by Sum Ting Wong, Donplaypuks® intrepid correspondent for China affairs
"AND IF $27 BILLION ECRL CAN BE INFLATED BY NAJIB TO $55 BILLION, THEN YOU CAN SAFELY BET THAT $144 BILLION IS REALLY ONLY WORTH LESS THAN $72 BILLION!"
Crime Minister Najib can no more change his lying and thieving ways than a leopard can change its spots. So too with his just announced $144 billion of con job MoU signed with China in a sudden and dramatic shift of global alliances away from USA and the West.
This is the demagogue who was accused of drawing out a keris and threatening to spill Chinese blood at the TPCA stadium in 1987, and who in 2013, in blatant racist overtones, accused the Chinese of causing a Tsunami in voting for the Opposition and losing him the popular vote at the General Election.
Now he is busy pawning Malaysia's prized land banks, infra projects and defence procurement contracts to China like its going out of fashion, not caring a toss about the damage that will do to to our finances, growth or world standing. But, Najib lost his moral compass way back in 2006 with his involvement in the C4 murder of Altantuya.
CLICK HERE for 'Murdered In Malaysia:The Altantuya Story.'
Make no mistake. It was either that or hara kiri for Najib. There is a huge $30 billion hole in 1MDB's balance sheet resulting from the looting of 1MDB by Najib and his thief-in-arms, Low Taek Jho aka Jho Paris Hilton. Together with interest on massive borrowings, 1MDB's debts, much of it falsely classified as investments, stand at $53 billion. The "investments" are represented by worthless "units" or IOU, fake papers created by Jho Paris Hilton through dummy corporations and fake investment holding companies incorporated in off-shore tax shelters fronted by his handsomely paid (with money looted from 1MDB) Mafia.
Genius audit partners at Deloitte & Co were duped into signing clean audit reports for 2013 and 2014, pressured by the fact that Najib's son works there as a partner. Deloitte resigned recently, hoping to avoid global negligence law suits by putting out a disclaimer that their 2013 & 2014 audit reports should no longer be relied upon. But, it's too late. Deloitte can be sued by any investor or bond holder as no audit report can be legally withdrawn after it's been approved via a resolution at a company's AGM and financial statements filed with the Registrar of Companies.
There is another $4 billion of borrowings from KWAP, the government's pension fund for civil servants, that has gone missing from 1MDB. Possibly, a hundred million or so ringgit is accounted for by investments in Mongolian and Indonesian coal-mining ventures. The rest was looted by Najib and Jho Paris Hilton. When threatened with loss of testicles by Malays, Najib, as also Finance Minister, illegally transferred the $4 billion loss to the Ministry of Finance (MoF) where rests the debt to KWAP, guaranteed by the Taxpayer with details classified under the Official Secrets Act (OSA)!
Now we come to the $144 billion of MoU with China.
CLICK HERE. Firstly, MoU are a dime a dozen. A few years ago when Najib went to Kazakhstan for his daughter's wedding, he took along with him a planeload of relatives, friends and civil servants, all expenses passed on to the Taxpayer by the biggest cheapskate freeloader (and his wife) in Malaysian history. To make it look real, some 40 or 50 MoU were signed between Malaysia and Kazakhstan. Till today, not one has materialized as a contract or project of any worth!
Secondly, all these projects will result in outflow of money from Malaysia to China. Ultimately, the Malaysian Taxpayer will have to foot the cost. It's not a case of the Chinese actually bringing in FDI's to invest in sustainable long-term businesses in Malaysia. They will be mere contractors. Remember, MALAYSIA has to pay for littoral ships, frigates and their maintenance contracts. That being the case, why are there no open tenders for purchase of ships, arms, weapons etc.?
Of the $144 billion of MoUs, we have the price-tag for only 1 project - the 55 billion East Coast Railway Line (ECRL). There are no figures for the rest.
In July, Sarawak Report leaked out that Najib was planning to fraudulently tag on $30 billion to the 600km ECRL project to plug the $30 billion he stole from 1MDB, thereby increasing the project cost to a staggering unheard of
$60 billion or $92 million per kilometer! CLICK HERE.
By comparison, work is scheduled to begin on the 197 km Gemas-JB double-tracking railway project awarded to
China Railway and costing $7.13 billion or $36 million per km!! CLICK HERE. Given the way things are done in Malaysia, you can be sure that even the $7.13 billion price tag has been inflated by a minimum 15%. There may be a few extra tunnels, still, how could ECRL cost 2.6 times more per km than Gemas-JB?
A clueless Works Minister Fadillah Yusof screamed 'foul', saying it had not been discussed at Cabinet level at all. So-called Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai's views on the contract are conspicuous by their total absence. But, the biggest and worst conscienceless crook in Malaysian history, Najib, has now bypassed every government department and Minister, and signed the MoU with China state-owned company, China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), for $55 billion, without calling for an open tenders.
The reason is obvious. CCCC has been blacklisted by the World Bank for serial corruption and shoddy works in several countries.
CLICK HERE. A leopard can never change its spots. In 2002 Najib as Defence Minister, signed the $8 billion Scorpene Submarines contract with DCNS of France knowing they were involved in corruption and MURDERS in France, Taiwan and Pakistan. In the end, $575 million was siphoned out as "commissions" by Razak Baginda for kickbacks to UMNO, more in marking up the true cost of the submarines, and Altantuya got murdered!
The ECRL project handled personally by Najib stinks of corruption even before a single line has been sketched on the drawing board. More than that:
1. How could ECRL cost $27 billion and the financing, more than 100% at $28 billion?
2. Where are the revenue projections to show how the capital sum of $55 billion and subsequent commissioning, operational and maintenance costs will be paid?
3. What is the break-even cost and years of this project? In the past, the EPU (Economic Plundering Unit) under previous crime ministers, came up with fancy pie-in-the-sky passenger traffic numbers to award sweetheart automatic toll increase and compensation contracts to croney Toll Highway Concessionaires. Similarly, in justifying $30 billion for the double-tracking railway projects, they came up with unheard of increases in passenger and freight load volume projections. Yet, KTMB has turned in nothing but huge losses.
4. Once the ECRL is completed, if ever, then the current Gemas-Kelantan line will lose big money. Has Najib factored this into his business model?
I will give it to you in black and white right now - the ill-conceived and fraudulent $55 billion ECRL, like Perwaja, Proton, MAS, will turn out to one of the biggest money losers in Malaysia's financial history.
Najib has also issued a full commercial bank licence to China Construction Bank, reckoned to be the second largest bank in the world. This surely means that Maybank, CIMB, RHB and Affin, all tier 1 banks, will take a massive whacking in profits and share prices. Has Najib thought that far ahead to what it will do to his racist Bumiputra agenda? How will the Malays react?
As for Melaka development etc., why exactly does Najib need the China parties? If you are going to hand out multi-bilion ringgit real estate projects on plum long-term deferred payment terms, why not do it by open tender to local and/or international developers? Unless of course, fraud and corruption are major considerations!
Believe me, bird's nest export and research are not going to propel Malaysia into high income nation status anytime soon. And why would China set up a steel plant in Sarawak? Where would the steel be exported to? Malaysia where Perwaja has failed big time? To China where they can produce it cheaper and there is a slow down? Are these MoU for real?
AND IF $27 BILLION ECRL CAN BE INFLATED BY NAJIB TO $55 BILLION, THEN YOU CAN SAFELY BET THAT $144 BILLION IS REALLY ONLY WORTH LESS THAN $72 BILLION!
Remember, all the other MoU too will result in OUTFLOW of money from Malaysia. Where will Najib find the money when our debts have exceeded $800 billion, and has more than doubled under him since 2009?
Jack Ma appointed digital consultant? Don't make me laugh. We had Bill Gates before and where did that get us? It's not Jack Ma who's the problem, it's the Najib mind set. Crooks and thieves around whom (Najib) three murders have revolved have no interest in the PEOPLE or their welfare.
They are doomed to fail spectacularly, not least because Communism and Islam sit uncomfortably side by side!