Saturday, January 27, 2018

PetroSaudi's Turki Abdullah remains in Saudi "most high security" prison, Al-Ha’ir,unable to deal in that "donation" to Najib

by Ganesh Sahathevan

While Al-Waleed and others have since been released after reaching financial settlements with the 
Saudi Government, it appears that Turki Abdullah remains in jail:

Sources told the news site that nearly 60 detainees were transferred to the most high security prison in the Kingdom. The prisoners include Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal as Prince Turki Bin Abdullah and a number of government officials who refused to make the large financial paymentsfor their release.
Saudi Arabia has used the Al-Ha’ir prison to detain political activists demanding reforms, as well as terrorism suspects. Two days ago, authorities transferred 11 princes who had gathered outside the Al-Hakam Palace in Riyadh to the prison.
Turki's inability to make a deal has probably to do with the fact that  his "donation" has since disappeared,spent on diamonds for Miranda Kerr, political donations .........
END 





"Donor" Prince Turki Received US$77 Million From 1MDB EXPOSE!

"Donor" Prince Turki Received US$77 Million From 1MDB EXPOSE!

Nawaf Obaid - always willing to give a 'Saudi insider' explanation to western journalists.
Nawaf Obaid – always willing to give a ‘Saudi insider’ explanation to western journalists.
When foreign news journalists asked Najib’s media coordinator, ex-APCO man Paul Stadlen, last week for the name of the Saudi Royal, claimed to have donated RM2.6 billion to the PM’s election effort, he disappointed them.
Sadly, the Saudi royal family did not wish to reveal any further information, he explained.
On the other hand, Stadlen urged journalists to check out a very ‘insightful’ BBC article, which claimed that the donor was none other than the former King Abdullah, who died last January, acting together with his 7th son, Prince Turki.
The gift came partly from the King’s own money and partly from the coffers of the State of Saudi Arabia itself, added the BBC’s Middle East defence correspondent, who later admitted to Sarawak Report that he knows nothing about Malaysia.
“The $681m (£479m) deposited in the bank account of Malaysian PM Najib Razak by Saudi Arabia was to help him win the 2013 elections, a Saudi source says…. The Saudi source said the donation was made amid concern in Riyadh about the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood…The well-placed Saudi source, who has asked not to be named, told the BBC the payment was authorised from the very top – from Saudi Arabia’s late King Abdullah – with funds coming from both his personal finances and state funds.”[BBC – Saudi gift to Malaysia PM Najib Razak ‘for election campaign‘]
Few journalists in KL are in any doubt as to who “the well-placed Saudi source, who has asked not to be named” was.
It is widely agreed by a chortling foreign press corps that the ‘deep throat’ could only have been Nawaf Obaid, one of the few ‘strategic analysts’, who talks regularly to the western press in Saudi Arabia.
Indeed, Western journalists who have to report on Saudi matters are very grateful for the garrulous Nawaf, who set himself up as a one-man strategic analyst after doing his BA at the War Studies Department at Kings College London and has now obtained a Fellowship at Harvard.
The Telegraph’s Con Coughlin has reportedly lauded him as one of the best sources in the Middle East and the following day he too was penning an article along remarkably similar lines to the one from the BBC, where again he referred to  “one senior Saudi source”, whom he said commented:
“It is not unusual for Saudi Arabia to make donations like this. It happens all the time to help moderate Muslim governments to remain in power so that they can provide regional security tackle the extremist threat.”
Really?
Coughlin’s single sourced claim contrasted markedly with feedback obtained by papers with journalists on the ground, like the Wall Street Journal, which reported that Saudi officials had denied any knowledge of such an individual payment, which was described as “unprecedented”.
NAAFI's story was snatched upon by the Telegraph to attack its political enemies in the UK
Recently concluded? Nawaf”s story was snatched upon by the Telegraph to attack its political enemies in the UK
Nevertheless, to have two mainstream publications swallow the story hook line and sinker that King Abdullah had kindly given Najib a secret personal US$681 million dollar donation through an off-shore BVI account, in order that he could illegally rig an election, was manna to UMNO spinners and the BBC ‘corroboration’ in particular appeared in numerous articles internationally.

Nawaf’s record as a paid spinner for Najib 

Sarawak Report has, of course, already exposed Nawaf Obaid as one of numerous agents hired by the Prime Minister’s Office over recent years to ‘spin’ against Najib’s political enemies in the western media.
The line up - Jho Low left, Prince Turki 2nd left and Tarek Obaid 2nd right - on the yacht they hired and pretended belonged to the Sauid Prince!
The line up – Jho Low left, Prince Turki 2nd left and Tarek Obaid 2nd right – on the yacht they hired and pretended belonged to the Sauid Prince!
Last month we documented in detail how the supposedly objective insider, was getting monster kick-backs behind the scenes for doing PR favours via his ‘briefings’ of foreign journalists and through “Op Eds” in newspapers, which he arrogantly claimed to be a master writer of, compared to Najib’s official media teams.
We have evidence of payments of over US$1.7 million to Nawaf, in what appear to have been a wider pattern of transfers from his brother Tarek Obaid, in return for his involvement in a campaign to defame the opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim in the media and in US government circles after 2010.
Please send my brother a million dollars out of that money I got from 1MDB
Please send my brother a million dollars out of that money I got from 1MDB
For the money Nawaf, who did indeed hold a Saudi official post at that time, was also used to access favours for Najib, who was attempting to create an impression of a close personal relationship with the Saudi King.
Yet, when Najib together with Jho Low attempted to engage Nawaf in a plan to organise a visit by King Abdullah to Malaysia and to get the Arab Royal to lend him US$10 billion in 2011 at low interest rates, Nawaf sneeringly dismissed them as fantasists “on drugs”.
“No No N, just ask for 1 Trillion dollars in this case and save everyone the hasstle! Someone is taking some sever and I mean sever DRUGS!” (sic) [Nawaf to brother Tarek]
Even so, five years later the same characters are trying to convince the world that King Abdullah did after all ‘donate’ Najib a 2 billion ringgit bung, on a basis of a couple of short audiences that were achieved in Riyadh.

The Prince Turki connection and his US$77 million kick-back

However, this is not the only respect in which Nawaf Obaid is a deeply compromised source upon which to rely on matters relating to Najib and 1MDB.
Because Nawaf’s brother is none other than the same Tarek Obaid, who was the Director of PetroSaudi, the company which is now being investigated by the Swiss and Singapore authorities, along with the FBI and Serious Fraud Office, for acting as a front to siphon hundreds of millions from Malaysia’s 1MDB development fund.
The money that was paid to Nawaf by Tarek can in fact be traced to the tens of millions of dollars Tarek netted in kickbacks from Najib’s ‘official advisor’ Jho Low, originally looted from 1MDB.
The definitive diagram - pulled together from the documents by The Edge
The definitive diagram – pulled together from the documents by The Edge
It was for this reason that Sarawak Report told the BBC that any claim emanating from the single source of Nawaf Obaid should be treated with extreme caution.
A particular give away in the single source-based reportage was the hint that Prince Turki bin Abdullah, the now deceased King’s 7th son, was somehow involved in this generous payment to Najib.  Because Turki also is deeply compromised by the whole affair, in that he is the other 50% Shareholder of PetroSaudi and, like Tarek, he was handsomely rewarded with enormous kickbacks out of money extracted from 1MDB.
The money trail (above) obtained from data from PetroSaudi’s own emails (thanks to the now jailed whistleblower Xavier Justo) shows that the Prince, who was by no means personally wealthy as has been implied, received at least US$77 million from the deal.
Here are the confirmations sent by JP Morgan Swiss to PetroSaudi after they handled the payments:
Further payments brought the total to US$77 million from Tarek's JP Morgan account which received hundreds of millions from Good Star and 1MDB
Further payments brought the total to US$77 million from Tarek’s JP Morgan account which received hundreds of millions from Good Star and 1MDB
Payment notice to Tarek Obaid by JP Morgan
Payment notice to Tarek Obaid by JP Morgan
Therefore, the idea put forward by the BBC article that Prince Turki, who is described as having “extensive business interests in Malaysia”, was partially the ‘donor’ of Najib’s windfall is laughable.
Far from donating, Turki has looted money from Malaysia!
It has made the Prince vulnerable to pressure, as the people around Najib have sought desperately to find a convincing Arab to pose as the donor, however. The story going round KL is that it was indeed Prince Turki, who was introduced to the Deputy Prime Minister and to MACC officials as the source of the money.
On the basis of these private assurances, backed by no published evidence whatsoever, both parties have now publicly announced that they have ‘met the donor’ and are ‘satisfied’.
Unsurprisingly, the Prince is said to be adamantly resisting any more public show on the matter.  Nor has any proof been obtained that the money came from him, beyond his Royal word, which we have shown was already bought for US$77 million.

Sarawak’s ‘Islamic extremism’ problem?

It is perhaps not surprising therefore that the single-sourced information obtained by the BBC and Telegraph appears to be full of uniformed nonsense to those who know something about Malaysia.
For example, the statement by the BBC that most of the money allegedly provided by the Saudi King was spent on projects to prevent Muslim extremism from developing in Sarawak, is laughable.
“The purpose of the donation was simple, said the Saudi source – it was to help Mr Najib and his coalition win the election, employing a strategic communications team with international experience, focusing on the province of Sarawak, and funding social programmes through party campaigning.
But why should the Saudis care about an election in a non-Arab country more than 6,000 km (3,700 miles) away? The answer, the source said, lay in their concerns over the rising power of the Muslim Brotherhood, which they consider a terrorist organisation.” [BBC, “Saudi gift to Malaysia PM Najib Razak ‘for election campaign’]
As everyone who knows knows, Sarawak is predominantly Christian and the Muslim rulers installed by KL protect their base by condemning bigotry.
Yes, much of the money was spent on vote-buying is Sarawak, according to all reports, but the bribes in Sarawak were to secure BN’s so-called “safe deposits” in the isolated rural seats in these backward states, in order to shore up their loss of support in West Malaysia and in the urban areas.
It had nothing to do with Islam, but it provoked the appropriate response from certain western journalists who are focused on terrorism. Well done Nawaf?

Fingerprints

The Muslim Brotherhood label carries clear fingerprints leading to Nawaf.  It is the accusation that Najib’s PR people have used for years to tarnish the now jailed opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim’s image amongst liberal allies in the West.
Sarawak Report has already provided emails to show that Nawaf Obaid was also commissioned to spin this accusation on behalf of Najib.  It is therefore not at all surprising that he appears to have dragged it up again to try and explain the so-called donation.
On a previous occasion, Nawaf was less lucky in convincing responsible journalists, who had bothered to seek corroboration for his Muslim Brotherhood line against Anwar.
The BBC’s Jeremy Bowen told him in a email in December 2010:
“the most common response I am getting is from people who suggest this is another attempt to damage Anwar Ibrahim’s reputation”.
After which the frustrated spinner emailed his brother to complain “how difficult it has been to get a serious news organisation to run with this subject”















Show email
From:
nawafobaid@aol.com <nawafobaid@aol.com>
Date:
23/12/2010 11:57
To:
Tarek.Obaid@Petrosaudi.com
Close email
TO :-
You should at some point also show this to your “accidental” friend to show him
how difficult it has been to get serious news organization to run with this subject.
Only do this when the stories start coming out!
NO
—–Original Message—–
From: Jeremy Bowen <jeremy.bowen@bbc.co.uk>
To: nawafobaid@aol.com
Sent: Thu, Dec 23, 2010 2:51 pm
Subject: Re: Update
Nawaf
Sorry for delayed reply.
Unfortunately I have been rather ill, not working now for almost a month (though I did do an obituary for my colleague Brian Hanrahan).
Anyway I’m now much better, and have found your email. My chasing of your dossier was on hold while I was on my sickbed.
As yet, the most common response I am getting is from people who suggest this is another attempt to damage Anwar Ibrahim’s reputation.
I am also struck by the fact that Saleh Kamel appears to be as much the subject of the dossier as Anwar Ibrahim.
Anyway I continue to try to corroborate but thus far don’t have anything I can take to air.
Even if I did, I would not be able to get it on until the New Year. Our news programmes shrink during the holiday period and won’t be back to normal until the first week of January.
Hope you escaped our snow.
Best wishes to you and your family
Jeremy
Fromnawafobaid@aol.com [mailto:nawafobaid@aol.com]
Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2010 09:26 AM
To: Jeremy Bowen
Subject: Update
Jeremy :-
Any updates? I have not heard back at all from you and wondering
what happened? Please let me know cause this is a priority for us
especially with the backdrop of the cables leaks and the sensitivity
of the assessment?
Thanks,
NAWAF


But last week Nawaf scored big time with the Daily Telegraph’s Con Coughlin, who even developed the theme in order to condemn the foreign policy of the British Labour Party, whom his newspaper politically opposes:
‘..the really intriguing fact to emerge from the year-long investigation, has been the revelation that the accusations actually related to a secret payment made by Saudi Arabia to help Mr Najib win the 2013 election campaign.
Ever since the emergence of Islamic State (Isil) in Syria and Iraq, Left-wing critics such as Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn have consistently accused the Saudis of funding Isil and other Islamist extremist groups.
But what the Najib investigation demonstrates is that the opposite is the case, and that, rather than funding extremists, the Saudi government has been quietly supporting moderate Muslim leaders around the world as part of their attempts to combat the global threat posed by Islamist-inspired extremism.” [Telegraph “Saudi Arabia funds moderate Muslims, not Isil. Extremism is on the rise in South East Asia. Of course the Saudis want to stop that”.]
This is what the world of media spinners would describe as a bullseye for Nawaf and one can only imagine the invoice he might have subsequently put into the Malaysian PM’s Office.  Media Coordinator Paul Stadlen will have been happy to pay, it seems, as he re-parcelled the material around his Malaysian media network.
Najib warrior Rajah Petra Kamaruddin was soon trumpeting the Telegraph analysis
Najib warrior Rajah Petra Kamaruddin was soon trumpeting the Telegraph analysis
However, when Sarawak Report attempted to call Mr Coughlin to put him right about this latest canard, he sadly slammed down the phone before we had a chance to finish introducing ourselves.
http://www.sarawakreport.org/2016/02/donor-prince-turki-received-us77-million-from-1mdb-expose/

Sunday, January 21, 2018

Thailand, Indonesia can seek damages from DFAT for sex abuse of their children: The matter of DFAT's "ped division" ignored by Peter McClellan's RCI despite public call for investigation

by Ganesh Sahathevan


"I formed the opinion that Foreign Affairs was involved in a huge cover-up of (pedophilia by its officers in SEA) and I just don't know why."

The quote above attributed to Australian journalist Derek Francis, who worked in Phnom Penh in the 90s was published in The Sun Herald on 28 April 1996.There were other allegations published in the mid 90s but these were not investigated.

As The Australian's Nalalie O'Brien put it in her 2004 article :

ALLEGATIONS of pedophilia made against diplomats seven years ago were never properly investigated, according to the whistleblowers who gave information to the Australian Federal Police.

Former foreign affairs officer Alastair Gaisford said police did not investigate all the allegations he made in 1996, and at least three of the diplomats he named now held senior positions with the department.

Mr Gaisford said the allegations were contained in a letter he wrote to the AFP on February 3, 1996. It was never determined if any of the allegations were true.

A police spokeswoman said yesterday that an investigation was opened that year regarding the sexual exploitation of children. She said police were currently investigating a number of people and would not comment further.

A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said yesterday there had been no new allegations of pedophilia made since 1996.

A departmental inquiry was set up after former Victorian Liberal MP Ken Aldred made claims in federal parliament about pedophilia in the department.

The inquiry, Management Response to Allegations of Pedophile Activity within the Foreign Affairs Portfolio, headed up by Pamela O'Neil, was not required to investigate the veracity of claims of pedophile activity among officials.



In December 2014 The Sunday Telegraph reported :


A FORMER Jakarta-based diplomat has urged the government's royal commission into child sexual assaults to include an investigation into the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, claiming it was involved in &quot;paedophile cover-ups&quot; 30 years ago.
"The South-East Asia division was then known as the 'ped division'," Shane Carroll, 62, who spent 23 years with DFAT, said.



It would be naive in the extreme for  DFAT to assume that the governments of Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia and other countries in South East Asia are not aware of the cases of pedophilia  in their countries which involve DFAT employees, especially when the matter has been so widely reported.
It is not unlikely that those government would (if they have not done so already) pursue DFAT and the Australian Government for damages, for the harm done to their children. They are likely to do what Peter McClellan's RCI into child sex abuse has refused to do.
END




DEC
26

 

by Ganesh Sahathevan


This is an excerpt from Molly Carson's "More Cloak Than Dagger: One Woman's Career in Secret Intelligence"




(Source Molly Carson's "More Cloak Than Dagger: One Woman's Career in Secret Intelligence" page 122)
The incident would have occurred sometime between 1955 and 1962. Government departments ,including the Department Of Foreign Affairs ,are institutions ,even if Peter McClellan's Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses To Child Sex Abuse  gives the impression that the Catholic Church is the only institution that matters.As mentioned in my earlier article , child abuse like any other activity ,requires resources to fund it,and government institutions like the Department Of Foreign Affairs provides a very good source of resources for sexual escapades, especially when the activities are better conducted offshore ,for example in Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam or Sri Lanka, to name a few of the more  obvious destinations.
Ms Carson's book was published in 2016, and it received a lot of publicity, It is hard to see how that detail above escaped Peter McClellan's RCI.
END 



Friday, January 19, 2018

1MDB theft pursued by the DOJ's Criminal Division,pursuing "Malaysian officials", and "corrupt 1MDB officials": -Testimony before US Senate

Comment 


Reproduced as is: 





In the Malaysia matter - the largest single action ever brought under the Initiative - the Department filed a complaint in 2016 to forfeit and recover assets associated with an international conspiracy to launder more than $4.5 billion stolen from the country`s sovereign wealth fund, known as 1Malaysia Development Berhad, or 1MDB. The Malaysian government created 1MDB to promote economic development through international partnerships and foreign direct investment, with the ultimate goal of improving the lives of the Malaysian people. However, corrupt 1MDB officials treated this public trust as a personal bank account. Between 2009 and 2015, those corrupt officials and their associates took more than $4.5 billion from the development fund in four phases. These funds were laundered through a complex web of opaque transactions and fraudulent shell companies with bank accounts in countries around the world, including Switzerland, Singapore, Luxembourg, and the United States. The funds were then used to purchase approximately $1.7 billion in assets that the Department seeks to recover, including a $261 million, 350-foot yacht; a $35 million jet; masterpieces by Van Gogh, Picasso, and Monet; and a motion picture company that used the funds to finance, among other things, the production of the films ``The Wolf of Wall Street,`` ``Daddy`s Home,`` and ``Dumb and Dumber To.`` MLARS and the U.S. Attorney`s Office in Los Angeles filed civil complaints targeting assets that, according to court documents, were misappropriated and diverted by Malaysian officials and their associates from 1MDB. In June 2017, the Department announced additional steps to forfeit and recover assets, bringing the total assets subject to forfeiture in this case to more than $1.7 billion. If the United States is successful in court, we will forfeit this more than $1.7 billion in property, liquidate it, and, ultimately, return as much as possible to the citizens of Malaysia.


(Source: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE ACTING DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, CRIMINAL DIVISION M. KENDALL DAY, PREPARED TESTIMONY BEFORE THE SENATE BANKING, HOUSING AND URBAN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE HEARING ON COMBATING MONEY LAUNDERING AND OTHER FORMS OF ILLICIT FINANCE: ADMINISTRATION PERSPECTIVES ON REFORMING AND STRENGTHENING BSA ENFORCEMENT, AS RELEASED BY THE COMMITTEE - NEWS EVENT)

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

FELDA-Synergy Promenade scandal: Where did FELDA find the BILLIONS needed to repay Semarak land loans?

by Ganesh Sahathevan


While FELDA chairman Tan Sri Shahrir Abdul Samad has declared that "Felda has successfully recovered ownership of 16 strategic plots of land worth an estimated RM 200 million along Jalan Semarak", left unsaid is the cost.


The land has been re-assigned by FELDA's JV partner Synergy Promenade.Synergy had been provided a power of attorney over that land in order to finance the project.The land must therefore have been provided as security for a loan or loans, and the money raised has clearly been spent;the project, as the photo above shows, is well and truly underway.

The project is said to have a Gross Development Value of about RM 5 Billion, and even half of that comes to RM 2.5 Billion.
Returning the land to FELDA would have required that money to be repaid, but Shahrir is not saying where the CASH to do so came from. And then there is the matter of compensation........
END 

REFERENCE

uesday, January 9, 2018


FELDA :Rocky Atan is right, "Lim Sian See" is wrong, and the Badawi controlled Najib PR team continues to undermine Najib

by Ganesh Sahathevan



KLVC IS A JOINT VENTURE.FROM WHAT IS KNOWN PUBLICLY IT APPEARS TO BE A
CONTRACTUAL JOINT VENTURE.


It has been previously reported on this blog that Malaysian PM  Najib Razak's very own PR team appears to be acting against him, under the direction of his predecessor Tun Abdullah Badawi.
Readers will recall that that report relied on stories written by Najib man Peter Kamaruddin aka RPK.

The current Felda land "scandal" seems to be yet another attempt to undermine Najib by his own team, this time by none other than "Lim Sian See". Lim's "investigation"  led to a story in the UMNO controlled Berita Harian,and consequently what has become a full blown "scandal".

However ,Najib loyalist Rocky Atan has been at pains to point out  that there is no scandal, that nothing has been lost,despite "Lim Sian See's" claims.

Reproduced below is Rocky's defense of the deal, and the most important bit is that photo of the ON-GOING development ,at the end of his stories.An enlarged copy of the photo has been reproduced above,and enlarged.As readers can see for themselves in the bottom left of the photo, the project is a joint venture between the developer, Synergy Promenade Sdn Bhd,and Felda Investment Corporation.
That fact has been made painfully obvious, so it is hard to see how anyone could literally steal Felda and Government land, as "Sian See" suggests.

As the New Straits Times itself has reported, the real estate in question was sold into the JV at a value of RM 270 million. Some insist that the land is worth closer to a billion , but bear in mind that this is a JV,and Felda continues to have rights over the value of the project. Those rights are independent of any ownership of the land.Anyone can understand that ,so Najib needs to ask himself why his own team is putting him in a position where he has to justify a normal commercial deal.





Monday, January 08, 2018


Ah, Felda did not lose its land after all, Part 2: Forensic audit starts today

Having to clean up after his own people's mess, yet again

“As such, reports saying that the land has been lost are incorrect." - PM Najib Razak, KLVC project on Felda land: External audit appointed, Jan 4

TWO CABINET ministers have spoken out on the Felda's Jalan Semarak land issue in support of the Prime Minister's press statement last Thursday. Hishammuddin Hussein said we should let the investigation proceed as we don't want too see anyone get punished in the media and social media (Don't be quick to judge Felda land issue, Jan 6). Azalina Aziz also downplayed allegations that Felda had "lost" the land. "The land ownership issue is more a business matter." (Felda land deal just a business matter, Jan 6). 

The Minister in the PM's Department went on to say she believed the issue would not affect the support of Felda voters "because it was brought up by the chairman himself, which means he will find a solution to this problem"

But with all due respect, the chairman, Shahrir Samad, may have become part of "this problem". Since the day BH broke the story ["Felda hilang hakmilik tanah Jalan Semarak"], Shahrir himself has been caught many times lamenting the "lost" land. (herehere and here just to link a few) and finding fault with his predecessor Isa Samad and the developer of KLVC, Synergy Promenade (which also owns the land by virtue of a land transfer done by FIC in 2014 when Isa was chairman of Felda as well as FIC). 

Will he sing a different tune this afternoon when he meets the Felda staff at a town hall meeting?

If there was going to be a solution to the problem, all parties involved should have sat down together and dealt with it like professionals instead of using the media to sensationalise the issue the way it did. But now, if you ask me, the damage is done. And the biggest victim is Najib Razak himself. 

And with the general election right around the corner, you've got to wonder what those guys around the PM and behind the so-called Semarak exposé were thinking of ...


p.s. And all this while, the developers of Semarak land have not said a single word. Do they even exist?



Thursday, January 04, 2018


Ah, Felda did not lose its Samarak land after all!


The following is a press statement issued a while ago by PM Najib Razak on the Semarak scandal, the story that the Najib-friendly Berita Harian broke two weeks ago (Dec 21).

The salient points:
Para 7:
The PM says report(s) that claimed the Felda land in Semarak had been lost were inaccurate.
Para 4&5:
The PM had directed Felda on Dec 11, 10 days before the BH broke the story  to:
(a) determine if there was abuse of power or/and corruption in the procedures for KL Vertical City, the ongoing project on the Felda Semarak land and
(b) lodge a police report

Kenyataan Media  

1. Sebuah firma audit luar telah pun dilantik oleh Jabatan Perdana Menteri (JPM) untuk melaksanakan audit forensik ke atas projek Kuala Lumpur Vertical City (KLVC) yang sedang dibangunkan oleh Synergy Promenade Sdn Bhd (SPSB) atas tanah milik FELDA. 

2. Firma audit ini akan menjalankan audit forensik ke atas semua aktiviti, keputusan dan tindakan berkaitan dengan projek ini. Ianya juga akan menilai semula proses pengawalan yang berkaitan, termasuk kelemahan dalam pentadbiran dalaman serta pengawasan FELDA ke atas FELDA Investment Corporation Sdn Bhd (FIC). 

3. Siasatan firma audit ini juga akan membabitkan Pejabat Tanah dan Galian Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur dan Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur (DBKL). Siasatan firma audit ini dijangka akan siap dalam tempoh 30 hari dan  laporan penuh akan dikemukakan kepada JPM. 

4. Pelantikan firma audit ini adalah susulan arahan saya kepada FELDA dalam satu surat bertarikh 11 Disember 2017, untuk menentukan sama ada berlakunya ketidakpatuhan kepada tatacara sedia ada atau berlakunya unsur-unsur salah guna kuasa dan perlakuan rasuah berkaitan projek KLVC. 

5. Dalam surat tersebut yang dihantar oleh JPM kepada Pengerusi FELDA, Tan Sri Shahrir Abdul Samad,  saya juga telah mengarahkan FELDA untuk membuat laporan polis terhadap SPSB untuk "criminal fraud" serta mengambil tindakan undang-undang untuk "civil fraud" bagi pemindahan hak milik tanah FELDA tanpa pengetahuan dan kebenaran. 

6. Saya telah mengarahkan tindakan-tindakan ini diambil bagi melindungi kepentingan FELDA dan peneroka, tidak dikompromi dan bagi memastikan tanah-tanah tersebut terus kekal menjadi milik FELDA. 

7. Pihak polis juga telah menjalankan siasatan dan tanah-tanah terlibat telah turut dikaveat. Oleh itu, laporan yang mengatakan tanah-tanah itu sudah hilang adalah tidak tepat. Kaveat Pendaftar yang telah dikenakan ke atas tanah-tanah itu akan memastikan kepentingan Felda dilindungi. 

8. Tindakan undang-undang akan diambil jika siasatan firma audit luar dan polis menunjukkan adanya salah laku oleh mereka yang terbabit dalam projek ini yang telah dipersetujui pada tahun 2014. 

Putrajaya

4 Januari 2018

The MACC has ruled OUT any element of corruption in the deal between FIC and Synergy Promenade (No elements of graft in Felda land transfer, says MACC - Dec 21) so we are looking at other "elements", if anything at all. Refer to Para 8: IF the audit firm and the police find any form of misappropriation, the Government will take legal action.

What if the audit firm and the police don't find anything?

What if the deal wasn't "dubious" as reported?

And what happens to KLVC, does the project stop now?

Sunday, January 14, 2018

Loans to and from IPIC, China may be clawed back : Implications of not obeying Malaysia's External Loans Act 1963

by Ganesh Sahathevan




Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak and China's Premier Li Keqiang attend 
a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People, in Beijing, China, Najib 
seems to have forgotten that he needs the approval of Parliament for his China and 
IPIC funding deals..


It was almost three years ago that Najib Razak's government entered into a series of deals with Abu Dhabi's IPIC with the intention, we now know, of defeating the criminal investigation by the US Department of Justice ,and other national enforcement agencies into 1 MDB, the Malaysian Government and Najib Razak , the Prime Minister and Finance Minister.


That intention alone is enough to make the IPIC deal, which has now it seems been expanded to include the Chinese Government ,illegal and allow for all Government Of Malaysia monies injected into these deals to be clawed back.


Over and above that issue is the matter of illegality for failure to obtain the approval of the Malaysian Parliament .As this writer pointed out in 2015, the IPIC debt deal was announced without it being deliberated by Parliament.Subsequently it does not look like it has been gazzetted, as required by Malaysia's External Loans Act 1963. The same now extends to all subsequent and related IPIC deals, as well as the deals with Beijing.

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Published on Published onJune 7, 2015

IPIC cash injection against the laws of Malaysia? Malaysia's External Loans Act 1963 may mean IPIC gets nothing

 by Ganesh Sahathevan
The 4th of June 2015 was the date by which the Government of Malaysia (GOM) said the UAE's  International Petroleum Investment Company  (IPIC) would settle its debt of approximately USD 1 billion  owed to a consortium led by Deutsche Bank.
Recall however that this  debt deal was announced without it being deliberated by Parliament.Subsequently it does not look like it has been  gazzetted, as required by Malaysia's  External Loans Act 1963.

Prima facie it does appear as if the GOM is not allowed by its own laws to accept funding in any form from IPIC,or from anyone else for that  matter , unless duly authorized by Parliament. For IPIC this means that even if that USD 1 billion has been payed over,whatever the GOM has promised pursuant to the deal may be ruled  illegal, and IPIC may not get anything in return.

The relevant legislation is provided below for reference,and readers are reminded that these rules are in place to ensure that government spending and borrowing is properly regulated,and politicians are restrained from driving  the country off a fiscal cliff.




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AUTHORITY TO BORROW Power to raise external loans, and application of sums raised


2. (1) The Minister (that is to say, the Minister for the time being charged with responsibility for finance) may from time to time raise loans outside Malaysia— (a) for the purposes of the Federal Development Fund or some one or more of those purposes; or (b) for the repayment or amortization of loans raised outside Malaysia, whether under this section or not.

(3) The sums raised under this section shall not exceed the sum specified from time to time by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong by order published in the Gazette and such order shall as soon as possible after its publication be laid by the Minister before the Dewan Rakyat; and in applying this subsection sums raised in a currency other than ringgit shall be converted into ringgit as at the day when the amount to be raised is determined and by the use of such rate of exchange as the Governor of Bank Negara may certify to be then appropriate



(4) Subsections (1), (1A) and (2) shall authorize the Minister to include among the terms and conditions of any external loan provisions for exemptions from taxes or for exempting from exchange control the debt charges or any description of debt charges in respect of an externalloan; and the Minister shall by order make such provision as he considers necessary to give effect to any such exemption from tax or from exchange control, and any such order shall have effect notwithstanding anything in any written law relating to the tax, or to exchange control, as the case may be.

(6) All debt charges in respect of any external loan shall be charged on the Federal Consolidated Fund (as provided by Article 98 of the Federal Constitution), and subsections (1), (1A) and (2) have effect subject to that Article. (7) In this section “debt charges” includes interest, sinking fund charges, the repayment or amortization of debt, and all expenditure in connection with the raising of loans and the service and redemption of debt created thereby
http://www.agc.gov.my/Akta/Vol.%209/Act%20403.pdf