YOURSAY 'When personal interest takes centre stage, the welfare of society is made meaningless and corruption reigns supreme. It's the ‘rule of thieves'. Or simply kleptocracy.'

More Umno leaders caught in 'Cowgate' scandal?

your say Rick Teo: No wonder our country's debt is ballooning. With such parasites, this country will be bankrupt in no time.

Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said Women, Family and Community Development Minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil is not involved in the National Feedlot Corporation (NFC) scandal.

Then the minister and her husband must be living separate lives. Otherwise how can she not be involved? Without the minister's influence, where could her husband have gotten the soft loan of RM250 million?

Rayfire: Well, the corporation does live up to its name. It feeds a lot of people.

Kosongcafe: I am sure other similar cases could not stand up to scrutiny. It's just that company officials, external auditors and departmental staff of relevant ministries dare not squeak when they involve Umno leaders.

The Companies Commission of Malaysia (CCM) tends to be soft towards certain companies, whereas others have to toe the line or face stiff fines.

Antibody: If Umno were serious, this Cowgate scandal should be the starting point for correcting wrongs amongst the political bigheads. Shahrizat should resign if she loves Umno and if she really subscribes to ‘Rakyat Didahulukan'.

Titan: In whatever way, we strive not to be guilty of adding fuel to the flames of this Cowgate scandal, but the allegations and aspersions cast on Shahrizat are damning.

NFC has not uttered a word to refute them. In the absence of convincing rebuttal evidence, this cabinet minister is tainted.

She is legally trained. She knows the rules. She has become a liability to BN and to PM Najib Razak. With the 13th GE in the near horizon, she should voluntarily head towards the exit, failing which, the flames of the electoral campaign will consume her alive.

Shahrizat, save BN the agony, please.

Anonymous_3e86: The authorities are all very silent. Not a sound from them. They will just keep quiet and everything will cool down in a few weeks. Nobody will be charged and the corrupt will continue milking the country dry.

So what else is new? Taxpayers' money continue to be siphoned off by these BN crooks. It's so depressing.

Abasir: Only Dr Mahathir Mohamad knows how many times he turned a blind eye to the corrupt practices involving Umno-linked characters including members of his cabinet and heads of agencies.

The problem would be less severe now if he had acted on them then. Well, as they say, the cows have come home to roost.

Khairy ready to take on Rafizi over NFC

20121221Disaster: It seems like Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin is involved in the NFC project. Otherwise, how can he represent NFC in the debate?

Kosongcafe: Khairy has the advantage of experience as a television host, but when it comes to financial details, I am doubtful he can challenge Rafizi Ramli, who is a chartered accountant with years of corporate experience.

Khairy might have the image of a corporate man or investment banker since his ECM Libra days, but those were opportunities which landed on him when his father-in-law was in power, not as a result of his real banking experience.

Therefore, you can expect someone who is smooth but lacks substance, or what Malays would describe as 'ada gaya, tiada mutu'.

This should be interesting to watch, provided Khairy does not back out with some excuse.

Little Han2: Will Khairy be explaining the meaning of "an escrow account which is not an escrow account" at the debate? Or why is the purchase of a RM10 million penthouse necessary as an investment for a feedlot corporation as he had claimed.

NFC puts Najib's transformations in poor light

SusahKes: "Strangely, no one seems to have called for the two ministers concerned to be brought to book - the previous agriculture minister (now DPM) Muhyiddin Yassin for having dubiously awarded the project to an incompetent recipient and the current minister Noh Omar for failing to properly oversee the execution of the project," writes Kim Quek.

Something whispers inside me that, Najib must be silently clapping his hands and beaming at his deputy's sudden ‘thrust' into the spotlight. All of a sudden, hardly anybody now talks about THAT diamond ring.

Not long before the subject of NFC became headlines, Muhyiddin was again thrust into the spotlight when he flip-flopped on the PPSMI (Teaching of Science and Maths in English) policy.

I am not surprised. Behind all these ‘revelations' and what nots, perhaps what we're really witnessing are symptoms of Umno's inner power struggle.

Cala: When corruption reaches the highest level of government, it is called kleptocracy. It would be difficult to change the actors-agents' behaviour in the short-run no matter how hard Najib ‘tries'.

When personal interest takes center stage, the collective welfare of society is made meaningless, corruption reigns supreme. Weil has called such kind of governance "rule of thieves".

Kingfisher: If such an obvious case of mismanagement and abuse of public trust and accountability is being defended and protected by the PM, DPM and another full federal minister, one is left wandering what is the ethical threshold for the ‘transformation' in polity and governance as enunciated by the PM .

MP Bung Moktar Radin, to his credit, had expressed concern and a rational course of action (resignation) that will have much support from the public.

It is quite amusing to read the DPM's statement in this regard and it is even more perplexing that he refers to this as an issue within the ‘Umno family' implying that Moktar was indiscreet.

Public funds and ministerial obligations are serious matters of concern for the public. Let not the nation's noble institutions and offices be associated with guilt and shame.

Ben-ghazi: That's right, there's no remorse expressed by any of the VVIPs (ministers, former PM, etc) mentioned in this article. Everything is a-okay! No regrets, no sorry, no promise to investigate and pinpoint where and how the project went wrong... no morals whatsoever.

Manjit Bhatia: Kim Quek wrote: "The current scandal is typical of BN misadventures with public funds; a large sum is given to an incompetent crony who squanders the money without bringing the project to fruition."

This is not a ‘misadventure'. A misadventure connotes a mistake. It is not a mistake. It is deliberate. It is calculated. It is outright cheating and amounts to theft on a grand scale.

It does not put Najib's transformation project in "poor light"; it hammers it to smithereens. It makes Najib's project a joke.

The whole thing was a sham from the start. Transformation had no meaning because the espoused intent was a PR (public relation) ruse.

If there's one thing that is an exportable Malaysian model to the rest of the Third World, it is state-led corruption and the concomitant bastardisation of good governance.

 

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