Ghosts Of The Past

Hantu Laut

Some have skeletons in the closet that would only haunt them decades later.

Ghosts of the past coming back to haunt those who betrayed the poor kampong folks or was it a ploy by the oppositions. Read the story below.

Angry Murut converts cry foul over land promise

TENOM: Murut natives who had converted to Islam in 1979, under the then Berjaya government-linked mass Islamisation programme which promised new ‘recruits’ individual land titles, are now claiming that the government had cheated them.

The converts were given land plots in Kpg Masanopi, Kembong and have been occupying this area since then. However they have now discovered that the land is not theirs and instead belongs to someone else.

A villager, Ariffin Abdullah, 70, whose original name is Arot Bin Ukab, said that the ‘planned’ village was created in 1979 during the rule of the Berjaya government as a new settlement for a group of Muruts who were willing to convert to Islam.

The converts then went on to develop and till the land providing for themselves by planting rubber trees, orchards and padi. Ariffin was their village head or Ketua Kampung.

But now, so many years later, the villagers who were promised their individual land titles had found out that their settlement area belonged to someone else.

“What is most disappointing is that the land owner turns out to be the person who was entrusted by Harris Salleh (to manage the distribution of the land to us as the new converts,” Ariffin said.

“And our worst nightmare happened when we found out that the person had sold the land to a businessman.

“Imagine, now this businessman has just sued us for illegal occupation of our land!”

“The suit was lodged in Nov 29, 2011. So how can anyone blame us for feeling so humiliated and very angry,” added Ariffin.

Conned all the way

Arffin said that their hard work to develop and till the land had been going on for more than 30 years and during the three decades they were repeatedly assured their land titles would be issued to them in due course.

According to the official records, the first single land title was issued on Oct 30, 1980 under the name of Mohamad Abdul Rahman (then the District Officer of Tenom).

Another was issued to one Anthony Lamb and yet another to Theodore Douglas Lind (the former official of the then Chief Minister).

Ariffin claimed that these three persons were entrusted by Harris to manage and administer the land for the benefit of the converts, but they never got to have the individual land titles issued to the different families as they had promised.

“Instead, they spent the whole 30 over years asking us to be patient.

“But now it is proven (that) their plan (all along) was to own the land, and now thyey have sold it behind our backs,” added Ariffin.Read more.

Harris:RM430m Bum-Bum Bridge A Waste

Hantu Laut

Former Sabah Chief Minister has taken to task the Federal government decision to build a bridge linking the mainland with Bum-Bum Island in Semporna initiated during the tenure of former Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi.

Harris is indeed right, the unlikelihood of any potential economic growth of the area would make the bridge a white elephant.Story here and here.

MAS:National Pride Or National Shame?

Hantu Laut

There have been many fatalities in the airline business.

The three most well-known demises of national airlines were Pan Am, Swissair and Sabena of the U.S, Switzerland and Belgium respectively. 

I have had the honour of having flown with all three airlines before they were destined to the graveyard.

One must not have false sense of pride or foolish sentiments when come to running a business. If the business continued to lose money, sell it or close it down. Pouring taxpayer's money into this bottomless pit is completely irresponsible of the government, which eventually would become even more costly to shut down.

The Malaysian taxpayers should not be made to pay money to this sick child just because the government think they are beholden to keep employing those 20,000 grossly overstaffed MAS bumiputra employees and maintain a false and costly national pride.

The government should not be beholden to those good-for-nothing MAS management and employees, but should protect taxpayers money as trustee of the people.

MAS losses were not due to external market forces.It's just incompetence and bad management. Its major losses were due to gross mismanagement arising out of over staffing, overpricing of supplies by sub-contractors, high fuel prices due to poor financial planning and in a nutshell a blundering amateurist management team headed by people who have no knowledge of the aviation industry. MAS has enough business in the air, but excessively high expenditure caused the massive losses.

Its airline core business revenue increased by 2% to RM13.9 billion in 2011 but suffered a massive loss of RM2.52 billion.Higher fuel costs were due to management lack of foresight. A competent management would know how to hedge fuel prices.Since passengers help subsidised fuel cost by paying fuel surcharges, MAS management cannot claim that most of it losses were due to higher fuel costs.

Using the 2011 loss as a yardstick, MAS would have lost 10 Boeing 737-800 in 2011, literally chopping them up for the scrapyard, which hypothetically also means it could have paid the purchase of 10 units of new Boeing 737-800 in cash.Current price of Boeing 737-800 is at US$83-100 million depending on the configuration.

The airline had gone through various management changes over the past decade, yet nothing good had come out of it.

As I have predicted correctly of past management failures, I am still not convinced the new management team put in recently would be able to save the airline.There will be lots of talk but little improvement.

Political interference and corrupt practices are rampant in the airline.Many MAS supply contracts were given to relatives and cronies with highly inflated prices. Remember the RM75 or RM150 per serving of nasi lemak episode not long ago?

Can MAS pay for air crafts due for delivery this year and next? 

They are 5 units A-380, 13 B737-800 and 5 A330-300 awaiting delivery. MAS needs almost RM10 billion for the next two years to pay for aircraft deliveries.

How are they going to pay when they only have RM1.1 cash reserve, which will be exhausted soon to pay for the continuing losses. 

With a severe red balance sheet will the banks lend them money or they may have to go to Santa Clause to get the money, the people's money.

Three things the government can do, forget about national pride, it's a national shame.............sell the damned thing to a private concern, close it down, or chop it up, bit by bit, and feed to the dogs.

MAS, national pride or national shame?

Blast from the past, read here, talk is cheap!

Chop Suey!

Hantu Laut

A good orator does not necessary make a good leader.Hitler was one such person. He was imprisoned after a failed coup d'etat (Beer Hall Putsch). During his time in prison he wrote his memoir, Mein Kempf (My Struggle).

He gained popular support after his release from prison and became the Chancellor in 1933 and transformed Germany as the Third Reich.He was a charmer, a charismatic orator that eventually became the most notorious beast, a monstrous and murderous dictator of the modern era. He murdered 11 million people including 6 million Jews.Many more millions died fighting the war.

Hitler did not suffer from any mental disorder, he was just a clever conniving, ruthless and needless to say, a person who was just born bad.

Sometimes, a leader we least expected to be bad can become a monster when given too much power. Of recent time, Pol Pot of Cambodia killed almost 2 million of his own people within a spate of less than four years.It took the Cambodians many years to recover the aftermath of the genocidal regime.

Take Africa and the Middle East, almost two-thirds of the region had been or still under the rules of despotic leaders. These countries are ripe for revolutions and the Middle East countries have seen conflagration of uprisings involving Tunisia,Egypt,Libya,Yemen,Bahrain and ongoing uprising in Syria, which has become as bloody as the Libyan revolution.

Clearly, the Western powers are not prepared to intervene where there is no oil and Western interests at stake.Assad is at liberty to do what he likes, including killing the innocents to instill fear in the population.He may end up same as Qaddafi or able to put down the rebellion with high human cost.Over a hundred people are killed everyday.

Saudi Arabia is the next hotspot, volatile for change.At the moment the kingdom has managed to contain the discontentment by bribing the people with cash handouts, it may not be this year, it may not be next year, but it will come. As Brutus says "not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more". History has shown brutal regime cannot stand for long.

The Asean region have had its share of dictators and bad leaders, it has seen two dictators brought down by people's power, Marcos of Philippines and Suharto of Indonesia.When it come to human right abuses they are mild compared to Arab leaders who are prepared to perpetrate iniquity to stay in power.Criticising the leaders is a crime and political prisoners are regularly tortured in those godforsaken countries.

No matter what the opposition and the Western press tell you about Malaysia, our government is not as brutal as those countries, physical torture of political prisoners are not common occurrences here as in Africa and the Middle East.Malaysia do not have political prisoners languishing in prison for long period of time.Most of those detained under ISA were considered security risk to the nation or involved in terrorist activities.Sometimes, the ISA is a necessary evil.

Almost all the tyrants and despots of the so-called democratic world were put there by the people and allowed to have absolute power to run the country as they deemed fit until the people found out that their mouths are muffled and their freedom restricted and those opposing the regime either gone missing or in prison.

The Arab Spring gained momentum due to social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs.These sites can provide instant information and can be updated anytime.The alternative media is now the media of choice providing the people the thirst for political gobbledygook.

In Malaysia the anti-government blogs get more visits than pro-government blogs.Even in Singapore, considered squeaky clean and excellent government the Internet has played a role in helping to swing opinion against the government.The PAP popular vote declined by 6.46% from its 2006 elections to 60.14%, the lowest since independence, losing 6 seats to the opposition Worker's Party.

If excellent government can suffer unforeseen and unexpected decline in its popularity what awaits the less than excellent ones.

The results of the March 2008 General Elections were indicative of the powers of the Internet and its influence on the masses, particularly, the youth.Malaysian homes are well wired especially in urban and semi-urban areas. The alternative media have become the media of choice for most Malaysians. The Malaysian government ignoring the alternative media at its own perils.

Anwar Ibrahim was all excited talking about a Malaysian version of the Arab Spring if Pakatan don't make it to Putrajaya. His insatiability for power and to be prime minister had taken over his good sense.Majority of Malaysians are more level-headed than he assumed.They will not go on to the streets to topple a duly elected government.

Pakatan leaders, instead of telling Malaysians what they can and will do for the people if they form the next Federal government, spent more time on witch-hunting, self-aggrandizing and distributing lie-goodies to the people

Be careful of wolf in sheep clothing and whom you elect to lead this country.

Chop Suey, shap sui or za sui, does it matter, they are all the same!