Saudi backed Al-Arabiya's Najib Razak story suggests that the Al-Sauds will not lie to protect Najib,and would rather see him gone.Al-Sauds may actually prefer Mahathir

by Ganesh Sahathevan




A considerable fan base is excited about his comeback. “I was still young when Mahathir was prime minister. And I thought anything was possible ... maybe cars could fly,” said Nazariah Harun, a former government party supporter in the southern state of Johor, bordering Singapore.




In reading the Al-Arabiya story about PM Najib  below it is important to keep in mind that Al-Araibiya is owned by the Middle East Broadcasting Corporation,which in turn appears to be owned by long time Al-Saud front Salah Kamel, and the Al-Saud's investment manager, Prince Al-Waleed ibn Talal ibn Al-Saud

In fact reading the more recent Al-Arabiya story on Mahathir suggests that the Al-Saud's would rather see the return of Mahathir.


END


References

Malaysia has been betrayed by Prime Minister Najib Razak

Friday, 22 July 2016

Text size A A A

Dr. Azeem Ibrahim

I have argued time and again that the greatest threat to the Muslim world is not the West, but rather, corruption and incompetence in administration in the Muslim countries themselves.

To this argument there were a number of crucial pieces of evidence. First of all, there is a clear inverse correlation between corruption and economic development not just in the Middle East, but globally. Secondly, Muslim countries are among the most corrupt countries in the world, and this maps well to the problems we know well from the region.

In this sense, the abundance of natural resources has served to mask much of the problem, as per capita wealth in the region comes out as much higher than it would have been for a given level of corruption, and that distorts the perception of societal problems in these countries.

For another, that abundance of wealth can be used to buy off the acquiescence of the population to an otherwise questionable regime, as is the case with the benefits that these states lavish upon their population, or alternatively, can be used to fund extensive repressive police and intelligence apparatuses to keep the population in check, as was the case in Saddam-era Iraq.

But there was also plenty of converse evidence, specifically states on the periphery of the Islamic world which did not conform the region’s reputation for corruption. Most notably, we had the examples of Turkey and of Malaysia.

Malaysia is a secure and naturally wealthy country with a track record of success in development and is suffering entirely from self-inflicted wounds

Dr. Azeem Ibrahim

In both the cases, the countries have inherited and sustained over the span of the 20th century an ethos of modernism and civic-mindedness which emulated that in the successful countries in the West. And they reaped the benefits of social and political stability, and economic development, both having been the most economically developed Islamic countries in international rankings.

But I fear we are about to be witnesses to a very cruel experiment, which I believe will prove my argument. It is yet too early to make a definitive judgement on the direction Turkey is heading in after the failed coup of the other week, even if the omens do not look good.

Breakdown of institutional functioning

In the case of Malaysia, we are already seeing the breakdown in institutional functioning and credibility which will likely see the country join the other Middle Eastern countries in the infamous club of corrupt and barely functioning states.

Malaysia has been betrayed not so much by its institutional traditions, as by its populist Prime Minister Najib Razak. He has ridden a wave of popular support into power on the back of promises for economic liberalization, and growth and opportunity, but has seemingly wasted no time in milking the state dry for his own personal gain and the gain of his family.

An ongoing Wall Street Journal investigation is looking into evidence that as much as $1 billion has been siphoned into the prime minister and his relatives’ bank accounts, most of it from the coffers of the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1MDB, allegedly started by Mr Razak soon after he took charge in the country in 2009. And a further $5 billion are unaccounted for.

Neither Turkey nor Malaysia can hide behind the usual excuses about Western intervention or historical colonial crimes. Both have come into the post WW2 world as confident, independent nations, and both carved a way in the world for themselves through hard work and diligence, efforts which have yielded a good life to the majority of their citizens.

Turkey currently finds itself in a complex political, economic and security crisis from which we cannot draw too many general conclusions. But Malaysia is suffering entirely from self-inflicted wounds. It is a secure and naturally wealthy country with a track record of success in development. But it has let its guard down, and has let corruption infest the highest levels of government.

Malaysian civil society must now take firm and immediate action to put the country back on track. If not, I fear that the country will tragically end up as the perfect case study into how the problems of the Islamic world stem primarily from domestic corruption.
________________________
Azeem Ibrahim is an RAI Fellow at Mansfield College, University of Oxford and Research Professor at the Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College. He completed his PhD from the University of Cambridge and served as an International Security Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and a World Fellow at Yale. Over the years he has met and advised numerous world leaders on policy development and was ranked as a Top 100 Global Thinker by the European Social Think Tank in 2010 and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He tweets @AzeemIbrahim
 

Last Update: Friday, 22 July 2016 KSA 11:54 - GMT 08:54

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Al Arabiya English's point-of-view.

Will 91-year-old Mahathir Mohamed become Malaysia PM again?

Mahathir Mohamad speaks during a conference in Sanaa, Yemen, on June 7, 2012. (Reuters)

Reuters, Kuala Sin, MalaysiaThursday, 6 July 2017

Prime Minister Najib Razak won Malaysia’s last general election, despite losing the popular vote. Since then, he has been embroiled in a corruption scandal that has been investigated in a half-dozen countries.

Yet the avuncular leader with an aristocratic pedigree was still expecting to cruise to another election victory in polls due by mid-2018, maintaining his coalition’s record of unbroken rule since independence in 1957. Now, all bets are off.

That’s because his former mentor and prime minister for 22 years, Mahathir Mohamad, who turns 92 next week, has agreed to join a fractured opposition alliance and head the government again if it wins. He would be the world’s oldest prime minister if that happened.

Mahathir, along with Najib’s former deputy, Muhyiddin Yassin - fired last year for questioning his boss about the scandal - have formed a new party called Bersatu (Unite). It has opened branches in 165 of parliament’s 222 constituencies, Muhyiddin told Reuters, a feat few opposition parties have managed.

During his 1981-2003 rule, Mahathir championed modernization by switching Malaysia’s focus from plantations and mining to a diversified high-tech manufacturing base on the back of foreign investment. He built the world’s tallest buildings at the time, the Petronas Twin Towers.

A considerable fan base is excited about his comeback. “I was still young when Mahathir was prime minister. And I thought anything was possible ... maybe cars could fly,” said Nazariah Harun, a former government party supporter in the southern state of Johor, bordering Singapore.

Mahathir also dealt ruthlessly with opponents, jailing his former deputy - and now alliance partner - Anwar Ibrahim on corruption and sodomy charges in the late 1990s. The opposition alliance hopes to capitalize on a couple of scandals that are resonating in rural Malaysia.

One is around the state’s 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) strategic development fund that Najib, 63, founded after taking power in 2009. Its murky transactions through overseas front companies and Middle Eastern partners, many of them exposed by foreign media reports, have bewildered the public over the past two years.

Najib insisted he did nothing wrong when it leaked to the media that $700 million wound up in his bank account before the 2013 election. The other scandal, involving state plantation company FELDA, is more problematic because it directly affects tens of thousands of small landholders in the heartlands. They are a key vote bank for Najib’s party, the United Malay National Organization (UMNO).

Prime Minister Najib Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor arrive for ASEAN Summit in Nusa Dua, Bali, on November 17, 2011. (Reuters)

Umno patronage

The 1,600 residents of Kuala Sin, a village of farmers and rubber tappers in Mahathir’s home state of Kedah, are switching from UMNO to Bersatu, says UMNO’s former chief there. “I’ve held the ballot box here (for UMNO) from 1962 until 2014... but this year, God willing, UMNO will lose,” said 77-year-old Ramli Mat Akib at his weathered two-storey wooden home in Kuala Sin.

The UMNO branch office opposite his home has closed. Mahthir’s son Mukhriz, who leads Bersatu’s campaign in Kedah, believes it is “making huge headway” in rural Malaysia. “It goes all the way down to the branches, and in Kedah very many UMNO branches have dissolved,” Mukhriz told Reuters.

UMNO says that isn’t true nationwide. “We have a lot of young people queuing up to sign up at our 
headquarters as new party members. I don’t see a problem at all,” said UMNO’s secretary general Tengku Adnan Mansor.

Despite the scandals, Najib commands the loyalty of UMNO chieftains. Patronage has much to do with that.

An UMNO leader needs to distribute largesse to guarantee chiefs’ support and they, in turn, operate an affirmative action plan for ethnic Malays first introduced in 1971. The policy gives majority Malays government contracts, cheap housing, guaranteed university admissions and preferential stock shares.

Government-appointed village committees also provide cradle-to-grave assistance. “This makes the villagers closely dependent on the committee, and that makes the committee supreme and also makes UMNO supreme,” said Radzi Ayob, 54, a veteran UMNO leader in Kedah, who joined Bersatu last year.

But most Malays have moved to cities and even those in the countryside are less reliant on the rural welfare model. “As it is now, UMNO still needs Malaysians but Malaysians may not need UMNO,” Radzi said.

Curtailing dissent

Najib has kept a lid on the scandals by curbing dissent. The main media outlets are allied to his government. Anwar, the charismatic opposition figure, is in jail on what critics say was another trumped-up sodomy conviction in 2014. Najib has revived a colonial-era subversion law allowing him to jail opponents without trial. The only conviction in the 1MDB scandal was of a legislator -- who publicized alleged wrongdoing at the fund.

But Najib is riding a good economy into the election. The ringgit has been one of Asia’s strongest currencies, stocks have hit a two-year high, and economic growth was 5.6 percent in the first quarter. And an opposition victory, however unlikely, would put Malaysia into uncharted waters and likely trigger fears of a short-term plunge in financial markets.

Analysts, however, say Mahathir’s entry into the electoral fray supporting an Anwar-led opposition alliance does represents a real threat to UMNO.

“If the two leaders can revive a reversed role of their previous partnership displayed so effectively when they were in national leadership in the 1990s, the opposition could have a winning formula,” said Yang Razali Kassim, senior fellow at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore. 
“Mahathir supporting Anwar, in a spirit of genuine reconciliation, will be a powerful combination.”

Salbiah Kassim, a member of the UMNO women’s wing in Kedah, saw parallels to Brexit and US President Donald Trump’s election win. “Just like overseas, things can change,” she said. “We don’t 
know where the silent voters will go.”
 

Last Update: Thursday, 6 July 2017 KSA 09:29 - GMT 06:29

Memo to the ABC: You cannot protect Penny Wong, her citizenship papers are readily accessible to any number of Malaysian officials who will not be afraid to use them against her, and Australia

by Ganesh Sahathevan


The ABC appears to have taken a "must not raise Penny Wong's dual citizenship" stand, desperately hoping that the issue will blow away and her status preserved. Unfortunately, the ABC seems not to realize that Penny Wong's birth certificate is already in the possession of Malaysian authorities, who tend to be very good at using information of that sort to their advantage. Naturally, that would be to the detriment of the Australian national interests.

Friday, July 14, 2017

Senator Penny Wong born in Malaysia,and born a Malaysian citizen-Has she officially renounced Malaysian citizenship, and can we see proof?

by Ganesh Sahathevan






Penelope Wong Ying Yen, aka Senator Penny Wong, was born in Kota Kinabalu ,State Of Sabah, Federation of Malaysia. Her father Francis Wong is a Malaysian citizen,which makes Wong a Malaysian citizen by birth.


While she moved to Australia in  1976,that would not have caused the loss of her Malaysian citizenship.
Many Malaysians who later in life took up citizenship  of other countries assumed that by doing so Malaysian citizenship was lost  automatically, but this is not the case.

There is ,provided for in the Malaysian Constitution and arising laws a process which requires citizens who wish to renounce their citizenship to make a formal application to do so.It is up to the Malaysian Government to determine if the application should be accepted.

If the Government determines that the application is to be accepted, then the applicant is issued a formal notice of that fact,with a copy of his or her Malaysian birth certificate marked with  words in Malay and/or English  ,"No longer a citizen of Malaysia (paraphrase)".

None of this has ever been provided the public in the case of Penny Wong. Indeed the question has never been put. We are simply expected to accept  that Wong is not a citizen of Malaysia, despite the facts.
END

Pertonas must not hide billions lost in shale misdaventures -Heads must roll- Wee Yaw Hin must pay for losses

by Ganesh Sahathevan

After a six-year stint as head of Petroliam Nasional Bhd’s (Petronas) upstream business, Datuk Wee Yiaw Hin  said (in 2016) that he is “ready to take a break from the industry.”
In typical style Petronas maintains that these write-downs by its partners have nothing to do with Pertonas:

In Australia

Santos has advised of a further $US1.5 billion write-down on the value of its new GLNG gas export project in Queensland in a move that has fuelled expectations the plant will have to be run at well below full capacity for many years.

The impairment, which chairman Peter Coates said reflects "the reality of the current oil price environment", also means Santos will almost certainly plunge deep into the red when it reports its first-half results on Friday.

The latest write-down, of about $US1.05 billion after tax, comes on top of the $565 million ) pre-tax impairment on GLNG in February.

Petronas share of the write-down equals approximately about RM 6.2 Billion .Santos owns 30% of the project while Petronas's share equals 27.5%.The figure is based on Petronas having equal share BUT an exchange rate of 1 AUD equal MYR 3. The current exchange rate is 1 AUD equal MYR 3.42.

In Canada

The impairment, which would have an effect on the profitability of the national oil company but not its cash-flow situation, is estimated based on the provisions made by one of the joint-venture (JV) partners in the LNG project. According to wire reports, Japan Petroleum Exploration Co (Japex) that has a 10% stake in the Pacific NorthWest LNG project consortium would take a loss of about C$102mil (RM349mil) in the year to end-March following Petronas’ decision to abort its Canadian LNG project.

“Based on what Japex will provide, Petronas’ portion would be about six times the amount considering its 62% stake in the consortium,” said an industry analyst.

Therefore, Petronas's share of the write-down would be approximately, RM 2.1 Billion



In Sudan
This statement from 2014  says much about Petronas's ostrich like attitude attitude:

“Sudan and South Sudan have done very well despite the security issues,” Petronas executive vice-president for exploration and production Datuk Wee Yiaw Hin toldStarBiz in a recent interview.

“We must look at it as a long-term investment. Production from Sudan and South Sudan average about 220,000 bpd today.

“Despite zero production for many years, we didn’t have to make any impairments for our operations there because we have made so much money and the remaining value is huge.”

No indication has been given anywhere of what  remaining value is huge means.


END


References


#AFRICATECH
JULY 20, 2016 / 3:07 AM / A YEAR AGO
China's CNPC says evacuates most of its staff from South Sudan



Reuters Staff


2 MIN READ





HONG KONG (Reuters) - China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) has evacuated the bulk of its workers from South Sudan after fighting started in the capital Juba earlier this month, but its operations were unaffected, a CNPC-run paper said on Tuesday.

Many foreigners have been evacuated from South Sudan, the world's newest nation, which is still recovering from a two-year civil war that started in 2013 which killed tens of thousands of people and drove more than 2.5 million from their homes.

The latest fighting erupted on July 7 and lasted for four days. It was between followers of President Salva Kiir and Riek Machar, the former rebel leader who became vice president under a deal to end a two-year civil war. The violence killed at least 272 people.

"From July 12-18, the company has successfully evacuated 191 CNPC employees due to the conflict in South Sudan. CNPC also helped to evacuate another 157 people working in China organizations there," CNPC's China Oil News said.

"So far, CNPC’s production operations are still stable and in good order in South Sudan."

Other leading investors in South Sudan's oil industry include Malaysia's state-run oil and gas firm Petronas and India's ONGC Videsh.

In 2014, CNPC entered into an agreement with South Sudan to boost production of existing oilfields, with its engineering and services team working with oil producers in three blocks, and also conduct training on technologies to enhance oil recovery (EOR).

CNPC said after the evacuation it will have 77 staff members left to maintain security at its operations, with 24 of them based in Juba.

South Sudan's oil production, which stood at 245,000 barrels per day before violence in December 2013, is down by roughly a third.


Reporting Hong Kong Newsroom; Writing by George Obulutsa in Nairobi, editing by William Hardy

Najib's other 1MDB,or DCNS money? USD 300 million which he did not deny receiving, but which the DOJ has not located. How much in Hong Kong, and is this a missing Scorpene link?

by Ganesh Sahathevan




Monies were transferred from Najib's AMislamic Bank 
and Singapore   accounts to accounts at Credit Suisse's
 branch in Hong Kong:(see story below)


The latest US DOJ complaint not only demolished what was left of the "Saudi donor" story, it also showed how some of that USD 700 million from 1 MDB was used to  buy the USD 25 Million Rosmah Pink.

However,there is a further USD 300 million which even the DOJ seems to know nothing of.That additional sum was reported in the ABC 4 Corners story by LInton Besser ,aired last year:

LINTON BESSER: The Malaysian government says Najib Razak has returned more than US$600 million dollars he received in 2013 and closed two of his accounts.

But Four Corners has established that three new accounts were opened in the prime minister's name and the money just kept on pouring in.

In June 2014, for example, the bank was notified of another 50 million British pounds that was to be wired into the prime minister's name. There were also a series of cash deposits that raised money laundering alerts here inside the bank.

A high-level source has shown Four Corners the Malaysian prime minister's bank accounts. The banking documents reveal an extraordinary and steady flow of money between 2011 and 2014.

By June 26, 2012, the bank records show deposits worth US$75 million from a Saudi prince, US$80 million from the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Finance and another US$120 million from a shell company in the British Virgin Islands.

On the 21st of March, 2013, the prime minister received US$620 million from a different company registered there. Four days later, the same donor deposited another US$61 million.

By the 10th of April, 2013, the prime minister had received more than US$1 billion.

The Malaysian Government did not dispute the above facts, and instead bragged that the ABC story only proved that the money in Najib's account was from the Saudis.That assertion was based on the bank statements shown to the ABC's Besser,which were part of the story that went to air.

We now know that the documents were false with regards the source of funds. The sums on the other hand seem to be accurate. This blog has reported the existence of Najib's accounts in Hong Kong so it is only logical to ask if that HK accounts have been used to launder the funds.

Given the French Scorpene indictment, it must also be asked if those accounts have been used to launder funds said to have been received by Najib fron DCNS.

END 

References 

French list Malaysian PM Najib Razak in bribery case file

• The Australian
• 12:00AM February 6, 2016
• Save

• 
  AMANDA HODGE

  

  South East Asia correspondent

  Jakarta

  @hodgeamanda

  
  

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is facing a new front in a multi-billion-dollar corruption scandal bedevilling his administration, with French investigators probing whether he received bribes as defence minister in a $1.2 billion submarine contract.

The investigation centres on Thales International Asia’s 2002 contract to deliver two submarines to the Malaysian government and whether the company’s former president, Bernard Baiocco, indirectly paid kickbacks to Mr Najib to secure the deal.

Mr Baiocco was indicted last December for allegedly paying commissions to Abdul Razak ­Baginda, a political analyst purportedly close friend of Mr Najib.

But Britain’s Financial Times cited sources close to the investigation — including Mr Baiocco’s lawyer Jean-Yves Le Borgne — confirming that judicial documents also named Mr Najib as a suspected recipient.

All three men have denied any wrongdoing, with Mr Baginda telling the Financial Times he received $US47 million in legitimate consulting fees for his role in securing the Scorpene submarine deal but paid no bribes.

A Malaysian government spokesman dismissed the ­allegations as “baseless smears for political gain”, saying Mr Najib had received no correspondence from French prosecutors.

The Paris probe come less than a fortnight after Malaysian Attorney-General Mohamad Apandi Ali cleared Mr Najib over a $US681m transfer into his bank account from accounts connected with the 1MDB state investment fund.

Mr Apandi found the money was a personal gift from the Saudi royal family to help fund Mr Najib’s 2013 election campaign and to counter the influence of ­Islamic extremism in Malaysia — an explanation Riyadh has ­refused to confirm or deny.

However, the Sarawak Report, an online journalism site which has led coverage of 1MDB scandal, offered an alternative narrative. It alleged the single Saudi source cited in some reports to have confirmed the gift was Nawaf Obaid, a spin doctor employed on occasions and at some cost by the Malaysian government to bolster its image.

The former spin doctor, who previously held a post in the Saudi regime, is also connected with PetroSaudi, a Middle East oil company implicated in the ­alleged misappropriation of as much as $US4 billion from 1MDB, through his brother Tarek Obaid who was its former director, the report claimed.

PetroSaudi is now under ­investigation by Swiss, Singaporean and US agencies on suspicion of having helped siphon hundreds of millions from 1MDB.

The Sarawak Report claims to have traced the money trail from PetroSaudi’s own emails, thanks to former PetroSaudi employee turned whistleblower Xavier Justo, who is in a Thai jail for blackmailing his former ­employer.

It also questions suggestions the donation to Mr Najib may have come in part from the late Saudi king Abdullah’s seventh son Prince Turki, a 50 per cent shareholder in PetroSaudi, citing JPMorgan confirmation statements showing $US77m actually flowed out of 1MDB into Prince Turki’s accounts.

While Mr Najib has urged ­Malaysians to accept his exoneration and move on from the issue, the Paris probe means the Prime Minister is facing another front in his battle to remain in power.

He has already removed officials who have questioned his ­involvement in the 1MDB affair, and this week forced the resignation of Mukhriz Mahathir, chief minister of Kedah State and son of former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad.

Both men have played key roles in a so-far unsuccessful campaign within the ruling UMNO party to unseat Mr Najib.

The Scorpene submarine deal now under French investigation is notorious in Malaysia because of its link to the murder of a young Mongolian woman, Altantuya Shaaribu. Shaaribu had been in a ­relationship with Mr Baginda and acted as a translator during the deal but later accused him of failing to pay her $500,000 fee.

Sirul Azhar Umar, one of two police officers from a government close protection unit convicted of her murder but freed on bail pending an appeal, fled to Australia where he is being held in Sydney’s Villawood detention centre.

Rumours that both Mr Baginda and the Prime Minister himself were linked to her murder have dogged Mr Najib, though both were cleared of involvement during a 2008 trial.

===================================================

SEP

3

PM Najib's RM 1.125 Billion in HK & Tan Sri Larry Low ,faher of Jho 

by Ganesh Sahathevan

Overlooked in this week's reporting is this revelation ,with regards a  report lodged with Hong Kong Police by UMNO whistle-blower Khairuddin Hassan:


Four other companies are also suspect, added Khairuddin, because Najib is a signatory here and the accounts of the companies show that a total of RM1.125 billion has been kept at the Hong Kong branch of Credit Suisse. “I have requested the Hong Kong police to conduct comprehensive and detailed investigations on the financial sources of the companies concerned and their transactions.”
“I requested the authorities concerned to investigate Alliance Assets International Ltd; Cityfield Enterprises Ltd; Bartingale International Ltd; Wonder Quest Investments Ltd. All these companies have Najib as the signatory.

Khairuddin, at the same time, also lodged another set of police reports on Jynwell Capital (HK); Jynwell Charitable Foundation; and Strategic Resources (Global Ltd), all owned by Jho Low and family.


It has been established that the report included this document,which suggests that monies were transferred from Najib's AMislamic Bank and Singapore   accounts to accounts at Credit Suisse's branch in Hong Kong:

 The report against Larry Low concerns the Low family's takeover of Coastal Energy , a company formerly listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.It has been alleged that the takeover was funded in part with funds from 1 MDB.The report points the finger at Tan Sri Larry Low as the mastermind of his son Jho Low's adventures. The reports taken together suggest  a base of operations  in Hong Kong.
END

Posted 3rd September 2015 by Anonymous

  

Did DCNS Australia CEO Sean Costello's shock resignation have anything to do with Joel Branchut?

by Ganesh Sahathevan 



DCNS Australia's CEO Sean Costello left the company suddenly earlier this year:


THE captain of the French bid for Australia’s $50 billion Future Submarines project has quit less than a year after winning the contract. Adelaide-based Sean Costello resigned on Friday, a move that will likely shock the French and the Australian defence communities.


Intelligence OnLine had this to say about Costello and the winning of the submarine contract:

The contract also appears to be a victory for Marie-Pierre de Bailliencourt, the deputy managing director of DCNS who led the negotiations, even though she came under some criticism from the DCNS’ export Department (IOL 745). Locally, DCNS had Sean Costello, who was hired as the head of its local office in order to help win the contract. Costello was the chief-of-staff of the defence minister in the previous government and in the past also advised the minister on naval procurement.

The French company had Costello work with a discreet assistant, Joel Branchut, a former French military attache in Canberra who is used to highly complex financial deals. He was most notably involved in the negotiations in the early 1990S for the Sawari II contract for the supply of three warships to Riyadh (IOL 751).

The Sawari II contracts are said to have involved kickbacks that were then sent back to France to fund election campaigns:

The former defence minister Charles Millon, who served under (former President Jacques) Chirac, was quoted in a French newspaper as having testified to the existence of the kickbacks to French political campaigns. "We had an intimate conviction that there were kickbacks. That was the case of the Agosta and Sawari II contracts," he told the investigating judge Renaud van Ruymbeke in November (2009).

As  this writer has said many times before;L'Affaire Adelaide is fast becoming the latest version of L'Affaire Karachi.

END 

realpolitikasia

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Payne's admission requires investigation of submarine contracts: Is l'affaire Adelaide a repeat of DCNS's l'affaire Karachi?

by Ganesh Sahathevan

Australian Defence Minsiter Marise Payne protested on ABC last night that her boyfriend's "attempt" at contacting DCNS in Paris just a week before she announced DCNS as winner of the Competitive Evaluation Process for AUD 50 billion contract for the construction of 12 submarines, was nothing more than what any trade minister would do as part of the Process. In Payne's words ::


MARISE PAYNE: No. I understand that that is part of a series of meetings that any Trade Minister from Australia from any state in the Commonwealth, frankly, would endeavour to have with participants in the CEP (Competitive Evaluation Process) process.

As explained in the previous post :
The CEP was basically a fashion parade, so it is hard to see why there was any need for anyone to seek a meeting with any  bidder

unless it was to provide assistance with the bidding process.

Payne has , in effect ,admitted that there has been at least an attempt to do so  by her boyfriend, Stuart Ayres. This would not of course be the first time that DCNS has managed to combine elections, election funding ,and a contract for submarines.

l'affaire Karachi is yet to be resolved.

END