Archive for category Good Governance
Berdayakah Najib dan kepimpinan Umno mengenepikan Shahrizat?
Posted by Kit in Corruption, Good Governance, UMNO on Thursday, 29 December 2011
— Aspan Alias
The Malaysian Insider
Dec 28, 2011
28 DIS — Isu Shahrizat Jalil dan NFCnya masih tidak terlerai dan tidak ada apa-apa keputusan. Ia tidak akan terlerai dalam masa yang singkat ini kerana yang terlibat ialah seorang Menteri Kabinet kerajaan persekutuan. Di Malaysia seorang menteri itu bukan senang hendak diketepikan kerana menteri itu merupakan orang yang sangat besar dalam masyarakat kita terutamanya orang kita Melayu ini.
Etika kepimpinan kita sangat rendah dan moral kepimpinan memang tiada. Lima tahun dahulu seorang ahli Kabinet Britain, Blankett ,telah hilang jawatannya semata-mata kerana beliau telah mempercepatkan proses permohonan teman wanitanya untuk mendapatkan permit kerja untuk “maid”nya. Beliau telah dikatakan telah menggunakan kuasanya sebagai menteri bertanggungjawab kepada permit pekerjaan mempercepatkan pemohonan teman wanitanya yang memerlukan permit kerja untuk “maid”nya itu.
Apabila diketahui umum, maka beliau telah meletakkan jawatan kerana beliau telah bertindak secara tidak beretika dalam meluluskan permohonan permit itu. Itu sahaja sebabnya. Begitulah tingginya etika kepimpinan di negara itu.
Sebaliknya di negara kita perkara-perkara yang tidak beretika itu berlaku tanpa hadnya dan jika semuanya mengambil tindakan ke atas mereka yang melakukan kerja-kerja yang tidak beretika itu hari ini, tidak ada seorang pun yang kekal dalam Kerajaan Persekutuan pada hari ini.
Kes NFC dengan Shahrizat tidak langsung menjadi apa-apa kepada Shahrizat. Tetapi sebaliknya beliau masih berada di dalam Kabinet sehingga hari ini, malah beliau telah menyatakan bukan beliau sahaja yang bermasalah dalam Umno, semua menteri-menteri lain pun juga bermasalah. Read the rest of this entry »
Encouraging Entrepreneurialism
Posted by Kit in Bakri Musa, Good Governance on Wednesday, 28 December 2011
by Bakri Musa
Chapter 11: Embracing Free Enterpriseby
Encouraging Entrepreneurialism
A decade ago there was not much interest in teaching entrepreneurialism at business schools as the perceived wisdom was that it could not be taught. Today it is a hot elective for young MBAs. Many top line business schools trumpet their entrepreneurial studies program. It is not accidental that most graduates of American universities aspire to work for the private sector or start their own businesses. Their models are their professors starting new ventures or becoming consultants to industry. In my graduating class, only a few considered a job with the government. The vast majority opted for starting their own medical practices. In contrast, in Malaysia most graduates, especially Malays, look to the government for employment.
The culture and the social environment can do much to foster entrepreneurialism, especially the attitude towards failure and risk taking, as well as the reward system.
The stance towards failure is particularly instructive. As Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems observes, if you do not have failures, you do not have winners. And if you do not have winners, you do not have a market economy. Part of what makes America great is that there is little stigma attached to failures. The recent Dot.com crash may have dampened but did not destroy the Silicon Valley spirit. Granted, million-dollar homes were not selling fast and there were fewer sleek Porches on the streets of Palo Alto, but the area is still bustling with entrepreneurial activities.
For Malays, the trauma of failure is a double burden. In addition to the deep personal disappointment, they would now be portrayed as yet another example of the inadequacies of their race. This is a major psychological load. Unfortunately the government and specifically Malay leaders, by continually harping and criticizing on the failures of Malays, only aggravates the problem. Read the rest of this entry »
Politicians demand Putrajaya explain RM9b nod for six patrol ships
Posted by Kit in Defence, Good Governance, Najib Razak on Sunday, 18 December 2011
By Debra Chong
The Malaysian Insider
Dec 18, 2011
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 18 – Datuk Seri Najib Razak must justify his government’s purchase of six patrol ships for a whopping RM9 billion, an increase of RM3 billion from the original RM6 billion approved earlier this year, DAP’s Lim Kit Siang demanded.
The opposition politician rang the alarm after a local shipbuilder said it won a RM9 billion “letter of award” from the Defence Ministry late last Friday.
Lim said the PM had promised full transparency in government procurement projects and must now take responsibility and explain the price hike. — file pic“Boustead Naval Shipyard Sdn Bhd had received the Letter of Award dated 16 December 2011 from the Ministry of Defence Malaysia for the Contract to design, construct, equip, install, commission, integrate, test and trials, and deliver six units of ‘Second Generation Patrol Vessels Littoral Combat Ships (Frigate Class)’.
“The Contract carries a ceiling of RM9.0 billion, to be implemented over three Malaysia Plans, 10, 11 and 12. The delivery of the First of Class ship is estimated in 2017 with follow on ships every six months thereafter,” Boustead Heavy Industries Corporation Bhd (BHIC) said in a filing to Bursa Malaysia.
Lim said the prime minister had promised full transparency in government procurement projects and must now take responsibility and explain the price hike.
“Justify the increase. Was the contract open to tender? The basic rules of integrity and accountability should be followed,” the Ipoh Timur MP told The Malaysian Insider when contacted. Read the rest of this entry »
A party that celebrates wrongdoing
Posted by Kit in Corruption, Good Governance, UMNO on Thursday, 1 December 2011
— Lucius Goon
The Malaysian Insider
Dec 01, 2011
DEC 1 — I am truly dumbfounded; how did we reach this stage where wrongdoing, abuse of power is ignored and even celebrated.
What was the trigger point or epochal moment when corruption, abuse of public funds and plain padding up bank accounts stopped being an issue for Umno.
This was supposed to be Umno’s show of unity and transformation, an audition of sorts before the coming election. But instead we have seen a party from the top — Muhyiddin Yassin to the rank and file — celebrating the National Feedlot Corporation scandal.
Umno Youth says it is on reform mode but that it just shallow speak given the movement’s pledge to defend Messrs Shahrizat Jalil’s family’s scandalous use of public funds. Just to recap, her husband and children were given a softloan of RM250 million to develop the feedlot programme in Gemas.
But the Auditor-General reported that the project was a mess and digging by the Opposition showed that money was used to buy condominiums, umrah packages, a Mercedes Benz, etc. Basically, they treated my money and yours like their own. Read the rest of this entry »
Malaysia can leap into World Bank top 10 list in two years, says chief secretary
Posted by Kit in Good Governance on Friday, 25 November 2011
By Debra Chong
The Malaysian Insider
Nov 25, 2011
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 25 — Malaysia only needs two years to break into the World Bank’s top 10 list of most competitive countries in the world, Putrajaya’s No. 1 public servant told The Malaysian Insider.
In a recent exclusive interview, Tan Sri Sidek Hassan said for the country to be a top performer the private sector needed to grow in tandem with its civil service.
“Our country can become more competitive by having the public sector 20 to 50 years ahead and bring it to today; and have the corporate sector 50 years ahead and bring it to today. Then, our country Malaysia can indeed be Number 1,” the chief secretary to the government said.
By that, he meant both government and private businesses needed to devise ways to fulfil the customer’s existing needs and anticipate future requirements before anyone else did.
And Sidek believes that Malaysians are ready to take on the challenge. Read the rest of this entry »
Values?
Posted by Kit in Auditor-General Report, Corruption, Good Governance on Tuesday, 22 November 2011
— Black Swan
The Malaysian Insider
Nov 22, 2011
NOV 22 — With the debacle that is the NFC and many other issues being hotly debated in Malaysia at the moment, a thought suddenly came to me.
The underlying and pervading issue here seems to be an issue of values. Let me qualify this: I am no psychologist with textbook definitions of values; I am a professional and mother who is increasingly aghast at what is going on in Malaysia.
Values to me are simply our personal guidelines that enable us to distinguish between right and wrong. We would do something that is right because our personal values guide so and we wouldn’t do something because the same values would, again, make us hesitate from doing it.
As the NFC debacle looms larger and politician after politician (from the highest offices of the government) come out and say that this was right and make it all sound very convincing, one then realises that they are saying so because they believe they are right. Why? Their personal values are guiding them.
Which brings to question the entire value system that is being practised. It has nothing to do with religion or race. These people’s values are guiding them to believe that they are right.
When you have politicians saying, “we want to do something because of its political dividend” or “we cannot afford to be ‘picky’” about which groups to align themselves with, and that everything must be done with only one goal in mind — winning the next election — the value system, to me, again comes into question. Isn’t public office about serving the people and doesn’t it require a certain degree of selflessness and humility? Read the rest of this entry »
Would Muhyiddin have said in 2006 that it was legally, morally and ethically proper for NFC to use 2%-interest RM250 million soft-loan to buy condos?
Posted by Kit in Auditor-General Report, Corruption, Good Governance, Parliament on Sunday, 20 November 2011
Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has said that it was up to the public whether they wanted to accept the explanation given for the National Feedlot Corporation’s (NFC) “cattle condo” scandal.
Saying that the government “already knows the facts”, Muhyiddin had this to say after the NFC executive chairman Datuk Seri Dr. Mohamad Salleh Ismail had broken his three-week silence on the “cattle condo” scandal:
“We will leave that to the people to decide whether to accept the NFC’s explanation or not because the NFC has explained each issue that has surfaced.
“For us, the government, we know the truth. We don’t buy stories made up by the Opposition.”
Muhyiddin cannot be more wrong. Read the rest of this entry »
Something is rotten in the state of Malaysia
Posted by Kit in Auditor-General Report, Corruption, Good Governance on Sunday, 20 November 2011
— CL Tang
The Malaysian Insider
Nov 19, 2011
NOV 19 — The line “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”, expressed by Marcellus to Hamlet, was in response to the former’s disgust at the moral decay and political corruption in the little kingdom.
In Malaysia, even as the foul stench of the National Feedlot Corporation’s (NFC) financial shenanigans permeates throughout the country, our leaders fail to smell anything fishy, leading to the question: “Do our leaders have any ounce of ethics left?”
This NFC fiasco has all the ingredients of cronyism, nepotism, corruption, incompetence and fraud.
Yet, there is no Marcellus in our government who thought it stank. Read the rest of this entry »
Muhyiddin’s folly
Posted by Kit in Auditor-General Report, Corruption, Good Governance, Muhyiddin Yassin, Najib Razak on Friday, 18 November 2011
— Ali Kadir
The Malaysian Insider
Nov 18, 2011
NOV 18 — Now I know why Najib Razak is always out of the country: the prime minister wants to show us what he also knows — that he has a pretty mediocre deputy.
Muhyiddin Yassin is at best of mentri besar quality, but unfortunately because of the dysfunctional system of Umno’s president and deputy president being given the number one and number two leadership posts in Malaysia, Muhyiddin is one position away from being the PM.
His handling of the National Feedlot Corporation scandal has been ridiculous and shifty. From the beginning he has tried to shift the responsibility of explaining the project to Noh Omar and others but he was the man who helmed the Agriculture Ministry which promoted and endorsed this project!!!
Today, he is quoted as saying that he leaves it to the public to accept or reject the explanation put forward by Mohamed Salleh of the National Feedlot Corporation but quickly says that as far as the government is concerned, these are all stories created by the Opposition.
Really? But the failure of the feedlot project was highlighted by the Auditor General, not Anwar Ibrahim or Lim Kit Siang. Read the rest of this entry »
NFC beat target, says Shahrizat’s husband
Posted by Kit in Auditor-General Report, Corruption, Good Governance on Friday, 18 November 2011
The Malaysian Insider
Nov 17, 2011
GEMAS, Nov 17 — The controversial national cattle farming project went beyond its set target, chairman Datuk Seri Dr Mohamad Salleh Ismail said today, disputing a federal audit describing the scheme as being “in a mess”.
“In fact, [National Feedlot Corporation (NFC)] has raised 8,016 head of cattle in 2010, surpassing its target of 8,000 head of cattle. We are importing cattle from Australia and we have to feed them for between four and six months. Read the rest of this entry »
NFC boss says twin cattle condos are rental cash cows
Posted by Kit in Auditor-General Report, Corruption, Good Governance on Thursday, 17 November 2011
By Clara Chooi
The Malaysian Insider
Nov 17, 2011
GEMAS, Nov 17 — Dogged by claims of irregularity, the National Feedlot Corporation (NFC) finally broke its silence today to defend its purchase of multi-million luxury condominum units in Bangsar as a “good business decision”.
In a press briefing opened to selected mainstream media organisations, its chairman Datuk Seri Dr Mohamad Salleh reasoned that the investment had helped yield better returns for the NFC project compared to keeping the money in a bank.
It was also revealed then that the NFC owns two units at the upmarket condominium, as opposed to one as previously reported.
According to Berita Harian Online, however, Mohamad said the condominium units had cost over RM6 million each, instead of the RM9.8 million originally alleged by PKR.
Mohamad reportedly claimed that the money, if held in a bank, would have only yielded 2.6 per cent in annual returns. Read the rest of this entry »
Najib should intervene in the RM10 million “condominium for cattle” scandal by recalling RM181 million loan to NFC not used for purpose of cattle production
Posted by Kit in Auditor-General Report, Corruption, Good Governance on Sunday, 13 November 2011
As shocking as the revelation about the RM10 million “cattle for condominium” scandal is the self-righteous statement by the Minister for Agriculture and Agro-based Industries Datuk Noh Omar aiding and abetting a gross misappropriation of public funds.
Claiming that the National Feedlot Corporation (NFC) had not used government funds for the purchase of the RM9.8 million Bangsar luxury condominium, Noh said that once NFC received money from the government, it was thereafter considered the company’s private funds and the government had no say as to how it would be used.
Noh said the government had loaned NFC RM250 million made into a special loan account (SLA) in Maybank that was controlled by the Finance Ministry.
Noh said RM181 million from that account had been disbursed to NFC based on the latter’s claims.
The government only had control of funds that were in the SLA, but had none over how the company spends the money once it has been disbursed, said the minister.
“If the money has been paid to NFC after fulfilling set conditions, the government cannot control what NFC does with it, including purchasing the said condominium, because it is then considered the company’s money. Read the rest of this entry »
Should we settle for this nonsense?
Posted by Kit in Auditor-General Report, Corruption, Good Governance on Sunday, 13 November 2011
— Ali Kadir
The Malaysian Insider
Nov 13, 2011
NOV 13 — It is left to us, ordinary Malaysians, to show outrage at the thievery, corruption, mismanagement and subterfuge that is happening in our country.
Let us just ponder at what has happened since the Auditor-General noted that the National Feedlot project was a failure or on the verge of being a failure. First, you have the deputy prime minister downwards trying to convince Malaysians that the project was a success, with arguments that defy logic.
Then you had Noh Omar and Khairy Jamaluddin speaking up and defending the track record of the project and the main beneficiaries of the RM250 million soft loan: Shahrizat Jalil’s family.
Their defence of the incredible — the squandering of public funds — indicated that the old and new of Umno are joined at the hip by ignorance, stupidity and a seemingly endless acceptance of bad practices. Read the rest of this entry »
The RM250 million National Feedlot Centre (NFC) scandal – “shouldn’t someone go to jail”?
Posted by Kit in Corruption, Good Governance, Najib Razak on Saturday, 12 November 2011
In his new book on the world’s latest financial crisis hotspots, “Boomerang: Travels In the New Third World”, journalist Michael Lewis wrote about how the then new Greek Minister of Finance George Papaconstantinou found out when he took office in October 2009 that his country had cooked its deficit figures with a budget deficit of 12.7% of GDP, four times more than the eurozone’s limit, and a public debt of US$410 billion. The projected Greek deficit of roughly 7 billion euros was actually more than 30 billion.
At his first monthly meeting with European Finance Ministers after he told his counterparts his shocking discovery, a European Finance Minister came up to him and said: “George, we know it’s not your fault, but shouldn’t someone go to jail?”
This is the same question many Malaysians are now asking about the RM250 million National Feedlot Centre (NFC) scandal, especially after the shocking claim by the UMNO Youth leader Khairy Jamaluddin that the purchase of an RM10 million condominium from funds meant for cattle production was a “strategic move”, so that the money would not lie idle.
The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak or his Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who was Agriculture Minister when the NFC project was first mooted and approved, should answer this question in the minds of most Malaysians: “Shouldn’t someone go to jail?” Read the rest of this entry »
Malaysia Losses From Racial Law Exposed
Posted by Kit in Economics, Good Governance, Lim Guan Eng, Penang Government on Thursday, 20 October 2011
By Chong Pooi Koon | Oct 20, 2011
Bloomberg
Lim Guan Eng turned Malaysia’s second-smallest state into the nation’s biggest economic success after he bumped into two National Instruments Corp. (NATI) executives at the local airport in 2008.
Elected in March that year as Penang’s first chief minister from an opposition party in 36 years, Lim was struggling with the prospect of federal funding cuts. He convinced the managers to set up a research and production center in the state, and within two years the former British trading post was Malaysia’s top destination for foreign manufacturing investment.
“The deal was struck very quickly,” said Eugene Cheong, a director at the local unit of the Austin, Texas-based maker of industrial testing and automation equipment.
Read the rest of this entry »
Judicial tribunal for AG and Ct of Appeal judge
Posted by Kit in Anwar Ibrahim, Budget Debate, Constitution, Good Governance, Judiciary, Law & Order, Parliament on Monday, 17 October 2011
b) Judicial tribunal into serious allegations of graft and abuse of power against Attorney-General Abdul Ghani Patail
In the past few months, many serious allegations of graft and abuse of power had been made against the Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail notably by the former Kuala Lumpur CID Chief Mat Zain Ibrahim in a series of open letters, former MACC panel member Tan Sri Robert Phang and blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin.
These allegations included falsifying facts and evidence in Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s infamous “black eye” incident in 1998, the graft case against Shahidan Shafie and the judicial abuses in the Altantunya Shaaribuu murder trial.
Unless Gani Patail take legal action against these allegations, the Prime Minister should set up a tribunal to clear the name of the Attorney-General as these are very serious allegations which if unrebutted can only undermine public confidence in the professionalism, independence and integrity of the Attorney-General but also key national institutions, including the judiciary, the police and the MACC. Read the rest of this entry »
The system’s breaking down
Posted by Kit in Corruption, Good Governance, Najib Razak, Police on Thursday, 22 September 2011
— The Malaysian Insider
Sep 22, 2011
SEPT 22 — Anti-corruption officers extorted RM1 million from money changers. Policeman sentenced to five years’ jail for shooting 14-year-old boy in the back. The Attorney-General accused of a string of serious and damning offences, including fabricating evidence.
Nope, these are not headlines from a banana republic in Central America or Zimbabwe. This is what is happening in Malaysia and is only a snapshot of a system falling into a serious state of disrepair, where there is a serious blurring of lines between law enforcers and law breakers, where the culture of easy money and lack of respect for the rule of law are hurting the country’s once-respected institutions.
Oh, you can bet that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) will talk about how a few bad apples should not sully the whole basket but we believe recent evidence suggests that the problems at the anti-corruption agency are institutional rather than isolated.
Wasn’t it the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Teoh Beng Hock’s death which found the behaviour of the MACC interrogators abhorrent? And of course that was before the Customs official fell to his death and where a CCTV recording mysteriously disappeared.
Aminulrasyid Amzah was shot in the back by a policeman and in another incident, the court awarded RM900,000 to a man who became paralysed after being shot in the back. Read the rest of this entry »
Human Rights and Transparency in Malaysia
Posted by Kit in Good Governance, Human Rights, Lim Guan Eng, Penang on Monday, 19 September 2011
by Lim Guan Eng
Speech at Monash Asia Institute in Melbourne
19th September 2011
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for inviting me to speak at the Monash Asia Institute, an important research center at my alma mater. I would like to especially thank Professor Greg Barton and my dear friend Dr Wendy Smith as well as send my thanks to the Monash University’s leadership. As you know, Monash University has a sister campus in Kuala Lumpur and although it is sadly not in my state, the university plays an important role in educating future leaders of our country.
As a Malaysian, I am very grateful for this collaboration and hope we can strengthen ties between Monash and Malaysia further. On a personal level, as many of your know I received my economics and accounting degree here and was quite active in student politics. I was never an outstanding student but what little I gleaned has helped me to formulate new economic and industrial policies in Penang that is now acknowledged as the best run state in Malaysia with strong growth, record budget surpluses and record FDIs coupled with a labour shortage.
In short, Monash helped me to evolve as a leader and politician and this university will always have a special place in my heart for which I am eternally grateful. Not only did I learn the importance of studying and working hard, but the need to forge relationships and centrality of principles. I am sure Monash will train future Malaysian leaders and I look forward to many of you helping to chart our future and being the change you want to see. Read the rest of this entry »
Nazir: Transform or risk Middle East-style upheaval
Posted by Kit in Good Governance on Sunday, 11 September 2011
By Aidila Razak
Sep 10, 11 | Malaysiakini
The time for opaque deals and unflinching public support is over for Asian governments, and failing to realize this could lead the region down the path of the Middle East.
Saying this at the Malaysia-China Trade Investment International Conference 2011 in Serdang today, CIMB chief executive Nazir Abdul Razak said this is because today the world demands transparency from governments.
“Faced with such an awesome game-changer, governments, especially in the East find that they can no longer operate under the hierarchal paradigms of the past, where decisions are made behind closed doors and executed with unquestioning public support.
“Governments here will have to adopt greater openness, more debate and increased transparency,” he said. Read the rest of this entry »
Malaysian procurement system riddled with corruption, says US cable
Posted by Kit in Corruption, Defence, Good Governance on Friday, 9 September 2011
The Malaysian Insider
Sep 09, 2011
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 9 — The seedy and allegedly corrupt side of Malaysia’s defence procurement has been laid bare in a US embassy cable, with startling revelations on how Umno politicians, agents, civil servants and military officials receive 30 per cent “commission” on deals.
In a note on the opaque procurement system here revealed by whistleblower site Wikileaks, the US embassy noted that American companies operating here had three main complaints about the system: the lack of transparency, outright corruption, and Bumiputera requirements.
The undated cable sent during the Abdullah administration between 2004 and 2009 also noted that many government tenders do not follow procurement rules.
A US aerospace executive told the US embassy here defence deals were done through shadowy agreements with no tendering process. For example, the then-Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s (picture) sister-in-law arranged a US$400 million (RM1.2 billion) contract to buy military cargo aircraft from Airbus.
The deal was announced following Abdullah’s return from a trip to France. Read the rest of this entry »
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