hhleng said: ***Elected representatives owed the rakyat the duty & moral obligation to
> stamp out such blatant corrupt acts; instead of complaint about the
> opposition held state giving pocket money to the elderly and needy (THOUGH
> IT IS MEAGRE BUT IN MY OPINION A VERY NOBLE ACTS OF COMPASSION. BN LEAD
> GOVERNMENT ONLY TAKE AND HAND OUT TO THE CRONIES!!) How come MACC still
> can’t find the truth on Taib’s ill gotten wealth; just employ an independent
> audit company to compile all the genuine business turnovers – you will get
> the answer right away. Why not check his land in Jalan Ampang and the whole
> of Labis – how he got them!! We want the elected representatives to uphold
> what is right rather than spend tax payers’ money to enrich their pockets,
> life styles and embarking on personal attacks on the opposite bench. I will
> vote & salute whoever has the gut to press for truth on this case, TeohBK,
> PKFZ, submarine case etc etc. Got the balls or rather I scratch your back &
> you scratch mine!!***
>
>
> The credibility of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) took a
> heavy beating when its two top officials floundered badly in a press
> conference over its failure to act against the notorious chief minister of
> Sarawak Taib Mahmud. The latter has been in the limelight lately due to
> frequent exposures in the Internet of his fabulous wealth and massive land
> grabs, for which numerous reports have been lodged with MACC.
>
> In the press conference to present the annual report of MACC’s complaints
> committee on Mar 31, both chief commissioner Abu Kassim Mohammed and
> committee chairman Mohd Nor Abdullah were confronted by journalists over
> MACC’s deafening silence over long standing accusations against the chief
> minister. While Abu Kassim’s answers were hopelessly evasive, Mohd Nor’s
> reaction was outright obnoxious. The duo has conveyed this unmistakable
> message: chief minister Taib Mahmud is off-limits, don’t you dare to push us
> further!
>
> To reporters’ various questions such as: whether public complaints have
> been received, whether files have been opened, how many cases are there,
> will there be charges, chief commissioner Abu Kassim gave only irrelevant
> answers, such as: we have to investigate all corruption, we cannot turn away
> any investigation, silence doesn’t mean inaction, etc. As questions
> persisted, he eventually repeated like a parrot to all further questions:
> “When there is a complaint, it will investigate”.
>
> Mohd Nor, who was sitting next to Kassim, stepped in to warn the reporters
> to back off. Obviously basking on his credential as a former court of
> appeal judge, he asked reporters not to breach the Printing Presses and
> Publication Act (PPPA), which stipulates that news can only be published if
> there is reasonable cause to believe it is true. He said: “If you ask me
> whether there is any investigation on the chief minister, you may have
> breached the Act, as you already have the pre-conception of the CM’s
> corruption. You cannot ask me that. You cannot fish for evidence. Have you
> done your investigation? Inquire the truth first, then ask.”
>
> While Abu Kassim’s utter timidity to touch on anything relating to the chief
> minister merely confirms what is already public knowledge – that MACC is
> completely impotent to deal with any corruption case of ruling Barisan
> Nasional’s heavy weights, it is Mohd Nor’s menacing and stupid threats to
> news media that has riled the otherwise complacent public.
>
> Mohd Nor talked as if we are ignorant of the mountain of evidence of
> corruption and abuse of power by Taib Mahmud unearthed and circulating in
> the Internet. Evidences against him were so voluminous and detailed that
> they formed a 2 inch-thick book which was formally handed to MACC. And
> reports that were lodged almost one year ago have met with only silence from
> MACC.
>
> The reports against Taib are mainly based on the website Sarawak Report
> (http://www.sarawakreport.org/) which chronicles Taib family’s multi-billion
> ringgit fortunes in the form of oversea real estate properties, Malaysian
> enterprises and large areas of land in Sarawak. The Sarawak Report website
> carries amazing details of Taib family’s assets, complete with proof of
> ownership extracted from companies registries and land registries. Perhaps
> it is these meticulous details appearing as incontrovertible proof that have
> unnerved MACC, causing its two top officials to make a fool of themselves in
> public.
>
> As an example of the vast pool of information made available in Sarawak
> Report, the website recently uploaded the entire database of the Land and
> Survey Department of Sarawak that shows more than a thousand plots of land
> acquired in recent years by the state, much of which have been passed on to
> Taib’s close relatives and cronies at dirt cheap premiums. Many of these
> plots of lands, which total more than 1.5 million hectares, were in fact NCR
> lands, secretively sequestered from the natives, whose complaints have
> resulted in more 200 land litigatons. The few cases that have been heard by
> the courts have ended in favour of the native landowners, indicating the
> illegality of Taib’s land grab.
>
> As proof that Taib’s family have been major beneficiaries of these illegal
> land grabs, names of some 50 companies featured in the Land Register as
> original recipients of land from the state were listed, each identified with
> members of Taib’s family.
>
> Another piece of bad news for the embattled chief minister,is the recent
> disclosure of a so-called black list of 49 companies spread worldwide, each
> linked to Taib’s family. This list, announced by Bruno Manser Fund, a Swiss
> NGO dedicated to the cause of the oppressed Sarawak natives, shows 13 of
> these companies are located in Malaysia, 10 in Australia, 9 in Canada, 7 in
> Hong Kong, the balance in UK and other parts of the world.
>
> The beauty of the entire Taib corruption episode is that Taib himself never
> really denies the existence of his family’s vast assets.
>
> In an interview during the cyber campaign launched recently by him to fend
> off the various accusations, he attributed his family’s fortune to the
> entrepreneur genius of his daughter Jamilah. Taib explained that when he
> left the federal government three decades ago, he gave some money to Jamilah
> from his gruity to start off her business in Canada. Due to her business
> acumen, that business eventually snowballed into an international business
> empire.
>
> While one is still stretching his imagination as to what little credibility
> could be given to Taib’s rag-to-riches story, the answer came in another
> interview of Taib. To buttress the veracity of his story, Taib elaborated
> further that he had no choice but to do business abroad 30 years ago where
> his well-educated children were doing business. He said:
>
> “I don’t want conflict of interests to haunt me all the time. If I do
> business inside the country, people will say I use my influence to
> enrich myself, so we did it outside the country.”
>
> What a terrible lie that was! Who in Sarawak doesn’t know that the state’s
> largest conglomerate CMS is the flagship of Taib family’s business empire
> which creams off the juiciest contracts from the state, much to the
> revulsion of the local business community?
>
> With that blatant lie, what credibility can we give to Taib’s self-made
> billionaire story?
>
> Facing such awesome evidence of massive corruption, the chairman of MACC’s
> complaints committee had the gall to make legal threats to inquisitive
> inquirers, as if Taib Mahmud is a victim of dubious accusation!
>
> The Taib Mahmud story is only one of many of Barisan Nasional’s numerous
> mega corruption scandals involving its reigning elites which have been
> routinely neutered by our law-enforcing institutions, be it MACC, police,
> attorney general or the judiciary.
>
> And the latest theatrics of MACC described here only confirms that nothing
> has changed despite Prime Minister Najib Razak’s much trumpeted reforms via
> his numerous slogans.
>> – Kim Quek is a prominent political writer and a reader of Malaysia
> Chronicle. His latest book March to Putrajaya was banned by the federal
> government and he is now pursuing legal action to have the ban lifted.
> Sent via BlackBerry from Maxis