$362/74 BILLION PINK AND GREEN ELEPHANTS IN THE LIVING ROOM!!

(click on pic for enlarged view)

or 'where did all that elephant poop come from?' 

by rambo keynes, donplaypuks® intrepid correspondents for e.con.comic affairs 

There is a World Cup game being played here by Rosemajib and No.1 Junior Mentor/Mental KPI Minister Roti Jala.

At the same time, the government's No.1 Senior Mentor/Mental KPI Minister, Going Tu Soon, has conveniently gone on "leave of abscence" to USA, possibly accompanied by the CEO of a certain plantation-based MNC which has just leaked a couple of billion $ in the oil soaked sands of Arabia and the tree-stripped gorges (destined to become like the sands of Arabia) of Bakun in Sarawak!!

It forebodes the somewhat long overdue departure from government of the No.1 Senior Mentor/Mental KPI Minister from a largely sinecure (sheikh-a-leg) position accommodated for him through the back door of prime ministerial largesse, after being booted out by the electorate at GE 2008. Now after Jala's coup de grace, the senior minister is left with ONLY two options - resignation and Hara Kiri (Seppuku) or Hara Kiri and then resignation. In Bolihland, all options are always on the table and all options and all permutations thereof are possible!! -

In good 'ol US of A CIA and army-speak it's called CYA or cover your ass strategy. Very often it results in real stragedy or egg in your face.

It involves employing David Copperfield-like legerdemain tricks of mind-blowing illusions, of quicker than the eye can see misdirections. Now you see it, now you don't, abracadabra and pulling white rabbits out of empty black top hat!!

But however you try, you can't pretend not to notice pink and green elephants right there in your living room, especially the ones blocking your view of the TV and live telecast of the World Cup Football Finals, can you? For God's sake, you can forgo sex for a month, but not the World Cup Football Finals!!??

So, you cry "wolf" where sheep abound and make stirring wild claims to stupefied kids about gigantic red herrings that got away in imaginary mountain lakes. Or you hint at dark Zionist and International Monetary Fund (IMF) conspiracies, oil running out or a whole nation going bankrupt by 2019. After all there's nothing like a little scaremongering to panic the people into peeing in their pants, is there? What great fun!!

Why, you might even engineer the odd sodomy trial to distract the masses.

Next you'd engage an Official Secrets Act (OSA) classified $77 million PR Spindoctor Outfit which is a past masters at obfuscation (read as, lies).

Because it's a battle for hearts and minds as well and you can't take an eye off the looming 2013 General Elections. And who was it who said "if you get them by the balls, the hearts and minds will naturally follow"?

Because there is this stupendous, gobsmacking $362 billion hole in the govern.., er no error, the Peoples' Balance Sheet and it just won't go away. Stubborn shit!

So, when is a govern..., er no, error, the Peoples' Transfer Payment a Subsidy?

Answer: When Rosemajib and Roti Jala insist upon it even when it is classified in the Government's Estimate of Operating Expenditure under Code 40000 - Transfer Payments, as so astutely tracked down by blogger-commenter- economics sleuth Wenger KJ of http://wengerkhairy.blogspot.com fame. Billions of $ of pachydermal poop you don't want to poke your nose into, you naughty immigrant and bumiputra traitors who want to re-colonise the majority! $362 billion of it!

NB
At one time before Maha Firaunism, the government's budget was called 'Government's Annual Estimate of Expenditure" because that's what it was as, expenditure, operating and development, usually exceeded income during an era of planned and unplanned growth.  But Maha Firaun felt this was misleading and dubbed it "Bajet Kerajaan" (Government's Budget) which is close to the Malay word 'Baja" or horse manure!! Well, sometimes I do take liberties. Wish it were billions of $ though.

Let's focus, ok and not be side-tracked by side issues?

Here are the facts:

1. Out of $74 billion which Rosemajib and Jala have cunningly re-classified as "SUBSIDY" only $31 billion for petrol, gas, electricity, sugar, flour, rice, fishery and infrastructure constitutes real subsidies.

2. This can be further broken down as ($ billion):
(a) petrol - 10
(b) gas/electricity - 13
(c) toll highways, railway and rural air rervices - 5
(d) sugar, flour, rice etc. - 3

3. The remaining $43 billion are transfer payments, the main beneficiaries of which were:
(a) debt servicing - 10
(b) pensions - 5
(c) MARA college and other Universities - 7
(d) dividends - 3
(e) sundry - 5
(f) KLIA - 1
(g) federal roads - 2
(h) human capital (wtf?) - 1
(g) Others - 9 (no analysis available)

I am not 100% sure of the analysis, but it looks about right from available official information.

Now here are some $362 billion questions:

1. Who's kidding whom?

Transfer payments are meant to be gifts; one off or short-term in nature. If they recur, then by right they should be accounted for and appropriately classified under the relevant headings in the Government's Operating Budget (Bajet/Baja/Horse manure).

2. Why is the Governmment burdening Tenaga with a 50% reserve margin to be fleeced to the tune of $13 billion a year by the IPP mafia? The IPP contracts are largely one sided take or pay deals with 100% cost increase and gas subsidised deals.

3. Why is the Govt, which owns some 83% of PLUS, not re-negotiating the toll highway concessions? Asas Serba has proposed to the Govt a $50 billion buy-out monopoly of ALL toll concessions INCLUSIVE OF guarantees of an immediate 20% across-the-board toll cut, an annual dividend of 7.5% plus no toll further toll increases till the  end of the concessions! If nothing else, this shows the high level of profiteering enjoyed by the toll highway mafiaso. The adipose (fat) layer is very, very thick indeed!

So, here's my free recommendation to the Government on how to save $ 100 billion over the next 5 years ($ 20 billion per year) to stop burdening the poor masses by prematurely removing subsidies that affect education, health and welfare payments:

1. re-negotiate ALL IPP agreements - projected annual savings $7 billion
2. re-negotiate all toll highway concessions - projected annual savings of $4 billion
3. tender out all Approved Permits (AP) for cars - projected annual income of $2 billion.
4. cut civil service costs by an intial 5 % and continue with running a lean, mean and efficient fighting machine - projected annual savings of $2 billion (civil service annual cost is said to be $42 billion)
5. re-negotiate all water monopolies - projected annual savings of at least $2 billion per year
6. Other cost cutting measures, especially in defence procurement and opex (cancel national service) - projected annual savings of $3 billion.

More than that, instead of continuing with directly negotiated contracts, the Govt should go for open tender plus share of profits on developing land banks at:

(a) Sg. Besi
(b) Sg. Buloh
(c) Jalan Duta (Matrade parcel)
(d) Cochrane Road

That should generate another piffling $10 or $20 Billion?

There is also an immediate savings of $8 billion if we shelve for good that strange DRB Hicom directly awarded contract for 231 'light manoeuvrable tanks' for "Afghan monitoring UN duty"??!! For fucks sake, what the hell should we be wasting our time in Afghanistan for when our kitty is going broke? Opposition DAP MP Tony Pua has already revealed that the cost per tank of $35 million seems a wee bit expensive compared to $4 million from USA and European sources!!??

And that's not all. There's more to milk from:

1. One off capital ($500 million at least) and then annual licence fee for  EPL/World and Other Cups and Games betting operators.

2. Open bidding for broadband/ 4G telco licences. India just concluded their exercise for 3G and the biddings of billions of $  were 100% above Govt expectations!!

3. There's also Khazanah's 60% share of S$90 billion KTM (Railway) land in Tj. Pagar, Singapore. That's a minimum $120 billion excluding development profits. Factored that in?

The list is virtually endless! Joy is life and joy is business! Open tenders, anyone?

And who is it who's been the presiding Govt for the last 53 years and conjured up this $362 billion national debt, huge subsidies and transfer payments?

UMNO? BN? Rosemajib? Jala? Wigs? Chua? Maha Firaun? Ibrahim Ali? Perkasa? Helloooooo? Anybody at home?

Bankruptcy by 2019? Not on my life!

donplaypuks® with our national debt, man!