Nawawi Mohamad
Make no mistake, the UMNO elite are watching this case a very wary eye because NFC is also the gateway to UMNO’s Pandora box. If not careful, it can provide arch rival Anwar Ibrahim’s Pakatan Rakyat coalition with a weapon of mass destruction for the 13th general election.
But scream and shout it may, UMNO has no one to blame but itself, its own greed and its own infighting for this very critical situation. What a blunder of fireworks for a grand finale of destruction for UMNO!
Even Houdini or David Copperfield could never make NFC and the spectre of the Shahrizat clan, their cows, condos and Super-class Mercedes Benz disappear from the people’s minds! Sad to say, the two magicians could never make the whole RM250mil government soft loan reappear for the people either!
‘Safest’ solution
Firstly, the UMNO elite have not been able to resolve the debacle amicably as they have been able to with past cases. Why? Two main reasons – the 13th general election and UMNO’s own internal polls later this year. Yes, instead of compromising and helping to cover up for each other, different factions are using the NFC debacle as leverage to defeat each other.
The ‘final’ decision – for now that is – is to whitewash the debacle. In other words, let Shahrizat and family squirm away, while Raja Nong Chik – blamed for instigating the scandal because he allegedly coveted Shahrizat’s Lembah Pantai parliamentary seat – may have to wait a while more to get his wish. This is deemed the ‘safest’ solution – again, for now that is!
The whitewash ordered by the UMNO elite is actually what Youth Chief Khairy Jamaluddin had initially planned – which is to deny all wrongdoing and to distance themselves from the debacle. Of course, they would lose credibility and the confidence of everyone. But for the disgraceful UMNO, this is not, and will not be the last time.
So regardless of how flimsy is the explanation, how obvious the lies they produce, Khairy and the NFC other stars including Prime Minister Najib Razak, DPM Muhyiddin Yassin, Agriculture minister Noh Omar will just brazen it out – like the Shahrizats. Anyone who asks will be told that everything is alright and there is nothing to be concerned about.
Obviously, Shahrizat – the Wanita chief – too likes the ‘whitewash’ option. She had been alarmed when former premier Mahathir Mohamad told her to quit before she was chased out of the party. But of course, Khairy will win her everlasting gratitude for taking her side and trying to clarify and justify the alleged wrongdoings. Even so, will the latest plan work?
Salleh and Datuk Fix-it
Salleh Ismail, the NFC boss, had tried to keep cool and stay quiet for as long as he could. But when the luxury condos in Bangsar, followed by another one in Singapore – which worse still was registered to their personal names – started to splash all over the newspapers, he could not keep quiet anymore.
Shahrizat too tried to disassociate herself totally from the debacle, saying NFC was her family’s concern and nothing to do with her. But to no avail because even her own Umno women said that would be impossible. Salleh is her husband and she is his wife, and sleeping in the same room there is bound to be lots of pillow talk shared between the two – like any normal couple.
Then the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission raided the NFC offices, a tad too dramatically, prompting many to accuse the commission of helping to destroy rather than find evidence. As for the police, from initially saying it found no elements of “criminal breach of trust”, the cops U-turned and suddenly found there could be some basis for the Attorney General to prosecute after all.
The next Jack-in-Box to pop out was the unfortunate “Datuk Fix-it”. Initially, speculation was rife that Salleh had been arrested but it turned out to be another real ‘Datuk’, someone who mingles well with the high-and-mighty and does their dirty work for them. This “Datuk Fix-it” could be most fortunate if he plays his cards right.
In the NFC case, he was detained for trying to bribe several police investigators, offering some RM1.7mil purportedly received from Salleh so as to get the officers onto his side. Of course, the Datuk Fix-it will not be a willing scapegoat for nothing. The Shahrizat-NFC debacle is so hot, many top people could get burnt easily.
RM250mil went into NFCorp: How was the money spent?
Unfortunately, Datuk Fix-it was not able to resolve the next PKR bombshell on the credit cards spending binge by the Shahrizats, which amounted to some RM600,000 in 2009 alone. The Malaysian public went livid when they saw the news reports of Shahrizat’s twenty-something-year-old kids drawing huge 5-figure salaries and who were also given similar-sized monthly credit card limits to utilize.
Shahrizat had no choice to to take 3-weeks leave. But instead of cooling off, she roped in Perkasa chief Ibrahim Ali and several Malay NGOs to help defend her and win the sympathy of the Malays. Ibrahim Ali’s trademark racism immediately ruffled feathers when he insisted NFC was “in order” and the whole commotion was due to a disgruntled non-Malay staff who blew the whistle on the project.
Then in true UMNO prime-time drama style, Salleh dutifully telephoned home from Mecca, insisting that it was all a mistake! To Salleh, the Auditor-General audited only the books of the government-owned National Feedlot Centre in Gemas, which is a 2,000 acre ranch and not NFCorp, which is his family-controlled firm that was awarded the job of overseeing the NFC project. According to Salleh, the ranch is is managed by the government itself via the Ministry of Agriculture! But of course, this turned out to be inaccurate.
Apart from extending a most generous RM250 million soft loan, the only government help seen at the NFC in Gemas was the abattoir facility it provided. Additionally, Salleh is involved in both NFCorp and overseeing the state-owned NFC, which is headed by his son and controlled by two other siblings.
NFCorp was also granted a loan by the Badawi administration to run the NFC. So to simply point out the difference in NFCorp and NFC makes no sense at all. Whatever it is, public money in the form of the government loan may have been improperly used, and this must be investigated thoroughly without fear or favor.
Burning questions
Left with no other option, UMNO is now splitting hairs. Like Houdini and Copperfield, they have to yell ‘KAZAM’ to deflect public attention. But sorry to say, no one is blinking. UMNO is now worse off than before. Its leaders, from Najib to Muhyiddin, to Mahathir to Khairy, are seen as crooks willing to condone corruption, willing even to ‘racialize’ corruption just to get UMNO off the NFC hook.
Salleh has shown himself to be incompetent from the start and he should resign to make way for a probe for negligence and CBT; for not being alert about the set-up and organizational structure of a project entrusted to him to manage; and lastly, for letting the debacle occur right under his own nose. No wonder the RM250 million loan is in a mess, with huge chunks spent on non-cattle related items.
How much is left, how was it spent, how much can be recouped? These are the burning questions but neither Najib nor the Shahrizats will be keen to provide the answers. It looks like NFC is turning more and more into a total disaster by the day. UMNO deputy president Muhyiddin Yassin who awarded the project to Salleh’s NFCorp must also be investigated as to why he selected such an inexperienced person to manage a RM250 million fund.
But the most important questions to ask are why is UMNO taking so long to solve the debacle; why is UMNO working so hard to distance itself from the fallout; and why is it trying to white wash the debacle even though it must know that such a move will leave a huge and ugly scar that can never heal or be hidden?
Even if a private auditor is appointed by the government to probe into NFC, the people will be suspicious, given that the terms and reference of the audit may be skewed to favor certain UMNO parties.
No easy way out – a lesson UMNO can never learn
Be that as it may, the most likely reason for the whitewash is that UMNO does not really have a solution to this debacle.
There are just too many inter-connections and to severe some of these may create repercussions that could rock the elite. Yet, by trying to insist everything is fine is equivalent to leaving a time bomb behind and waiting for it to explode, taking UMNO down with it.
The only way to diffuse the weapon of mass destruction that Khairy, Muhyiddin, Shahrizat, Najib and Nong Chik have built is actually to go in the direction that they are now turning away from.
To save UMNO, corruption must be punished and the perpetrators not allowed to escape. But given UMNO’s dirty record, it is highly unlikely that it can ever bring itself to do this. What next then? Put it this way, whatever new shenanigan UMNO decides on, it will never work unless UMNO owns up.
Hornbill Unleashed 
United Borneo Alliance is the beacon of Hope for the Sabah and Sarawak people after the GE13. So we have to support and put them to power in order for them to deliver what they promises us today.
A failure is the last nail on the coffin for the people in the two State of Sabah and Sarawak, thus we have to show our strength and cohesiveness by uniting together to dethrone the corrupted and rotten Barisan Nasional and flush them down the drain for good.
With the emergence of United Borneo Alliance, is the latest and the best agent to Change and Remove the current BN Government which is no more people friendly, other than cheating, robbing and depriving the people of the basic needs and requirement. They had been in power far too long and needed to be replace. Change and replace them through the UBA and it should be done without fail in the GE13. ABU all the Way and I am voting for the UBA come GE13 , how about you?
Comment by Smiley — January 28, 2012 @ 11:25 AM |
WHILE SARAWAK OPPOSITION IS WORKING ON BEING CHAINED TO MALAYA – SABAHANS ARE WORKING ON THEIR FUTURE AS AN INDEPENDENT COUNTRY
MORE ON SECESSION ISSUE FROM “I LOVE SABAHAN” WEBSITE
http://despiritofsabahan.blogspot.com/
IS IT JUST SEMANTICS? BUT DO SABAHANS CARE?
In those days (1963) there might have been less than 20 lawyers in Sabah or Sarawak. It seems no lawyer or at least an experienced draftsman was involved in drafting the 18 or 20 Points Agreement. And what? They closed the door instead of having an escape clause like “If we don’t like being ruled by Malaya we can get out”. It seems that there was devil in both Sabah and Sarawak who saw to it that the offending clause was included.
But Sabahans are not going to be stopped by a piece of paper!
Point 7 refers to Point 7 of Sabah’s 20 Points Agreement
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
SHOULD vs SHALL ~ A Consideration for Point 7: Right of Secession
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Point 7: Right of Secession
There should be no right to secede from the Federation.
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We should take a positive view of the “no right to secede” initiative, which is worth considering despite its affirmation in Point 7 which speaks of the Sabahan and Sarawakian rights to secede from the Federation of Malaysia This is so because “the use [by Point 7] of the word ‘’should’ (as opposed to the word ‘shall,’ for example) turns the option of “NO RIGHT TO SECEDE” into a mere recommendation.”
You see.. Diplomatic documents often demand close linguistic analysis. Would that Point 7 have meant something else, had it said that “There SHALL be no right to secede from the Federation.”?
Since the auxiliary verbs “shall” and “shan’t” have all but disappeared from American English, in much of Great Britain they are still in common use. The facts that the 18/20 Points Agreement was an Agreement relating to Malaysia between United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Federation of Malaya, North Borneo, Sarawak and Singapore, it’s British usage that counts — and when it comes to that, what greater authorities do we have than the estimable Fowler brothers, F.G. and H.W., whose “The King’s English” (first edition published by Oxford University Press, 1906) served generations of perplexed English speakers as a revered guide. Here’s what “The King’s English” (traditionally known as “Fowler”) has to say about “shall,” “should,” “will” and “would” in a discussion that is 20(!) pages long:
“It is unfortunate that the idiomatic use [of these words], while it comes by nature to southern Englishmen (who will find most of this section superfluous), is so complicated that those who are not to the manner born can hardly acquire it; and for them [this] section is in danger of being useless. In apology for the length of the remarks it must be said that the short and simple directions often given are worse than useless. The observant reader soon loses faith in them… and the unobservant is the victim of false security.”
Needless to say, this is highly reassuring! Fowler then opens its discussion with the following short and simple directions: “Roughly speaking, should follows the same rules as shall, and would as will.”
In their pure form, Fowler continues, “shall” and “should” express command or obligation, whereaswill and would express intention or prediction, the difference between the two members of each pair being that the second is the conditional form of the first. Hence, “There SHALL be no right to secede from the Federation.” would indicate that Sabah & Sarawak is commanded NOT TO SECEDE FROM THE FEDERATION unconditionally, whereas “There SHOULD be no right to secede from the Federation.” indicates that this command is SUBJECT TO A CONDITION (or CONDITIONS) — in this case, presumably, that SABAHAN & SARAWAKIAN wish “to continue being part of the Federation”
Would such a reading of my argument, if it is the correct one, turn POINT 7 into a “mere recommendation” that SABAH & SARAWAK continue to be part of the Federation of Malaysia when there is no reasons/causes to trigger their need to SECEDE FROM THE FEDERATION?? If POINT 7 intends to say that SABAH & SARAWAK need not secede from the Federation unless it wants to, then it also intends to say that SABAH & SARAWAK need not continue to be part of the Federation of Malaysia unless it wants to — a construction of POINT 7 that would be rather bizarre, to say the least.
True, in practice, as opposed to theory, the difference between “shall” and “should” in British English is somewhat different: “shall” often expressing a COMMAND on the speaker’s part, and “should” merely a DESIRE, as in “You shall go to the doctor” vs. “You should go to the doctor.” And yet if we paraphrase POINT 7 as saying, “The Point 7 of the Agreement of Malaysia desires that Sabah & Sarawak not to secede from the Federation,” is this significantly better for Sabah & Sarawak? How big an improvement over flouting the POINT 7’s command would be flouting the POINT 7’s desire??
In short, if we take consideration of the above arguments on the reading of POINT 7, the FEDERATION OF MALAYSIA should politely be told in the king’s English, “No, thank you.. we SABAHAN & SARAWAKIAN wish to SECEDE from the Federation.”
Source: Doris Jones
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So Sarawak politicians show a bit of guts….
Comment by SARAWAKIANS — January 27, 2012 @ 7:56 PM |
Irrelevant to this post.
Comment by iskandar — January 27, 2012 @ 8:37 PM |
What assets and whose assets with regard to NFC had been frozen by Najib and his administration? 70% of the deserving rural poors have yet to receive the RM500 BR1M aid and UMNO is still trying to white wash the NFC scandals?
Comment by Roslinawati — January 27, 2012 @ 4:49 PM |