Best Hari Raya present Najib can give country is to declassify all Cabinet minutes and documents relating to PKFZ scandal
Posted by Kit in Good Governance, Najib Razak, PKFZ on Thursday, 17 September 2009, 3:42 pm
In the past five-and-a-half months of his premiership, Datuk Seri Najib Razak had made valiant attempts to project his administration’s commitment to reform, accountability, integrity and good governance as exemplified by his slogan of “1Malaysia. People First. Performance Now”, his website, walkabouts and his emphasis on KPIs with the appointment of two KPI Ministers.
But all these efforts by Najib had failed to convince the Malaysian public that the Prime Minister is committed or capable of fundamental change in government.
One important reason is the long drawn-out farce of the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal – resulting in the public fallout between the MCA President and Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat and the Barisan Nasional Backbenchers Club (BNBBC) Chairman Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing who is also the CEO of the PKFZ turnkey contractor Kuala Dimensi Sdn. Bhd and other political skirmishes in MCA, Umno and Barisan Nasional.
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Cleaning up the Judiciary – was the Chief Justice right?
by Art Harun
When I first read the news report in the Star that YAA Tan Sri Zaki, the Chief Justice, had told 2 errant High Court Judges to voluntarily resign, my initial reaction was one of pleasure. I thought it was good that the CJ has finally cracked the whip and told these useless Judges to leave the Judiciary. However, after having thought about this issue with a little bit more depth, I am now hesitant to say that it was a good move by the Chief Justice.
Our Judiciary was among the best in the Commonwealth prior to 1988. We had people of absolute integrity and capable of serving justice with the highest standard of knowledge of the law coupled with flawless judicial temperament. Tun Suffian was highly regarded as among the finest. His Majesty the Sultan of Perak, Raja Azlan Shah was among the best. Tan Sri Eusoffee Abdool Cadeer, who would scold Counsel in Latin, could teach a thing or two about the law even to some British law Lords themselves. And at the lower rung of the Courts, we had Judges such as Dato’ VC George; Dato’ Mahadev Shanker; Dato’ NH Chan; Dato’ Razak Abu Samah, Tan Sri Harun Hashim et al. It was indeed a pleasure and an honour for me, as a young Counsel then, to appear before all these legal giants.
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There can be no meaningful 1Malaysia when Malaysia Day Sept. 16 is regarded as a Sabah and Sarawak event rather than as a national celebration
Posted by Kit in nation building, Sabah, Sarawak on Wednesday, 16 September 2009, 12:20 pm
For the 46th year today, Malaysia Day is commemorated in national disunity rather than national unity.
This should not be the case as five months ago, when Datuk Seri Najib Razak become the sixth Prime Minister, he had proclaimed the new motto of “1Malaysia. People First. Performance Now”.
Najib had the opportunity to right the wrongs of the past 45 years with the people of Sabah and Sarawak marginalized from the mainstream of national development although it was the support of the people of Sabah and Sarawak in the political tsunami of the March 8, 2008 general elections which had kept the Barisan Nasional Federal Government afloat.
In the general elections last year Barisan Nasional won 140 Parliamentary seats as against the Pakatan Rakyat’s 82, but 54 of the BN parliamentary seats came from Sabah and Sarawak (Sabah 24 and Sarawak 30).
Without these 54 parliamentary seats from Sabah and Sarawak, BN would be reduced to 86 seats out of 222 MPs in Parliament, evicting the BN from Putrajaya into the Opposition and Najib today would have been Parliamentary Opposition Leader instead of Prime Minister.
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A traitor again?
Posted by Kit in Hussein Hamid on Wednesday, 16 September 2009, 12:00 pm
By Hussein Hamid
Yesterday I received an email that disturbed me. It disturbed me because of the venom that it spewed on me. It said that as a Malay I am a disgrace to my race. That I deserved to be put in ‘neraka’ (hell) for advocating that the Malays no longer should be with UMNO. Do I not know that the orang Cina, India and ‘others’ together with DAP want to take over this country – that it is not ‘keadilan dan demokrasi’ that they want. What they want is the Political Power that now is in the hands of the Malays. We are the Malays! Are you not a Malay…they ask me?
Then I am reminded of the screaming newspaper headlines that I see in the “National” Malay newspapers.
- “Ketuanan Melayu Tercabar”
- “Jangan Persoal – Ketuanan Melayu bukan jenaka yang boleh dipermainkan”
- “Bangkitlah Melayu – Bersatu hadapi tuntutan kaum lain yang makin keterlaluan”
To those that understand Bahasa there is no need for me to translate. To those that do not I will not translate lest I am accused of inciting racial discord.
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Bagan Pinang…there is no Plan B!
Posted by Kit in Election, Hussein Hamid, UMNO on Wednesday, 16 September 2009, 11:16 am
By Hussein Hamid
“The people who live in the kampongs in Bagan Pinang are so very poor, Hussein. They have simple homes, and live simple lives. And they are fine people: friendly, happy, simple, good. It is a shame that despite the fact that their own kind are in power, their lot hasn’t changed”.
“If they hated our (the non malays) guts, I’d not be surprised. I might too, given that I had bumiputera status, and I had less than the bangsa asing that live next door! Sigh, things are so wrong here lah, I wouldn’t know how to change them – there’s so much to do.”
“We’re silenced by the parties that are supposed to represent us (mic, mca, gerakan, and other impotent idiots), so most will be behind Pakatan”.
“I think if we took the government, their slogans and their so-called advice out of the equation, we’d all get along fine! It’s with their help that we have these feelings that we’re not getting enough, or being bullied out of our rightful place! It’s all too stupid”.
This was what I was told when I inquired of a friend living in Bagan Pinang as to what was Bagan Pinang like. That in a nutshell is the situation in Bagan Pinang – if we take the ‘postal votes’ factor out of the equation. Read the rest of this entry »
Chief Secretary should explain why he had failed in past two years to carry out Cabinet mandate to identify and punish culprits responsible for the unlawful issue of four Letters of Support by two Transport Ministers?
It is a great disappointment that the MCA Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) is not being used for a united MCA call for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal to bring to book all MCA, Umno and Barisan Nasional leaders implicated in the “mother of all scandals”.
When former Finance Minister Tun Daim Zainuddin could say that the PKFZ fiasco provides the Barisan Nasional government the best opportunity to fulfill its promise of cracking down on corruption, abuse of power and mismanagement, why are MCA, Umno and other Barisan Nasional component parties dragging their feet when they should be acting decisively to identity and punish the wrongdoers, without fear or favour and regardless of their present or past position or status?
Daim speaks with great authority, knowledge and experience when he said:
“The government must punish all those lawbreakers, only then can it regain the public’s confidence.
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Penans – Last of our Mohicans?
Posted by Kit in Crime, Human Rights, Hussein Hamid, Orang Asli, Sarawak on Tuesday, 15 September 2009, 11:14 am
By Hussein Hamid
In September 2008 The Bruno Manser Fund (BMF) media release said in essence that:
“Penan women from the Middle Baram area of Sarawak are launching a cry of alarm to the international community over cases of sexual abuse by logging company workers in the East Malaysian state’s rainforests.
The Penan are accusing workers from Interhill and Samling, two Malaysian logging companies, of harassing and raping Penan women, including schoolgirls. They come on an almost weekly basis, but the situation is worst during the school holidays when they know the students are in the villages.
In other cases, school transports operated by company vehicles had been arranged in such a way that schoolgirls had to stay overnight at a logging camp, where they were abused.
Cabinet on Wednesday should ask for Musa Hassan’s resignation as IGP in view of the 25-rank drop of Malaysia’s security indicator
The Cabinet on Wednesday should ask for Tan Sri Musa Hassan’s resignation as Inspector-General of Police in view of the 25-rank drop of Malaysia’s security indicator resulting in a three-point drop in Malaysia’s global competitiveness ranking in World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Competitiveness Report 2009-2010 released last week.
Malaysia has dropped three positions to 24th from 21st ranking last year in the latest WEF GCR announced just before the WEF’s annual meeting of the New Champions, dubbed “Summer Davos”, in Dalian China.
This was essentially the result of a much poorer assessment of its institutional framework – with every indicator in the area exhibiting a downward trend since 2007, causing Malaysia to tumble from 17th to 43rd position in this dimension in just two years.
Security in Malaysia is of particular concern with its ranking dropped 25 levels to 85th.
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The 30 votes that changed Samy Vellu/MIC history?
26-vote margin still fresh in my mind, says Subra
The Star
Wednesday September 9, 2009
PETALING JAYA: Datuk S. Subramaniam has hit out at his nemesis MIC president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu for claiming that the 30 “pocketed votes” in the 1977 party elections was an impossibility.
The former party deputy president also brushed off Samy Vellu’s claim that he and Datuk V. Govindaraj were “pathological liars”.
“Govindaraj told me he did it. He was Samy Vellu’s man and led his campaign then.
“I can’t recall off-hand the total number of votes cast in 1977 but I know that the difference was 26. That is still fresh in my mind.”
Govindaraj told an English daily recently that he took the 30 votes cast for Subramaniam during the party polls that saw Samy Vellu defeating Subramaniam for the deputy president’s post by a mere 26 votes. Read the rest of this entry »
Malaysia’s three-place drop in WEF’s Global Competitiveness Report 2009-2010 because of worsening crime is powerful reason why Musa Hassan should not continue as Inspector-General of Police
Although the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak kicked off his premiership five months ago with a pledge to raise efficiency and productivity of the public delivery system, even appointing the Gerakan President Tan Sri Dr. Koh Tsu Koon to be the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) Minister, the new Prime Minister has not been able to convince Malaysians that he is prepared to do whatever is necessary to check the rot in public service standards.
This hard truth was illustrated by the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s Global Competitiveness Report (GCR) 2009-2010 released a few days ago which saw Malaysia’s global competitiveness ranking dropped three positions to 24th from 21st spot last year.
This report was released ahead of WEF’s annual meeting of the New Champions, dubbed “Summer Davos”, in Dalian, China.
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Anwar Ibrahim – he cannot sing he cannot dance….
Posted by Kit in Anwar Ibrahim, Hussein Hamid on Sunday, 13 September 2009, 5:00 am
By Hussein Hamid
Anwar Ibrahim was born in August 1947. Me in October 1947. Two months separates us at birth-enough for me to be able to say that he is older, but possibly two or three lifetimes separates us knowing what he has gone through in his life.
I remember the time when I wanted to meet up with him to find out what he was doing with his life. He was then teaching at one of the shop houses along Jalan Pantai – possible with Adabi if I am not mistaken. I did find him and he was indeed teaching and in slippers. At home that evening I casually told my father that I had met Anwar that afternoon. My father was then Director of CID. He stopped, looked at me and said sternly “Engkau tak ada kerja lain?” Whenever my father uses “engkau” when addressing me I knew that he was not amused. And he then went on to lecture me as to why it would be in my best interest to keep away from Anwar!
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A nation ripe with fear
Posted by Kit in Augustine Anthony on Saturday, 12 September 2009, 6:26 pm
By Augustine Anthony
Wing collar with bands, wearing a black jacket and holding my robe, my brisk stride to the usual work place came to a momentary halt by a gentle voice coming from the back me. “Bos boleh menang kah… ini BN Ooh”
In a short given moment, that gentle voice had many misgivings about the state of affairs in our country, but then I had to go or else I will be late. Then with a tinge of despair the parting words came from that gentle voice. “Tapi apa boleh buat, kita mesti undi dia”.
From his attire and the way he spoke my reading is, he must be a civil servant.
Later that evening, I sat down and thought about the words of that gentle voice that were spiked with sadness. There were no hidden meanings to decipher. The emotions were simple and clear to understand. I know. And so let us talk about fear. And not just our fear but of those who are opposed to our thoughts and actions.
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Najib will have to explain in Parliament next month why Hishammuddin is not prosecuted for sedition if Malaysiakini is charged for cowhead protest video clips
Posted by Kit in Law & Order, Najib Razak on Saturday, 12 September 2009, 10:57 am
I am giving notice that the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak will have to explain in Parliament next month why the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein is not charged for incitement and sedition in initially defending and justifying the cow-head protest in Shah Alam section 23 three days before National Day, committing the crime of ultimate religious insensitivity and sacrilege, if Malaysiakini is charged for showing the cowhead protest video clips.
The Malaysiakini video clips of the cowhead protests is highly offensive, not because of the news portal but because of the action of the irresponsible people who showed utter contempt for the sensitivities and sensibilities in a plural society as well as a top Cabinet Minister who could be guilty of such offensive conduct as to defend and justify such protest.
The cowhead protestors should be prosecuted. Even the Home Minister should be prosecuted. But it would not enter into any sensible, rational and reasonable person’s mind that Malaysiakini should be prosecuted – except those who have an axe to grind in wanting to penalize the news portal for the audacity of reporting the truth!
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Indonesia, we are not your whipping boy
Posted by Kit in Foreign, Tunku Abdul Aziz on Saturday, 12 September 2009, 10:33 am
By Tunku Aziz
The Javanese have done it again. They have burned our national flag.
Many years ago, I was interviewed in London by BBC Radio 2 as part of a series on the great languages of the world. I was asked about some significant differences between Bahasa Indonesia and our own Bahasa Melayu. I feigned ignorance about the existence of a language called Bahasa Indonesia. I said what Indonesia claimed as its language is really Bahasa Melayu.
They had no choice but to use Bahasa Melayu, the lingua franca of the Malay world to communicate among themselves because they never had a common language to begin with. Malay is undoubtedly the basis of their language. So, if we do what they in Indonesia do so well, we should be burning their flag every day because they have purloined our national language.
An excessive display of nationalistic zeal is generally considered “ugly” in civilised societies. The Indonesians by their actions have reduced themselves into sad figures of ridicule and fun. Their claim, and not for the first time, that we have infringed their “cultural copyrights” is totally absurd. They now have got it into their heads that we should stop singing our national anthem because the tune was Indonesian. What else next? Stop eating satay and wearing kain batik because these are Indonesian?
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Losing in Victory
Posted by Kit in Hussein Hamid, UMNO on Saturday, 12 September 2009, 5:00 am
By Hussein Hamid
When will UMNO starts its journey of renewal? Take on the path of morality and decency to ensure that the resurrection of UMNO will meet the aspirations of the Malays and the people of our country? This is not hard to do because there are still amongst them people who are decent, upright and committed to uphold the cause of the Malays and of our country. Let these good people speak their mind. Listen to them and do what they ask you to do so that UMNO will rid itself of the ignorance and narrow mindedness of its current leaders.
They will tell you that at the General Elections of 2004 UMNO could have secured its right to govern the country for fifty more years. UMNO could have right many wrongs, do justice for all and serve the people of this country as UMNO leaders had promised they will do. They could have enhanced the values that they then hold and focused the purpose of our nation into more tangible directions – towards a truly Malaysian Malaysia where all its people having their place in society because if the reality of one Malaysia if not attained it would mean that UMNO would have failed the people, failed the nation.
But they did not do this.
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Is Chan Kong Choy innocent or implicated in the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal?
Posted by Kit in Corruption, PKFZ on Friday, 11 September 2009, 1:01 pm
Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat today rebutted in the Chinese media the Singapore Straits Times report on Tuesday that former Transport Minister Tan Sri Chan Kong Choy had been implicated in the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal as one of those identified as having committed serious breaches by the PKFZ Task Force headed by lawyer Vinayak Pradhan as chairman.
Ong has his theories as to how such a Singapore Straits Times report came about but Malaysians are only interested in whether as the Transport Minister who had unlawfully issued three of the four Letters of Support for the issue of multi-billion ringgit bonds by the PKFZ turnkey contractor, Kuala Dimensi Sdn. Bhd (KDSB), resulting in the Malaysian government and taxpayers being burdened with the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal, is Chan Kong Choy innocent or implicated in the PKFZ scandal.
As I had said when I unsuccessfully moved a motion of censure against Kong Choy as Transport Minister during the budget debate on 27th November 2007 when I proposed a RM10 salary cut against him, it is completely unacceptable for Kong Choy to say that he did not know that he did not have the power as Transport Minister to issue such Letters of Support, especially as Kong Choy was Deputy Finance Minister for close to four years from Dec. 1999 to June 2003.
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Do unto others….
Posted by Kit in Hussein Hamid, UMNO on Friday, 11 September 2009, 6:00 am
by Hussein Hamid
Over the years we have time and time again witness the public unraveling of UMNO not by its detractors but by its own. Dato’ Onn Jaafar. Tunku Abdul Rahman. Tun Hussein. Tun Mahathir. Tun Musa Hitam. Tan Sri Tengku Razaleigh. A veritable list of Malays who have made history – who are our history. I am the same age as UMNO. Sixty-Three years old this year. What does the future holds for UMNO?
In March this year the outgoing Prime Minister and President of UMNO made this comment of UMNO in his last speech as UMNO’s President.
“Longevity in power has led to complacency and a number of Umno leaders are increasingly out of touch with the ordinary people who have been the source of Umno’s strength for so long.
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A Clever, Conveniently Contradictory and Convoluted Judgment
Posted by Kit in Judiciary, Martin Jalleh on Friday, 11 September 2009, 5:30 am
by Martin Jalleh
The perversion of justice in Bolehland continues to persist with the judiciary playing politics to please and pander to the will of the powers that be. The Perak constitutional crisis has revealed a judiciary, the chief guardian of the Constitution, willing to compromise justice by ignoring the Federal Constitution and interfering in the proceedings of a state assembly.
The judiciary descends into abysmal depths as it blatantly disregards constitutional provisions and treats the doctrine of separation of powers with deference,. It continues to deliver, in cases related to the Perak constitutional crisis, what former and retired Court of Appeal judge N H Chan describes as “bad” and “perverse” judgments.
Even when the judiciary chooses to interpret the Federal Constitution correctly, it does so when it is politically expedient and best suits the BN (also read as Umno). There is no better example of this “selective application” than the recent Ipoh High Court ruling that it had no jurisdiction to hear the proceedings of the Perak legislative assembly.
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Injecting Reason Back Into Indonesia-Malaysia Relations
Posted by Kit in Farish Noor, Foreign on Thursday, 10 September 2009, 6:34 pm
By Farish A. Noor
It would appear as if Reason and Rationality have gone on holiday in Southeast Asia recently: In Malaysia a group of angry residents who wished to protest against the construction of a Hindu temple in their neighborhood decided to demonstrate their anger by marching to the government offices in Selangor with a severed cow’s head, a gesture that was guaranteed to offend the sensibility of pious Hindus who regard the cow as a sacred animal. In Indonesia a misunderstanding over a tourism ad commissioned from a non-Malaysian company has angered scores of Indonesians, simply because it mistakenly featured a scene from a Balinese pendet dance which the Indonesians regard as being exclusively theirs: The net result being a new round of anti-Malaysian protests leading to local vigilante groups harrassing tourists in Jakarta and going out into the streets to ‘sweep’ the country of Malaysians.
In both Malaysia and Indonesia, tempers seem to be rising out of control and for all the wrong reasons. Making matters worse is the fact that in both countries these mob actions are neither accidental nor unavoidable. Mobs do not form themselves and move into the streets for no reason; vigilante groups do not miraculously form themselves out of this air without funding and political support.
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Umno has failed!
Posted by Kit in Hussein Hamid, UMNO on Thursday, 10 September 2009, 2:50 pm
By Hussein Hamid
I am an individual.
The state of affairs now seen on our country leaves us with no other conclusion then that UMNO has failed. It has failed in its effort to justify their demand that we Malaysian should allow them to continue for another fifty years with their tinkering of our democratic values and principals as a trade off to the ongoing development of our country and the yet to be achieved uplifting of the Malay race to be a developed ethnic community. Two remarkable and truly laudable goals — economic development and the rise and rise of the Malays – but arguments that are fundamentally flawed.
The Government insists that the particularity of Malaysian Politics, its multi ethnic divides and its religious enclaves make a need for the ISA to be enforced arbitrarily over its people. It continues to dominate over its people who live defenseless under its shadows. And in all this there is no political accountability in what they do.
I say that the Politics of Barisan Nasional is no longer appropriate for our people, for our country. I say that a multi ethnic, multi party democracy is what we need. We no longer want a trade-off between democracy and development. Between freedoms to demonstrate responsibly as against what the Government perceives as our inability to do so without causing riot and chaos in the streets.
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