister of Malaysia and Special Adviser (Emeritus Advisor) Company SRC International Sdn Bhd which in that capacity, is entrusted with the control of the fund company, has criminal breach of trust funds, namely dishonestly disposing of SRC International Sdn Bhd Company amounted RM27 juta to your account AmPrivate Banking-1MY no. 2112022011880 via coupling Mentari Sdn Bhd Corporate and Company Ihsan Perdana Sdn Bhd. Therefore you committed the offense and punishable taken of Section 409 of the Penal Code, read together with section 34 of the Penal Code

Penalties:
Sabit errors can be jailed for a minimum of 2 years and a maximum of 20 years and with whipping, and a fine.

Headquarters Complaint No. AU / Rpt No. 252/2015

Sacked!

A close insider has now confirmed to Sarawak Report that Patail had arrived at his office on Monday morning expecting to finalise the extremely sensitive charges he was preparing against the Prime Minister, resulting from the investigations of the multi-agency task force into 1MDB.

“He was finalising it. He went to his office and found he could not go in. Ali Bin Hamsa, the Chief Secretary to the Government, was waiting and he told him [the Attorney General, Abdul Gani Patail] that he was dismissed. He could not even get his papers.”

Within hours of this secret drama at the heart of government, as all Malaysia knows, the Prime Minister had moved to effect what has been described as an attempted coup d’etat.

The head of Special Branch was removed, the Deputy Prime Minister was dumped and four members of the investigating Parliamentary Accounts Committee were elevated without choice to positions in Cabinet and its work was declared suspended.

Other known cabinet critics of the the 1MDB scandal have also been unceremoniously dismissed by the Prime Minister.

It has been also been announced that tomorrow’s meeting of the UMNO Supreme Council, representing the key leadership of the ruling party, has also been cancelled by the Prime Minister.

Now all Malaysia knows why the Prime Minister has moved to sack the countries top legal officers and top politicians.

In an irony of perfect timing the Prime Minister is now seeking to use the visit of Britain’s David Cameron as an endorsement of his unconstitutional move to hijack the State of Malaysia.

Source:www.sarawakreport.org

July 31, 2015
US Academic: Blame Dr Mahathir For Malaysia’s Mess

History should judge former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad as being himself the author of a long national decline that has culminated in this latest crisis, wrote University of Chicago political science associate professor Dan Slater.

In a piece published in the EastAsiaForum today, Slater wrote that Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is right about one thing. “The current mess in Malaysian politics is the making of his greatest nemesis, Dr Mahathir, who led the Southeast Asian nation with an iron fist from 1981–2003.”

Slater wrote that Mahathir has not produced this mess by criticising (Najib’s) leadership, but by paving Najib’s path to power in the fashion he did during his decades in office.

“Dr Mahathir may believe that he can end the crisis by bringing Najib down… But this road toward ruin commenced with Dr Mahathir, not Najib.”

In outlining the events that led to the current crisis, Slater wrote: “Dr Mahathir was holding a winning hand when he became prime minister in 1981.

“Then came the debt. Obsessed with following in the footsteps of Asia’s technological leaders, Mahathir began borrowing heavily to fund his ‘Look East’, state-led heavy-industrialisation programme.

“Privatisation was part of his growth package, but the beneficiaries were businessmen of loyalty more than talent.

“When the global economy went into recession in the mid-1980s, patronage started drying up. Umno split, largely in reaction to Dr Mahathir’s strong-armed style of rule.

“Dr Mahathir’s two most talented rivals, Tengku Razaleigh (Hamzah) and Tun Musa Hitam, bolted from Umno despite their deep personal ties to the party, mostly to get away from Dr Mahathir himself.

“Dr Mahathir responded by launching a police operation under the pretext of racial tensions, imprisoning and intimidating political rivals, and cementing his autocratic control.

“Hence by the late 1980s, all of the defining features of Malaysia’s current crisis under Najib’s leadership were already evident under Dr Mahathir.

“Ethnic tensions had been reopened to political manipulation. The economy was worrisomely indebted. Umno was shedding some of its most capable leaders. This was the beginning of Malaysia’s sad national decline, under Dr Mahathir’s watch and at his own hand.”

These seeds were to play out towards the current crisis because of what Dr Mahathir did next, wrote Slater.

“Fast-forward a decade and all of these syndromes would recur in even nastier forms. The Asian financial crisis of 1997–98 punished Malaysia for the unsustainable dollar-denominated debts it had accumulated under Dr Mahathir’s single-minded push for breakneck growth.

“Dr Mahathir blamed everybody but himself for the crash. Dr Mahathir didn’t pull Malaysia out of its crisis with economic reform or adjustment, but with more and more borrowing and spending.

“Hence even before the turn of the millennium, Malaysia was hurtling down the very trajectory of decline we are witnessing in the current crisis.”

Slater also noted that Najib has taken a page out of Dr Mahathir’s playbook, when the latter was publicly criticised by then Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

“In consummate Dr Mahathir style, Najib has now even sacked his deputy Tan Sri Muyhiddin Yassin for questioning Najib’s repression of the media in response to the 1MDB scandal.

“In sum, Dr Mahathir has nobody to blame more than himself.”

Source: www.therakyatpost.com

July 30, 2015