Friday, July 30, 2010

malaysiakini and the EVOLVING MINDS of Malaysians

The charging of a former Transport Minister over the billion ringgit and counting PKFZ scandal hardly raised the eye-brows of many sceptical Malaysians as they know that under the Bankrupsi Negara regime, no significant person has ever been convicted and jailed for a major corruption scandal.
You can read the reactions of malaysiakini readers in the article headed End of direct nego: 'BN's words mean nothing'.
Malaysians have not forgotten that during the Lingam commission, leading actors were able to put up a defence of "cannot remember" all the minor details that could have implicated them.
So now we have a Tun being charged in court. Why should anyone be surprised that even a Tun can be tried? After all, it is merely a title bestowed on a human and we know that many people of dubious character have been given various titles but that does not confer on them any special powers.

But back to this PKFZ case:
It definitely contains elements of the most simplistic means of stealing from the government and taxpayers:

1.Government official/s decide on a major mega project that involves land.
2.Set up the land transaction deals via a crony company.
3.The latter then becomes the dealer for the entire project; pocketing millions in easy money.
4.The project gets passed back to taxpayers; mostly with major problems.

Based on the track record of the BN government, it has always made major decisions on collective responsibility. This implies that all details of this major infrastructure project would have been carefully vetted for viability and we have so many people in the PM's EPU to study such deals to figure out if any project will lose money for the government.
So my question is:
"How is it that only the former minister is being charged?"
He could not have acted alone and what about the crony party that was able to manipulate such a deal?
Now that MACC is able to question suspects round the clock, it seems that Ling appears to be some sort of sacrificial lamb.
As for forgetful witnesses, I suggest all the Minutes of Cabinet Meetings be made public so that we lift the veil of secrecy over such meetings and related documents. Unless of course such meetings are just time-wasting exercises. The OSA can be put aside for such important issues like stealing from the public.

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