Pada 18 Januari 2022 (minggu sudah) saya telah bangkitkan isu Khazanah Nasional Bhd yang telah menaikkan gaji pengarah eksekutif dan pengurusan tinggi walaupun prestasi Khazanah menurun dengan banyak juga. Inilah tajuk posting saya pada 18 Januari 2022 itu:
Semalam pula (25 Januari 2022) akhbar Malay Mail melaporkan berita beberapa Ahli Parlimen yang telah menyoalkan isu ini. Berikut beritanya:
KL Jan 25 — Khazanah rewards three executive directors, senior management despite drop in investment returns raised eyebrows among lawmakers
lawmakers harshly criticised move, demanded Putrajaya to explain rationale
Khazanah must explain why ED's remuneration up more than 200%
remuneration for key management up more than 175% said Lembah Pantai MP What is justification for extravagant expenditure, given poor investment returns?
Shah Alam MP said increment warrants explanation “It’s something which is very questionable,” Khalid said
“don’t see rationale or logical explanation for such policy,” he added remuneration more than double previous year, irresponsible, dumbfounding
hefty remuneration raise in 2020 despite over 60% drop in investment returns
KNB posted just RM2.9b profits 2020
drop of over 60% from RM7.4b 2019
same period Khazanah doubled EDs, senior execs perks
RM4.8m in 2020, up from RM2.6m in 2019
Total remuneration for senior execs increased to RM45.3m from RM25.6m
BN made coalition leaders board members of GLCs by default Pakatan Harapan curbed practise during 22 months in power. But that culture reinstated by Perikatan Nasional bloc
increment when income inequality intensified by Covid
Kadir Jasin said Khazanah dished perks when 100,000 people lost income
top management enjoyed RM45.3 mil remuneration (2020)
when 100,000 people lost incomes due to MCO he wrote in Sinar Harian
Kadir suggested increment underscored culture nurtured by corruption
civil servants, top leadership of GLCs following govt’s audacious habits bosses rash behaviour become institutionalised across the board Khazanah did not respond to Malay Mail’s request for comment
My comments :
Tuan-tuan, sekali lagi mereka makan duit rakyat marhaen. Kalau mereka jadi jutawan pun adalah daripada makan duit rakyat marhaen.
Tetapi masih ada banyak lagi kelemahan dalam pengurusan Khazanah Nasional yang patut disuluhkan daripada Audited Accounts mereka (tahun 2020).
Satu lagi contoh adalah seperti berikut:
My comments : Ikut Notes to the Accounts No. 20 di atas pada tahun 2020 Khazanah Nasional telah menjual 17.3 JUTA saham Telekom Malaysia Bhd dengan harga RM735 JUTA.
Mereka juga telah menjual 85 JUTA saham Tenaga Nasional Bhd atau TNB dengan harga RM1 BILLION !!
Jadi penjualan saham Telekom dan TNB sahaja menjana wang sebanyak RM1.735 BILLION bagi Khazanah.
Memandangkan bahawa Khazanah hanya buat untung sebanyak RM2.9 Billion pada 2020 (KNB posted just RM2.9b profits 2020) ini bermaksud bahawa 60% daripada prestasi keuntungan Khazanah pada 2020 adalah daripada penjualan saham TNB dan Telekom.
Saham TNB dan Telekom itu telah diberi percuma kepada Khazanah Nasional sejak mereka mula operasi pada 1994. Dr Mahathir yang menjadi perdana menteri ketika itu telah kickstart atau menghidupkan fungsi dan operasi Khazanah dengan memberi mereka kekayaan yang lumayan ia itu saham-saham dalam syarikat gergasi kepunyaan kerajaan (GLC) seperti TNB dan Telekom Malaysia Bhd.
Pada masa itu Khazanah telah pegang lebih 75% saham TNB. Tetapi hari ini pula tinggal hanya 26%. Begitu juga Khazanah sekarang hanya mempunyai 21.5% daripada saham Telekom Malaysia.
Dalam bahasa omputih menjual saham-saham lama ini boleh disebut sebagai 'selling the family silver' ia itu menjual harta pusaka keluarga sendiri.
Hampir 60% daripada keuntungan Khazanah (2020) datang daripada 'selling the family silver' atau menjual harta pusaka. Bukan daripada aktiviti menjalankan pelaburan baru.
Mak nenek kita yang hanya belajar sekolah kecik pun boleh membuat kerja menjual saham TNB dan saham Telekom untuk mendapat duit.
Apa buktinya? Bila mak nenek kita pergi ke bank atau pejabat ASB untuk menjual saham ASB, maka serupalah Khazanah menjual saham TNB.
Tak payalah belajar tinggi-tinggi atau di bayar gaji berjuta-juta Ringgit untuk buat kerja angkat telefon dan suruh broker jual saham TNB. Any monkey can do it.
Tuan-tuan dengar baik-baik ya.
Saham TNB dan saham Telekom yang mereka jual itu adalah harta pusaka kita. Kita maksudnya rakyat marhaen.
Gaji dan kenaikan gaji mereka yang berjuta-juta Ringgit itu pun daripada duit rakyat marhaen. Duit kita.
Maksudnya mereka naikkan gaji juta-juta Ringgit daripada duit kita untuk mejual harta pusaka kita sendiri.
A lawyer friend called me last nite and said that at last Najib had taken my advice about getting a new lawyer to argue his case. This is for his final appeal in the Federal Court over the 12 year jail and RM210 million fine in the RM42 Million SRC case. Here is the news:
Najib to engage Queen’s Counsel (QC) from UK
QC to argue appeal
Najib, 68 charged in court and found guilty
Court of Appeal dismissed application for fresh evidence
did not meet four strict elements required under law:
the evidence was not made available at the trial
the issue of relevance
credibility
would evidence have created reasonable doubt
court upheld conviction, 12 years’ jail, RM210m fine
for misappropriating RM42 million in SRC funds
three-member bench dismissed Najib’s appeal
My Comments :
Well first of all Mat Salleh lawyers will be super expensive. He will ask to be paid in British pounds. And since this is a criminal case and a final appeal, he will likely ask to be paid up front, in advance.
Siri just said that one British pound is equal to RM5.65.
So 100k pounds = RM565,000, 1m pounds = RM5.65 million etc.
Here is a question that is obviously rhetorical : are lawyers fees affected by whether the case is winnable or lose-able? A win adds prestige to the lawyer. Losing a case goes the other way. Also the case is high profile.
The Mat Salleh lawyer will appear for a few days only.
Why
the need for a Mat Salleh lawyer? How does this appear politically and
from the public perspective? The Bar Council should say something. This
is the 21st century. Not the 19th century. Malaysia is no more a British
colony. There must be other Made in Malaysia lawyers who are cleverer who can argue the appeal.
This
case is no different from a curi ayam case in the kampong. There was
the thief who has been caught, there was opportunity, there was motive,
tons of evidence have been recovered and presented in court. What is so
complicated?
Two courts and FOUR judges have found Najib guilty. The decisions against Najib have been unanimous. There were no dissenting opinions among the judges.
Obviously the whole defense strategy was a mistake. Najib has been found guilty TWICE already. I have been saying this since this trial began. Najib basically admitted to everything. His defense was "I dont know".
"I dont know" cannot be a defense. Just like ignorance of the law is not a defense. Ignorance of the crime is certainly also not a defense. But Najib's defense strategy admitted to the evidence presented.
Q: 'The money was found in your personal bank account?' A: Yes it was but I did not know.
I am not a lawyer but I did study some law. In the trial (the first case) the lawyers argue the facts of the case.
The witness will say the snake he saw under the coconut tree was white in colour. That is supposed to be a fact. The defense lawyer will start to create doubt about this fact. He will say no the snake was not white, it was black. Because it was about 8pm and there was a full moon that night. So the snake appeared shining white. It was actually a shiny black snake and its name was Pambu - a personal friend of the lawyer (joking only). Things like that. To create doubt about the facts of the case.
In an appeals court the lawyers do not argue the facts of the case anymore. They argue over points of law with reference to the decision of the trial judge.
For example the trial judge sentenced the policeman to death for the murder of the Mongolian woman. All the facts of the case had been presented during the trial. The accused even admitted to the facts of the case.
In an appeal, they cannot argue the facts of the case anymore. They could (or should) question the trial judge's failure to determine the motive for the murder (as an example). According to the law motive is critical especially for murder cases. Why did the policeman kill a Mongolian woman? What was the motive? What personal grudge did the policeman have to kill someone he had never met before in his life? Policemen are trained to obey orders. Did the trial judge fully determine the motive for the murder?
It may not affect the guilty verdict but it could deter from a death sentence. Maybe a life sentence or a term sentence?
So lets see what points of law the Mat Salleh lawyer will argue in front of the Federal Court.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse to commit crime.
A friend sent me this video. It shows a Chinese restaurant in Segamat making and serving roti canai, complete with the kuah kari etc. The guy is making roti telor. With a small twist - the guy adds soy sauce on the egg.
Talk about assimilation. As I said yesterday there are many Chinese kari-kepala-ikan restaurants. There is one Chinese nasi kandar restaurant in Puchong. One day the Chinese may take over the roti canai, kari kepala ikan and nasi kandar business. Competition is always good.
I hope Dr Mahathir recovers from his hospital stay and returns home asap. No one should suffer any ailment.
I wanted to comment about Dr Mahathir's chopsticks analogy for some time now but it got postponed.
Everytime we drive down the Seremban Highway towards KL we note this billboard 'e-banci 2020..'. It refers to an e-census (online census) which was obviously done in 2020. My wife and I and our sons know for a fact that none of us participated in any e-banci. No one contacted us. I recently asked a lawyer friend if he took part in any e-banci or online census in 2020. His answer was also in the negative.
So dear reader, have you or anyone you know taken part in any e-banci (online census) in 2020? Few people even know about it. I am sure hundreds of millions of Ringgit were spent on that online census.
Not everyone in the country even has an online link. How did the e-banci count all the people in the country? Yet the e-banci 2020 website says there are some 32.7 million people in the country. How do you know when so many people did not take part in the online census?
I know for a fact that the previous census done in 2014 also did not count my family. At that time we were living in Bukit Jalil in a taman with over 500 link houses of which we were the only non-Chinese house. Later another non-Chinese family moved in. All the Chinese houses had dogs and/or that red tokong in front of their houses.
I saw the Malay "Census" girls arriving in a van. They walked into our street but did not ring any bells or knock on any doors. After a while the Malay girls just got back in their van and drove off. No census was taken in our area. I know my family was not counted in 2014. Hundreds of millions of Ringgit must have been spent yet there is no proper census.
Without an accurate Census how do we know exactly how many people there are in the country? How do we know exactly how many Chinese, Ibans, Malays, Kadazans or Indians there are in the country?
And here is a population mystery. 20 years ago there were said to be two (2) million Indians in the country. Now 20 years later they still say there are two million Indians in the country. This cannot be correct.
A few weeks back YB Waythamoorthy said that about TWO million Indians would like to attend the Thaipusam all over the country. I recall that a few years ago (before Covid) almost ONE million Indians gathered at Batu Caves alone. If two million Indians can attend Thaipusam there must be more Indians staying at home. So what is the exact population of Indians?
And what about the Mamaks or Indian Muslims? Nowadays closer to election time all the Mamaks are automatically counted as Melayu. After the elections are over the Mamak / Melayu count may get blur again. People say there are more than 350,000 Mamaks in the country. I think the number is well over 500,000 if you count all the Mamaks in Penang as well. The point is we do not have an accurate population count.
How many Chinese are there in the country? There cannot be less than SEVEN million Chinese. I believe the number of Chinese is EIGHT million or more. In Singapore there are (about?) FOUR million Chinese? And what is the distribution of the population?
There are 11 Parliamentary seats in Kuala Lumpur of which almost ALL are won by the Opposition, especially the Chinese dominated DAP. The Malay population in Kuala Lumpur is supposed to be more than the Chinese but the number of Chinese who have registered to vote in Kuala Lumpur are more than the number of registered Malay voters. We do not know the exact numbers of Chinese in Kuala Lumpur (at least not in bukit Jalil).
YM Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah told me just a few months back that the actual Malay population in the entire country is about 16.2 million Malays. That is barely above 50% in a population of 32 to 33 million people.
Yes bumiputeras make up about 70% of the population but not all bumiputera are Muslim or Malay. Ibans, Kadazans, Dusuns, Orang Asli, Mamaks fall in these categories. (Oklah the Mamaks are counted during election time).
So Malays / Muslims / bumiputeras make up the majority of MPs because they do form the majority of the population. Plus there is also gerrymeandering and racial delineation of Parliamentary seats which causes Malay / Muslim / bumiputera MPs to dominate parliament.
But the Malay MPs belong to different and opposing parties and so their grip on power has decreased. Hence Brader Anwar, Najib and Hadi's attendances at Thaipusam and at the temples.
There are more than TWO million Indians lah. And I believe there are more than EIGHT million Chinese. If you do not make an accurate count of the population then you can suffer surprises at the elections, when you argue about chopsticks etc.
Using tools has been one of the most important reasons for the dominance of the human race (homo sapiens) over the other animal species. Among other things using tools shows dexterity. Young children learning to use tools like chopsticks does sharpen hand eye coordination as well. The Chinese can save money buying learning toys for their kids.
Learning toys for hand eye coordination
Chopsticks have served the Chinese people well. Assimilation usually goes in the direction of from less desirable to more desirable. For example food is something that can convert anyone regardless of the culture that created it or the culture that consumes it. Why does the whole world eat pizza? Because it is desirable. From the North Pole to the South Pole human beings like pizza.
In Malaysia the Chinese have hijacked dodol, belacan, kari kepala ikan (malu kat Mamak lah) plus other foods from all the races. Some of the Chinese kari kepala ikan restaurants are really unbeatable.
The Chinese have long been exporting dodol durian overseas. And the Nyonya women have hijacked almost all the kueh Melayu. Maybe if the Chinese master teh tarik and roti canai then all the kedai mamak may have to close.There is already a popular Chinese owned nasi kandar in Puchong !!
Kuih Nyonya or Kueh Melayu? Mahu gaduh ka?
The Indians and Malays have also hijacked many Chinese foods. There is absolutely no such thing as Mee Mamak, beehoon or kway teow in India. Tau Foo Fah is 100% Chinese.
The same with clothes. There is cross-dressing (no pun intended, religious nuts take note) between cultures when a particular dress is desirable. The kain sarong is Indian. Kain pelekat (palayakattu) is certainly Indian. Yet Chinese men and women in Malaysia have since long ago been wearing kain pelekat at home.
And of course for centuries now the Nyonya women have assumed the gorgeous sarong kebaya. Many Malay women have just left the building completely.
In brief if it is desirable, if it is comfortable, if it is tasty and delicious, if it is useful, if it works, if it makes life easy then it will get hijacked. Imitation is the highest form of praise.
Well even in religion the Chinese have hijacked some notoriety. Today in Malaysia among the top religious "preachers" and personalities in the country are the muallaf fellows like the Yees, the Liews and the Tees. And the Chinese muallaf fellows do not indulge in coconuts and bamboo telescopes, or hysteria kits. They stick to just plain regular "tidak boleh gunakan akal dalam agama" stuff.
One drawback in cultural exchange could be the inability of too many Chinese to speak Malay fluently. The Indians have this 'problem' too. This has nothing to do with the Chinese schools or Tamil schools. I will dwell on this a little more here. Do read on. But can you also blame the Chinese and Indians that just when they began speaking Malay better the Malays switched to Arabic? Just when the Chinese were going from 'lu' and 'gua' to 'kamu' and 'aku' the Malays pula switched to 'ana' and 'anta'. Now the Chinese have to start all over again.
In the video below you can see and hear an Indian speaking Banjar. This happens in Johor, the Kuala Selangor, Sekinchan areas, across the Perak border in Hutan Melintang and Bagan Datok. (Javanese is more common).
The question is how come the other fellow does not speak Malay? Belum assimilate ke? And in Sarawak many Chinese speak Iban fluently. Like this guy here:
In the modern era brain knowledge is more important than control over physical resources. Oil does not mean rich anymore.
Light speed communication creates wealth. No one writes letters on paper. Its WhatsApp, email, FB etc. Lazada can deliver in two days - normal delivery. They do not need a shop or a shopping mall. So the language that is popular for communication will also create wealth. That language is English and now Mandarin.
Malaysia is the world's 17th largest trading nation (or thereabouts). Our exports/imports are about RM2 trillion !! All that trade is done increasingly in Mandarin and English. Malaysia-China trade makes up more than half of our external trade.
The fact of the matter is Malay has little practical use in this huge volume of our exports and imports. Plus Malays themselves play a small role in our external trade. Or in our economy. The Prime Minister said Malays own less than 17% of corporate wealth. He forgot to mention that this includes the share ownership by bumiputera agencies.
What is more relevant is the negligible Malay presence in the SME sector. Another Minister once said Malays contribute less than 10% to GDP growth. This also means Malays contribute very little to total tax collection. But we do have an RM1.2 TRILLION sized economy. This economy depends mostly on Chinese and English. These are just realities. Facts.
And then you have Javanese and Banjarese being spoken from lower Perak to Johor while Iban is the lingua franca in Sarawak. That Indian fellow did not learn to speak Banjar at the Tamil school. Neither do Chinese schools in Sarawak teach Iban. So people will speak whatever is easy and beneficial for them.
Culture, language, cross dressing (of the inter-cultural kind only ok) will find its own level. Please do not award any million Ringgit or billion Ringgit crony contracts to promote "assimilation". It is a big word and very complicated. Just maintain peace and harmony and everything will sort itself out.
My sons and I used to go off roading into the jungle. It was often a mixed crowd with Chinese, Indians, Malays. Often it was easier to eat with fingers at the campsites. You can wash your hands in the river.
