Thursday, October 30, 2008

malaysiakini and the PKFZ SCANDAL....

It is good that the PKFZ Scandal is being investigated but the terms of reference leaves some doubt about the findings being pursued to the ultimate end of bringing the culprits to book.
According to this malaysiakini article, Audit underway into PKFZ scandal it will be "up to the Transport Ministry to reveal findings".
That smacks of damage control and it is preferable that such an audit should be published for all taxpayers to see.
Given the amount of money involved, a public inquiry would have been more appopriate to delve into the wheelings and dealing for such mega-projects.
I have no doubt this is another case of land speculation involving power brokers and connected political cronies.
It is the simplest of deals. Someone in authority decides the authority wants to start a mega-project that requires land and then the gravy train starts.
The land is passed through a few exchanges with each party getting a share of the transactions as the value escalates untill the taxpayers foot the ultimate bill.
In the good old days the government will acquire your land for a public purpose and pay you the unconverted land price of say RM2 per square foot. Now it will pass through various connections and the land will passed through a few deals and will "appreciate" from RM2 to RM15 to RM50.
As long as the deal is underwritten by the authorities, it does not take much genius or effort to churn out multi-millionaires.
Of course politicians do need lots of dinero to survive party polls.

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