MALAYSIA RM1.087 TRILLION DEBT, A ROSE BY ANY NAME! by e.s. shankar

by E.S. Shankar

Shakespeare said 'A Rose by any name would smell as sweet!'

If you borrowed $1 million from the bank to buy a house, guaranteed your best friend's $50,000 car loan and stood surety for your daughter's $100,000 study loan, and you and/or they default? Then it's yo ass, baby! You have to cough up, whether you like it or not.

It's the same with the Malaysian government debt, whether it's the IMF/World Bank defined country debt or guarantees provided for govt companies, statutory bodies and agencies (e.g.1MDB/PTPTN/Prasarna) or fake/fraud "lease arrangements" like the $30 billion PPFI. When they fail, it's I, you, we and us who will pick up the tab, whichever way you look at it!

I have been right for over two years, Mahathir is right and Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng is right. Our debt passed the RM1 Trillion mark a long time ago. Under Najib our national debt more than double from that under Badawi. A rose by any other name...except is doesn't smell sweet but, like horse manure, valued at $1.087 Trillion (80% of GDP):

Official Government Debt - $687 billion

Government Guarantees - $199 billion (for govt cos which are all drowning in huge losses)

Public Private Finance Debt - $201 billion

At least 30% of this figure has been siphoned out by Najib and his UMNO/BN govt of thieves by inflating infrastructure and procurement contracts and receiving kickbacks and "donations" from their crony "Keptens of Industry", many sitting as main controlling shareholders in companies listed on the KLSE.

Najib and his UMNO/BN govt of thieves deliberately hid the true extent of our debt to try and fool international rating agencies like S&P, Fitch and Moody's by playing around with words. The really bad news? There's more if you add up debts & losses racked up by other GLC's like KTMB. And if we had let him, we would have been buried with Najib's next planned fraud which I have written about more than anyone else, the mega inflated $55 Billion ECRL, and $70 billion MRT.

The PH govt and LGE are absolutely right. We have to bite the bullet. Let's not kid ourselves what our real liabilities are. Now, we have our work cut out to see how to manage, and over a longer term, reduce the debt.

Neither Najib nor a single member of his ousted UMNO/BN govt of thieves has expressed a word of remorse for the greatest con in Malaysian, and possibly, global history. For that, they should all be publicly horse-whipped with the manure on the whip, before serving life jail sentences without remission.