Here is why Perikatan Nasional could have siphoned hundreds of billions of ringgit.
When Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin announced a RM4 million allocation for Sikh community four days ago (April 12), he came well prepared with another announcement. The RM4 million is just loose change when compared to RM1,400 million (that’s RM1.4 billion) allocated to the Islamic Development Department Malaysia (Jakim) every year.
The prime minister claimed he sucks at Math. But any primary school student can calculate that RM4 out of RM1,400 is just 0.28%. It was not even half a percent of money given to Jakim, which nobody knows what the heck the money is being used for. Even Sultan Ibrahim of Johor had questioned why the useless Islamic department needed such a gigantic budget.
Yet, Muhyiddin tried to make a mountain out of a molehill over the RM4 million pittance for the minority Sikh community. He cried, whined and bitched that so much money has been spent since last year. Blaming Covid-19, he said his backdoor government has spent various stimulus packages totalling RM340 billion and RM322 billion allocation for the national budget.
As if he wanted the Sikh to be grateful, an obvious reminder to the community to vote for his Perikatan Nasional (PN) backdoor government in the coming general election, the PM suddenly dropped a bombshell. He said the country “don’t have much money left”. Despite the country’s financial difficulty, Muhyiddin said the government was still allocating the money to the Sikh.
Cool, in just one year, the backdoor government has turned the country upside down, bankrupting Malaysia. Essentially, that was what the country’s chief executive meant, was he not? The fact that he did not point fingers at the previous Pakatan Harapan (PH) government, of which he was part of before his betrayal, means it’s an admission of his own PN government’s failure.
But was it not the genius Finance Minister Zafrul Abdul Aziz, who bragged last year that the government had enough cash to fund the massive economic packages totalling around RM340 billion? With the prime minister’s stunning remarks of bankruptcy, it appears that the clueless and incompetent government has admitted to blindly spend without proper planning.
In the same breath, was it not the same brilliant Finance Minister Zafrul Abdul Aziz, who boastfully issued a chest-thumping statement during the Budget 2021 last November that the economy will grow 6.5%-7.5% this year, the unemployment rate to drop to 3.3% from 4.2% this year, and domestic demand to rebound to 6.9% in 2021?
In fact, not only the finance minister repetitively gave assurances and guarantees that the worst is over and the economy is on track to a spectacular recovery this year, but he also told all and sundry that the government will collect an eye-popping RM40.7 billion in taxes by Christmas this year – higher than the RM38.6 billion collected in 2020.
So, exactly why and who advised the premier to tell some sad stories of gloom and doom, despite a projected booming economy? More importantly, how could the prime minister recklessly and irresponsibly make a dreadful statement that the country is running out of money and in the process spook the business community and foreign investors?
Even if indeed the government is scraping the bottom of the barrel to make ends meet, it was both tactical and strategic errors to expose such humiliation. It’s not rocket science that the right thing to do is to quietly collect taxes and attract investors to replenish the empty national coffers. To give an impression that the government is near to insolvency is political suicide.
In fact, it’s not an exaggeration to say that Muhyiddin’s statements are a threat to national security. Investors may begin to doubt Malaysia’s ability to honour its debt obligations, which in turn could affect the country’s credit rating. A downgrade of credit rating (such as Fitch Ratings’) means the government’s cost of borrowing will increase, making it more expensive to borrow money.
But considering how the three traitors – PM Muhyiddin, Senior Minister Azmin Ali and Home Minister Hamzah Zainudin – had succeeded in scheming, plotting and sabotaging to topple their own PH government, it’s hard to believe the prime minister would be so dumb and careless with his choice of words, especially at a time when FDI is fleeing and avoiding the country like a plague.
There could only be one explanation. The fragile Perikatan Nasional is anticipating a total loss in the next 15th General Election, and the crooks most likely have plundered and siphoned hundreds of billions of ringgit out of the country. But they could not justify the missing money, hence PM Muhyiddin cooked up some sob story – preemptively warned that the country has very little money left.
Yes, the Perikatan Nasional’s plundering would be so jaw-dropping it makes former PM Najib Razak’s thievery of RM2.6 billion looks like child’s play. According to the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS), the think-tank found only 23% or RM79 billion of the RM340 billion worth of stimulus packages came directly from the government.
IDEAS also discovered only RM65 billion or 20% of the total stimulus package were direct expenditures. At best, the government had lied and overstated the stimulus packages amount to artificially excite the economy, which failed miserably. That explains why it told workers to withdraw their own retirement funds in the Employees Provident Fund to boost domestic consumption and economy.
At worst, the crooks of PPBM (Bersatu) deliberately cooked up the accounting figures so that hundreds of billions of ringgit are declared spent under the RM340 stimulus packages, but were quietly diverted to secret “offshore” bank accounts. That explains why the illegitimate government still refuses to reopen the Parliament, despite the King’s decree to do so.
Besides allowing Muhyiddin to cling to power, the Proclamation of Emergency, which was declared on Jan 12, also grants him the special power to do anything he likes without being challenged. On March 31, the power-hungry and corrupt regime finally unveiled its ugly face. A new law was gazetted to allow the Finance Ministry to approve additional spending without Parliament’s approval.
The suspension of Parliament means the illegitimate government could raid and rape the national coffers without anyone knowing it. If people do not even know transparently how the RM340 billion worth of stimulus packages have been used, chances are people won’t know how much money is being approved under the new Emergency Ordinance.
The regime could unilaterally approve new spending without any justifications so that the money goes into their pockets. The best part is nobody can challenge it in court. Therefore, the RM662 billion (stimulus packages and Budget 2021) along with new supplementary budgets are essentially cash cows for the backdoor government to milk and plunder.
Malaysia is the only country in the world that has declared an Emergency as well as locking up the Parliament under the pretext of fighting Coronavirus. It’s a clever plan to kill two birds with one stone. On one hand, Muhyiddin can stay in power despite losing majority support in the Parliament. On the other hand, the crooks can help themselves to hundreds of billions of ringgit without being questioned.
While Najib and his partner-in-crime Jho Low had to architect a grand heist – codename 1MDB – to steal a couple of billions of ringgit, a complicated process that took years involving Goldman Sachs, assets and bond sales, and money laundering in countries across three continents, Muhyiddin and his boys could steal hundreds of billions of ringgit with a simpler way – State of Emergency. – Finance Twitter