Cows And Condos As Election Symbols

Hantu Laut

The clarion calls for Shahrizat to exit from her ministerial post and her position in the party have intensified.

Former Prime Minister Tun Mahathir Mohammad has joined the fray and sounded the alarm bell here asking Shahrizat to go before she gets the boot.Will she gets the boot? UMNO's political culture does not command cleaning its house of political garbage. That's why they are in the shithouse.

UMNO has a long history of defending the indefensible.Innocent or guilty, many have gotten away scot free.With the exception of former PM Mahathir Mohammad none have put party before self.

Mahathir, the devil he may be, can read the atmospheric pressure rising against his long tenancy, decided to step down and hand over the helm to his deputy. There was widespread euphoria and the man, his anointed successor, pulled off the biggest elections windfall in Malaysia's political history. The PM that Malaysia should never had, had in less than one term saw a reversal of fortune, when people saw the true Pak Lah. The biggest winner turned out to be the biggest loser, the BN was severely punished due to acute deficiencies of his administration.

With all the skeletons coming out of UMNO's closet it is not difficult to predict an uphill battle to commandeer a bigger victory. Unless, something astonishing happened between now and the elections UMNO's fate would hang in the balance.

Shahrizat cannot play dumb on the scandal involving her family. It is absurd that she does not to know the going-ons in her family's business. Her recalcitrant would be costly to UMNO. The opposition will certainly play up the issue in the general elections.

DAP has fired the first salvo.

Labuan: Independent candidate in the last general election here, Lau Seng Kiat, suggested that the Election Commission (EC) allow cow and condominium to be used as symbols by Independent candidates in the coming general election.

"These two things are now very popular. The cow reflects hard work while condominium reflects prosperity of the nationÉthey are meaningful symbols and appropriate," said Lau, in response to EC's plans to withdraw some of the election symbols.

After the last general election, the EC said some of the symbols used by Independent candidates, such as umbrella, tiger head, scissors and smoking pipe, would be withdrawn.

The symbols considered for replacement were bulb, brief case, television and hibiscus along with the older symbols like fish, rooster, coconut tree and tractor.

In the last election here, Lau, who is now DAP Chairman, used the umbrella as his symbol and collected 2,014 votes, and managed to retain his deposit in the Barisan Nasional's (BN) stronghold.

The cow and condominium have become popular nationwide following the cattle scandal involving the family of Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, who is Women, Family and Community Development Minister and national Umno Wanita Chief.

The issues were connected to the National Feedlot Centre (NFC) run by the Minister's husband and siblings.

Many called it a "cow and condominium" scandal due to the purchase of expensive property by NFL though this was not seen as relevant to NFC's core business.

Commenting on the NFC scandal, Lau said he was delighted that Kinabatangan Member of Parliament Datuk Bung Moktar Radin had boldly criticised the alleged dealings of NFC and repeated his accusation though a few other Umno leaders had defended the Minister.

Lau said it was the Auditor-General's Report that exposed the NFC was in "a mess."

For anyone to challenge this would be tantamount to saying the Report was flawed, said Lau.

Daily Express

UMNO Digging Its Own Grave

Hantu Laut

The Pahang land scandal is out in the open again.This disgraceful action and blatant disrespect of the law by the MB of Pahang is most appalling.

In September I wrote here about how the MB should be cited for contempt.Since then, I found out that the laws in Pahang and other states in Peninsula Malaysia are slightly different from the laws in Sabah and Sarawak where the chief minister can be cited for contempt in such cases.

In Pahang, it is the State Financial Secretary that can be cited for contempt for refusal to comply with a court order.The law should be amended to make the MB responsible as he is the ultimate boss and the the state financial secretary is working under his directive.

The obvious is going to happen, the state has no choice, but to pay the plaintiff and now it seemed some UMNO smart asses wanted the money back from the Chinaman by bringing a sham action to court to claim the money.This damning plot makes swashbuckling Long John Silver looked kinder.

If they have a valid claim why did UMNO not apply to court for a "granishee order" when the award was given to the plaintiff, affirmed by the highest court in the country? Why did they not institute legal action earlier? Why now?

Their ignoble action to deprive the plaintiff of his money is most appalling and would have serious repercussions on UMNO in the coming general elections.

Now, the question is can a ruling political party give lands or unfettered access to government's assets to its own political party?

It's disheartening and most perturbing when lawmakers themselves showed no respect for the law.

A similar case happened in Sabah when the then BERJAYA state government under Harris Salleh acquired lands belonging to the late Syed Kechik. The case dragged on for almost three decades because every succeeding chief ministers refused to pay the plaintiff. The original court award was in the region of MYR40 million but have ballooned to MYR120 million due to accumulating interests. It was finally paid by the current administration.

Legal and criminal action should be taken against this kind of irresponsible actions of miscreant MBs/CMs wasting taxpayer's money unnecessarily.

Full story here.

Has Najib lost control of his boys or he just couldn't care less?

It's the obvious, UMNO is digging its own grave.

Malaysia's Indian Summer

Hantu Laut

Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of US President Franklin Roosevelt once said "Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people"

She was reflecting on people who indulged in trivialities, pettiness and useless gossips that would not bring any worthy benefits to mankind.

Pakatan Rakyat has plenty of such people who like to dwell on trivialities.

Their political agenda is to make as much noise as possible no matter how trivial and stupid the issue may be.Many Malaysians are caught in their histrionics and risible model of rectitude. The holier than thou types.

I will not pretend that the present regime is not at fault and as clean as a whistle, they are not, they have many bad habits and disagreeable traits.

Looking at Pakatan line up, particularly, with Anwar at the helm, I do not expect better days for Malaysia, should they be successful in capturing Putrajaya. A leopard will never change its spots. A lion always return to its den.

The "Arab Spring" which Anwar promised would be his last resort should they lose the coming general elections is not the template we should copy. Desperate needs call for desperate measures. Anwar's last desperate run to be prime minister.

It is now Malaysia's Indian Summer, the hottest days before the general elections, where anything goes, both sides running the gauntlet.

Here, the Geobbels of Pakatan Rakyat, having no better issues to pick, is making a mountain out of a molehill.........accusing Najib of hypocrisy of his announcement of 29,000 redundancies in the civil service after he attacked Pakatan for wanting to halve the civil service work force if they came to power.

Tony Pua, is not likely to be poor in Maths, the Chinese are very good in that subject, which is why they are better business people.There is a big difference between 50% and 0.02%.

It's simple arithmetic, Pakatan's promised a downsizing of 50%, Najib only announced 29,000 which is 0.02% of the total workforce.

Tony! so, what the big deal?

Frankly, I personally agree with Tony, the civil service should be halved.

Not only that, MAS, another sick institution is now experimenting with new business model, doing all the wrong things, should also halve its workforce (that would be another subject I'll write about).

Tony Fernandez is giving them the run around.

Shahrizat:Who Let The Cows Out?

Hantu Laut

Condominium and Mercedes for cows. Available in Malaysia only! Order now!

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These cash cows and the government have a lot of explaining to do. Firstly, how in hell can the government give grants and cheap loans to a family-run private enterprise, charging interest much lower than what the government paying for its short and long-term bonds.

Government bond's coupon rates:

Malaysian Government Securities (MGS) - Conventional
MGS Benchmarks			Trading Yields			Total Volume (RM million)	Daily change (bps)
Tenure	Maturity	Coupon (%)	Low (%)	High (%)	Close (%)
3-year	Aug-2014	3.434	3.03	3.08	3.05	98.27	0
5-year	Sep-2016	4.262	3.24	3.26	3.25	121.57	1
7-year	Sep-2018	3.580	3.54	3.55	3.55	170.00	1
10-year	Jul-2021	4.160	3.70	3.71	3.71	63.90	-3

The then Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi under whose watch this ignominious anomaly occurred should be hauled up to explain to the Malaysian taxpayers why he thinks the Shahrizat family deserved such special treatment. The government could have run the project under its own GLC to bring cheaper meat to the people as part of its social obligations.The interest rate of 2% charged to the private company is cheaper than prevailing FD rates and the government coupon's rates.

Dancing cows.

The big question is do you need MYR250 million to run a feedlot farm of the size run by the Shahrizat's family and how was it that the company was allowed to drawdown on the loan when the project was not even ready to start? Why was there no due diligence dictated to the borrower before he was allowed to draw down on the loans?

The Chairman of NFC (National Feedlot Corporation) Dr Mohamad Salleh's explanation that the purchase of 2 units luxury condominium was giving better return than leaving the money in the bank is an insult to the intelligence of level-headed Malaysians. In the first place, what was the business objective, cows or condominiums? Were the properties rented out and what was the return on investment or was the property occupied by Shahrizat's family and whether any rent paid to the company? These are questions left unanswered.

UMNO treating the matter lightly is going to come back and haunt them during the elections.

The aegis of former Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, UMNO Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin coming to the defence of Shahrizat and her family on this shameful affair of treating the people's money as their own is contemptuous and scandalous.

Shahrizat, cannot distance herself from the scandal as it involved her husband and children and she a minister in the cabinet and a big part of the government.

Shahrizat, should take a leaf out of the books of disgraced politicians in the West, should have resigned voluntarily and save Najib the embarrassment.

Keeping her in government would be untenanble and a poisoned chalice to UMNO.

Najib should drop her from re-election.