Archive for October 22nd, 2016

Sad, shocking and most embarrassing that there is not a word to refute Malaysia’s infamy as a global kleptocracy as a result of 1MDB global financial scandal in 2017 Budget

The very fact that the question “Was it a budget speech, or a three-ring circus ringmaster’s pitch?” was asked testifies to the fact that Prime Minister-cum-Finance Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 2017 Budget speech in Parliament yesterday was the most weird, unorthodox and even unbudgetary speech in the nation’s 59-year history – including Najib’s previous seven budgetary speeches from 2009 to 2015.

The writer who posed the question whether it was a budget speech or a three-ring circus felt it was unbecoming for the Prime Minister-cum-Finance Minister, “like magician pulling rabbits out of a hat, Najib seemed to have filled the House with this person and that, whom he called out to each and every time his speech went to the part of goodies that he threw their way” – there were “cabbies and mosque imams, tok siaks and bilals, athletes, scientists, policemen, soldiers, micro loan programme Tekun participants, and yes, even the dead”.

The writer asked: “Is he unveiling a budget, or a circus troupe, as he name-drops all through his speeches, naming this person, that person living and some who have passed?”

Where did Najib get inspiration for such a most weird and unorthodox budget presentation?

From Donald Trump, who blazed new “breakthroughs” with the special guests he invited to the US Presidential debates, or from Robert Mugabe, who had a special “four-eyes only” meeting with Najib – meeting between the world’s oldest kleptocrat with the world’s newest kleptocrat – although no photographs of the dubious event in Kuala Lumpur was released to the media? Read the rest of this entry »

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2017 Budget Speech will go down in history as one where Prime Minister Najib admits failure and repudiates Vision 2020 by announcing his Vision 2050

Today’s budget presentation in Parliament by the Prime Minister-cum-Finance Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, makes dubious history.

I have personally seen some 42 Budget presentations in Parliament since my first election as MP, and this is the first time that a budget has attracted such derision because of its double absence of credibility – over the budget itself and the presenter of the budget.

This is why for the first time in Malaysia’s parliamentary history since Merdeka in 1957, there is a mass protest walk-out of Opposition MPs in Parliament during the presentation of the Budget!

Why had such protest walk-outs of MPs not happened in past budget presentations by past Finance Ministers?

Najib’s 2017 Budget makes double history – the first budget since Malaysia had acquired the infamy of being regarded world-wide as a “global kleptocracy” as well as going down in history as one where Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak admits failure and repudiates Vision 2020 by announcing his own Vision 2050! Read the rest of this entry »

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