Bugismen or Bogeymen: Finding the real crooks behind Malaysia's Financial trickery.

Perhaps true to his Bugis lineage, Najib has issued a defiant stand. That is commendable. If he keeps quite, people will regard him a sissy.Many UMNO leaders 'hailed' his courage.

Najib is inspired. As he always is when cheered on. So, he won’t step down just because one 90 year old asked him to. He will stay on as long as UMNO members and the people support him. 

So many UMNO leaders depend on his patronage to stay making money. These leaders will encourage him and advise Najib that Dr Mahathir is beatable.But Najib must remember, these were the same leaders who once licked traces of Mahathir's footsteps.

This thing about ancestry and lineage is being overplayed. For most of us, we pick ourselves up by the bootstraps, cultivate ourselves and earned our places. 

Just so readers know, in the Quran the only being proud of lineage and ancestor is Satan and Iblis. When God asked him to bow down to Adam, Satan refused. He protested saying that how could he, created of superior fire, prostrate himself before Adam, a being created out of lowly mud and shaped to form?

Najib must be sleeping. He has NOT got the support of the people. He and his party got 47% of the popular votes- but stayed on. As chief of Selangor UMNO- he lost the state but he did not resign.

It’s not in the nature of the man to resign from his post. His stubbornness however does no arise out of steely resolve but motivated more by the fear of losing all the trappings and privileges of power.

Who would want to employ Najib as a lecturer for example? Or a business consultant?

I hope I am wrong if I understand the only common thread of Bugis-ness that Najib has with the renowned Bugis of old, is piracy. In the olden days, the Bugis plied and raided the seas and oceans and gave Bugis and all Malays in Nusantara a sense of pride. The modern Bugisman who is also MP of Pekan, raids our treasury and all other fund centres.

People like Miliband and Nick Clegg resigned because they are democratically cultured. Najib isn’t- he is shaped from the give absolute loyalty ancient aristocrats. While my ancestors fought with krises, parangs, swords, spears and cannon and guns against the British and pro-British royalists, Najib’s Bugis ancestors made merry in their castles and harem dens. 

I was hoping to stay out from talking or discussing about the latest developments regarding Tabung Haji. The issue is not important to me- what’s RM189 million compared to RM49 billion loan and liabilities that are hanging around our necks?

I just want to know, why should the Malays be sanctimonious about RM189 million when they seemed to be prepared to ignore and dismiss losing RM49 billion in loans and liabilities?

Berbilion di sapu oleh pemimpin Melayu tidak apa kah?

The purchase of the 1MDB land bought at RM4 million at a price of RM189 million was done by Azeez Raheem and TH board of directors. If the deal is suspect or has gone awry, they are completely to blame.  They and the only person who could have directed them- Najib Razak.

If anyone there has committed wrongs, they should be prosecuted and if found guilty, sent to jail. After all this is RM189 million. The poor chap who stole RM2 from the surau, got jailed for 2 years.

I will comment only on the cavalier response given by the Deputy CEO of Tabung Haji later. Especially the meaning of the purchase …is a commercial decision which fits Tabung Haji’s high risk appetite.

Did the purchase fits the appetite of the stakeholders- the millions of pilgrims?

What’s the meaning of that? Was that a straight regurgitation from a Finance Textbook studied at UPM?

The 1MDB mother of all scandals is caused by Najib and Rosmah. RM49 billion affects the whole country. RM189 million affects Tabung Haji.

The Tabung Haji purchase is a subset of the larger RM49 billion scandal. The PM is now raiding everywhere to get his hands on any money to lighten the liabilities of 1MDB. KWAP, EPF, TH, and later- even LTAT.

It’s been a year since I raised the water issue for Raub in parliament and the minister promised capital investments. Nothing yet and the people of Raub suffers water outage every two days.

The kampong folks in Kampung Sungai Petaling in Sungai Pasu Luar Raub can do with a few hundred thousand allocation to deepen and straighten a river.

The Indians living behind Tong Fatt supermarket Raub can do with a housing project.

These are more important things to ordinary people in Raub as they are to others in many nooks and crannies across the country. But the country lacks money. Thieves are raiding our treasury and funds. No one is save from the thieves any longer. 

But the 1MDB issue has taken on a new dimension. It has taken money from Tabung Haji. A black spectre is hovering over Tabung Haji in the form of the greatest apple polisher- Azeez Raheem.

The UMNO Malays are treating him as a genius for spending RM189 million to get a profit of RM5 million. That has not happened yet- because the land has not been disposed of.

TH has still got to find a sucker to buy the land at RM194 (189 +5) million plus GST. TH still has to pay RPGT or is TH exempted because the money belongs to Muslims? Plus the would-be sucker who will buy the land, knows the land was bought at RM4 million plus whatever improvements 1MDB did on the land. Don’t tell us, 1MDB spent RM4 billion on earth works on the land? It could not- if it can’t even raise RM2 billion to pay a loan.

If the cost of the so called improvements is exorbitant, then SPRM should investigate who gave out the tender to whatever company which got it.

Hello- with 1MDB or any government infra projects- it’s a harrowing tale of dipping dirty hands into the kitty.

Compare that to my Ah Weng, the durian trader in Sungai Klau Raub who spent RM500,000 and got RM1 million. With a skill for doubling profits, maybe Ah Weng can be drafted to head Tabung Haji. 

Then we shall call him Haji Ah Weng.

The people – ordinary folks who put in a few hundred Ringgit a month into the Pilgrim Fund are now crying a river and their tears are not subsiding. 

TH is the MAIN issue everywhere now.

Because, it has dragged the Malays into the issue. When the excuse-giving and after-the fact- rationalising Malays become angry, nothing can save Najib anymore. 
Examples: never mind- the people involved in 1MDB are mostly Malays. They can steal a bit, after all the Chinese are stealing from us every day. Or never mind- we bought end of shelf life IPPs- because, it’s imperative that Malays now buy them over.

So 1MDB has suddenly become an entity representing Malay economic endeavours despite the fact, the Fund is operated by one chubby china man.

I can’t believe Malays give these reasons- These are reasons more in character given by Pak Sako’s Mr Poh Kee Mak. I hope people can still remember Pak Sako- Ishak Hj Muhammad who hailed from Termerloh.

So Tabung Haji has become a dangerous development for Najib. The Malays are angry. If they were reluctant before, the Malays now have reasons to reject Najib. If that is not a message about rejection of the people, than Najib must be real thick. 
It doesn’t matter really, if all the 3.2 million UMNO members support Najib- what matters more is support from the people. 3.2 million votes cannot save Najib. There were almost 7 million Malay voters in PRU13.

I was reluctant to discuss the issue because I thought Malays are being farcical and hypocritical about the issue. It became a concern for Malays who are Muslims, ONLY when the 1MDB toxic infected Tabung Haji.

What is RM189 million compared to the RM49 billion of loans and liabilities? Najib created the mother of all scandals in just a space of 6 years.  We should be asking what’s so special about 1MDB that the government felt compelled to stand as guarantor to the loans and bond issues of 1MDB? 
It’s not even a statutory body. It’s a 3^rd party.

The answer, which should be obvious to Malays now- forget the UMNO people- the real con-men of 1MDB notably Jho Low enjoy a special relationship with Najib and his missus. Jho Low had the backing of the first couple- so he can bulldozed into anything. What do they care how the Malays feel?

If the 1MDB issue had not affected Tabung Haji, would the Malay/Muslims rise in arms against the incompetence, greed and dishonesty of Najib? 
Or would the Malays adopt the attitude which I have attacked for so long- it’s ok because the perpetrators are one of us. The PM is Malay and is one of us- it’s ok if he steals.

Now this tabung Haji scandal has become something like carelessly allowing UMNO goons entering our houses and sleeping with our wives and daughters or in the case of some, allowing some UMNO shemale goons molesting or daughters. But then we excuse their transgressions because, they are one of us- they are Malays.

I am not excusing Dr Mahathir of responsibility for the many scandals that occurred during his tenure of 22 years. But that’s over 22 years and the mess he created is already past. We invoke them, to shore up our frustrations and cravings for some form of revenge. The mess Najib created is now and current and they happen when all of us are all mentally more vigilant.

One Chinese gentleman in Sungai Ruan Raub was talking to me about Tabung Haji’s plan to sell the land it bought from 1MDB and making a profit of around RM5 million. It won’t make the RM5 million because, he says TH has to pay RPGT and GST. If china men must pay, TH must pay too.

He went on asking me- where did the chairman of TH go to school to? Why I asked? Tell the TH chairman- the chinaman in Sungai Ruan is better than him. He spends almost RM189 million, to get a profit of RM5 million.

The chinaman would at least get 15-20 million return on a spending of RM189 million. So tell me, what school did he go to. I half-jokingly told him- maybe he went to Stamford University or Preston University where many BN leaders got their PhDs.

I want to believe that we Malays are made of sterner moral stuff. If we are outraged and feel revolted by what Najib and Rosmah are doing to this country and the complicity of UNMNO in all these dastardly things, Malays have no option but to reject them. Let the people speak to the hard to understand Najib.