Aliran condemns the arrest of Parti Keadilan Rakyat Strategy Director Mohd Rafizi Ramli under Section 97(1) of the Banks and Financial Institutions Act (BAFIA), which carries a maximum jail sentence of three years and a fine of up to RM3 million.
Very much known for his recent expose of the award of the Ampang LRT extension project to water-meter and tank-maker George Kent, Rafizi’s arrest today was associated with his disclosure of three financial accounts related to the controversial National Feedlot Corporation (NFC) and its chairperson, Mohd Salleh Ismail.Rafizi was charged for having allegedly breached the secrecy provisions of the banking law “by producing, divulging, revealing, publishing or otherwise disclosing, of any information or document whatsoever relating to the affairs or account of a banking customer”.
For all intents and purposes, the arrest is tantamount to criminalising a conscientious whistleblower whose primary objective is to reveal information for the benefit of the general public and taxpayers.
Worse, this arrest can also be interpreted as a warning to future whistleblowers who intend to unravel financial scandals involving individuals close to the powers-that-be. This is certainly a foolish way to convince the Malaysian public that the Najib Administration is serious about waging war against corruption.
The arrest and charge mounted against Rafizi in the wake of the George Kent controversy only lends credence to the suspicion that the PKR Strategy Director’s latest move has made the ruling UMNO-BN so jittery that it responded with a knee-jerk reaction.
We call upon the Federal Government to stop criminalising conscientious citizens such as Rafizi — and instead to seriously go after the crooked.
This stratagem of Machiavellian politics can have many variants and be described in many other
ways: the principle of supra-government, the halo of sacrifice, the backseat driver, or the remote
control principle. However, in simple terms they all amount to having the cake and eating it too.your government’s actions affect the aam admi – you become the aam admi and articulate his
disaffection with the government, even before he does. Be protean, cover all bases, stage being the
opposition and thus upstage the opposition. Should the government act like a bad cop be the supra-
government, the ‘good’ king who criticises his satraps for decisions they didn’t really take. Divide up
powers so that no one really knows where the buck stops. And you will have thrown dust into the
people’s eyes.This delusive division of power between party and government has, of course, been mastered by This delusive division of power between party and government has, of course, been mastered by UMNO
the When Mahathir gave up the prime ministership and conferred it on Abdullah the move garnered applause all round. By hindsight it can be seen to have been disastrous, as
mahathir’s authority was (and remains) much reduced while real decision-making power resideswith Power without accountability is an evil. It ought to be done away with in modern structures of governance. Power without accountability, however, is ubiquitous among Malaysian political parties –called cultural organisation with unelected leaders. This prevents it from modernising itself, ditchingRafizi said that Thales was involved in three out of eight shortlisted consortiums in state-appointed consultant Halcrow’s technical evaluation report, namely, George Kent-Wijet-Thales, Colas-CMC-Thales and Samsung-LG-Thales.“From the list of bidders, no other transport technology suppliers are allowed to send more than one bid, except for Thales,” said Rafizi, adding that this “favourable treatment” was against the usual “good practice” in a tendering process.Rafizi said this “reflected the close relationship between Datuk Seri Najib Razak and this company (Thales) since the Scorpene purchase.”He was referring to the Scorpene submarine procurement deal where Thales was said to have made transactions with companies linked to Abdul Razak Baginda, a former adviser of Najib.
Rafizi has repeatedly claimed that Putrajaya has decided to hand over the Ampang LRT extension project to the George Kent consortium, and has accused Najib of interference after alleging that the group had not been selected by the bidding panel.On Tuesday he showed reporters a copy of a Ministry of Finance approval letter dated last June 25 purportedly awarding the deal to George Kent.The government has not made an announcement yet on the winner of the contract.Rafizi has repeatedly accused the prime minister of interfering in the tender bid and granting the multimillion contract to George Kent, which had scored one of the lowest points in the technical and commercial evaluation for the project, but has not shown proof until this week.This was despite an earlier decision by Putrajaya to award the multi-million ringgit rail project to Balfour Beatty-Invensys Consortium, which Rafizi said was best qualified for the job.The rail builders led by the British engineering firm were the lowest bidders for the LRT open tender that closed on June 16 last year, offering to take on the project for RM950 million. The highest bid was for RM1.45 billion.PKR officials have shown copies of official documents to the press, showing that the MoF’s Acquisition Committee, which met this January 25, had decided to award the contract to Balfour Beatty-Invensys Consortium.The committee is the highest decision-making body in the MoF and is chaired by Najib himself, who is also finance minister.PKR had recently lodged a police report on the issue, citing Najib for criminal breach of trust in his alleged interference in the project award, which has yet to be announced publicly.The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has also kicked off investigations at Syarikat Prasarana Negara Bhd (SPNB) over the RM960 million contract.The Malaysian Insider reported on June 29 that the speculated winner of the Ampang LRT system works, George Kent, was one of three bidders that failed both the technical and commercial evaluations for the RM960 million contract.Sources told The Malaysian Insider that only five of the eight bidders passed the technical and commercial evaluation stage but project owner SPNB finally recommended one of the two South Korean consortiums in the running — PDA Consortium — as the other consortiums were said to not have complied with all conditions.The PKR man has pledged to make the Ampang LRT extension contract a major campaign issue at the next general election.
You don’t have to like me and I’m okay with that! An easy statement, but difficult to follow through with. We all have an innate desire to be loved and if not loved at least liked. Social networking has made that come to the surface even more with allowing people to like your posts, your statuses and your photographs or to follow you and favourite your tweets or retweet them. This plays to the most basic insecurity. We just must be liked!
And who likes us, really? A couple of friends, some members of your family and maybe a handful of people – but that’s it. And why should it matter if a bunch of nobodies don’t like you? I have to confess that it used to bother me an immense amount when people, I never even knew had opinions about me! I wanted to change their opinions- make my haters my biggest fans or at least try and let them get to know me. But I have found that no matter how ‘agreeable’ you are, how nice you are – some people will dislike you no matter what. And I have realised that If I make them my biggest opinion – makers- then the only one who loses out is me!
And let’s be real, surely you don’t like every body.There must be a whole bunch of people you just put up with but truly, honestly don’t like- and that’s okay. Nowhere is it written you have to love or like everyone, which brings in another important qualification. Learn to qualify people as ‘friends’ and ‘acquaintances.’ If you even have a handful of friends, real friends in my book you are an absolute winner because real friends are hard to make and those relationships harder to keep. Those are the people who truly like you and those are perhaps the only opinions that should ever matter.
There was a joke that went around the Internet the last week – what would happen if Facebook suddenly shut down? The answer? Well, we’d have a whole bunch of people running around holding holiday photographs and profile shots screaming on the streets – ”Like me! Like me!” A funny scenario to imagine, but possibly something that might actually come true should such a situation arise!
Okay, so may be I’m okay with not being liked but I have a message to all the haters out there on all the social networking sites and in life. Sure, you’re jokes and hurtful remarks make for trending topics and couple of chuckles but maybe before you make those remarks assume how you’d feel if someone talked about you in such a way. And if you still feel the need to post a derogatory comment about someone remember they are obviously that important to your life that you felt the need to comment. It’s a shame you’re not that important for them to care.
And if I’ve learnt one thing it’s this eventually the only person who has to like you is you and if you can make that happen than you’ll be just fine!READMOREhttp://themalaybusinesstribune.blogspot.com/2012/08/malaysias-good-king-bad-governance-bad.html
Aliran condemns the arrest of Parti Keadilan Rakyat Strategy Director Mohd Rafizi Ramli under Section 97(1) of the Banks and Financial Institutions Act (BAFIA), which carries a maximum jail sentence of three years and a fine of up to RM3 million.
Very much known for his recent expose of the award of the Ampang LRT extension project to water-meter and tank-maker George Kent, Rafizi’s arrest today was associated with his disclosure of three financial accounts related to the controversial National Feedlot Corporation (NFC) and its chairperson, Mohd Salleh Ismail.Rafizi was charged for having allegedly breached the secrecy provisions of the banking law “by producing, divulging, revealing, publishing or otherwise disclosing, of any information or document whatsoever relating to the affairs or account of a banking customer”.
For all intents and purposes, the arrest is tantamount to criminalising a conscientious whistleblower whose primary objective is to reveal information for the benefit of the general public and taxpayers.
Worse, this arrest can also be interpreted as a warning to future whistleblowers who intend to unravel financial scandals involving individuals close to the powers-that-be. This is certainly a foolish way to convince the Malaysian public that the Najib Administration is serious about waging war against corruption.
The arrest and charge mounted against Rafizi in the wake of the George Kent controversy only lends credence to the suspicion that the PKR Strategy Director’s latest move has made the ruling UMNO-BN so jittery that it responded with a knee-jerk reaction.
We call upon the Federal Government to stop criminalising conscientious citizens such as Rafizi — and instead to seriously go after the crooked.
This stratagem of Machiavellian politics can have many variants and be described in many other
ways: the principle of supra-government, the halo of sacrifice, the backseat driver, or the remote
control principle. However, in simple terms they all amount to having the cake and eating it too.your government’s actions affect the aam admi – you become the aam admi and articulate his
disaffection with the government, even before he does. Be protean, cover all bases, stage being the
opposition and thus upstage the opposition. Should the government act like a bad cop be the supra-
government, the ‘good’ king who criticises his satraps for decisions they didn’t really take. Divide up
powers so that no one really knows where the buck stops. And you will have thrown dust into the
people’s eyes.This delusive division of power between party and government has, of course, been mastered by This delusive division of power between party and government has, of course, been mastered by UMNO
the When Mahathir gave up the prime ministership and conferred it on Abdullah the move garnered applause all round. By hindsight it can be seen to have been disastrous, as
mahathir’s authority was (and remains) much reduced while real decision-making power resideswith Power without accountability is an evil. It ought to be done away with in modern structures of governance. Power without accountability, however, is ubiquitous among Malaysian political parties –called cultural organisation with unelected leaders. This prevents it from modernising itself, ditchingRafizi said that Thales was involved in three out of eight shortlisted consortiums in state-appointed consultant Halcrow’s technical evaluation report, namely, George Kent-Wijet-Thales, Colas-CMC-Thales and Samsung-LG-Thales.“From the list of bidders, no other transport technology suppliers are allowed to send more than one bid, except for Thales,” said Rafizi, adding that this “favourable treatment” was against the usual “good practice” in a tendering process.Rafizi said this “reflected the close relationship between Datuk Seri Najib Razak and this company (Thales) since the Scorpene purchase.”He was referring to the Scorpene submarine procurement deal where Thales was said to have made transactions with companies linked to Abdul Razak Baginda, a former adviser of Najib.
Rafizi has repeatedly claimed that Putrajaya has decided to hand over the Ampang LRT extension project to the George Kent consortium, and has accused Najib of interference after alleging that the group had not been selected by the bidding panel.On Tuesday he showed reporters a copy of a Ministry of Finance approval letter dated last June 25 purportedly awarding the deal to George Kent.The government has not made an announcement yet on the winner of the contract.Rafizi has repeatedly accused the prime minister of interfering in the tender bid and granting the multimillion contract to George Kent, which had scored one of the lowest points in the technical and commercial evaluation for the project, but has not shown proof until this week.This was despite an earlier decision by Putrajaya to award the multi-million ringgit rail project to Balfour Beatty-Invensys Consortium, which Rafizi said was best qualified for the job.The rail builders led by the British engineering firm were the lowest bidders for the LRT open tender that closed on June 16 last year, offering to take on the project for RM950 million. The highest bid was for RM1.45 billion.PKR officials have shown copies of official documents to the press, showing that the MoF’s Acquisition Committee, which met this January 25, had decided to award the contract to Balfour Beatty-Invensys Consortium.The committee is the highest decision-making body in the MoF and is chaired by Najib himself, who is also finance minister.PKR had recently lodged a police report on the issue, citing Najib for criminal breach of trust in his alleged interference in the project award, which has yet to be announced publicly.The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has also kicked off investigations at Syarikat Prasarana Negara Bhd (SPNB) over the RM960 million contract.The Malaysian Insider reported on June 29 that the speculated winner of the Ampang LRT system works, George Kent, was one of three bidders that failed both the technical and commercial evaluations for the RM960 million contract.Sources told The Malaysian Insider that only five of the eight bidders passed the technical and commercial evaluation stage but project owner SPNB finally recommended one of the two South Korean consortiums in the running — PDA Consortium — as the other consortiums were said to not have complied with all conditions.The PKR man has pledged to make the Ampang LRT extension contract a major campaign issue at the next general election.
You don’t have to like me and I’m okay with that! An easy statement, but difficult to follow through with. We all have an innate desire to be loved and if not loved at least liked. Social networking has made that come to the surface even more with allowing people to like your posts, your statuses and your photographs or to follow you and favourite your tweets or retweet them. This plays to the most basic insecurity. We just must be liked!
And who likes us, really? A couple of friends, some members of your family and maybe a handful of people – but that’s it. And why should it matter if a bunch of nobodies don’t like you? I have to confess that it used to bother me an immense amount when people, I never even knew had opinions about me! I wanted to change their opinions- make my haters my biggest fans or at least try and let them get to know me. But I have found that no matter how ‘agreeable’ you are, how nice you are – some people will dislike you no matter what. And I have realised that If I make them my biggest opinion – makers- then the only one who loses out is me!
And let’s be real, surely you don’t like every body.There must be a whole bunch of people you just put up with but truly, honestly don’t like- and that’s okay. Nowhere is it written you have to love or like everyone, which brings in another important qualification. Learn to qualify people as ‘friends’ and ‘acquaintances.’ If you even have a handful of friends, real friends in my book you are an absolute winner because real friends are hard to make and those relationships harder to keep. Those are the people who truly like you and those are perhaps the only opinions that should ever matter.
There was a joke that went around the Internet the last week – what would happen if Facebook suddenly shut down? The answer? Well, we’d have a whole bunch of people running around holding holiday photographs and profile shots screaming on the streets – ”Like me! Like me!” A funny scenario to imagine, but possibly something that might actually come true should such a situation arise!
Okay, so may be I’m okay with not being liked but I have a message to all the haters out there on all the social networking sites and in life. Sure, you’re jokes and hurtful remarks make for trending topics and couple of chuckles but maybe before you make those remarks assume how you’d feel if someone talked about you in such a way. And if you still feel the need to post a derogatory comment about someone remember they are obviously that important to your life that you felt the need to comment. It’s a shame you’re not that important for them to care.
And if I’ve learnt one thing it’s this eventually the only person who has to like you is you and if you can make that happen than you’ll be just fine!READMOREhttp://themalaybusinesstribune.blogspot.com/2012/08/malaysias-good-king-bad-governance-bad.html
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