I was planning to call in sick instead of writing this column yesterday, as I have all the symptoms of a terrible cold. But then I got to thinking that it may not be a cold at all, but a touch of the Umno/BN virus.

Because I can’t recall any contact with anyone with obvious cold symptoms, but am all too aware that I have been foolishly over-exposing myself to carriers of Umno/BN disease, if only virtually, via my constant reading of Malaysiakini.

And thus I’m desperate to restrict myself to suffering nothing much but a running nose, and to avoid such terrible symptoms of the full-blown Umno/BN syndrome as allegedly running away with billions of ringgit of other people’s money, and running off at the mouth with a lot of alleged pathological lies.

Like, to take just one of this week’s sickest examples of the latter, the urging by Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi to traditional media practitioners to “hold tight to the ethics of journalism in facing the challenges and competitions from digital media”.

“The freedom enjoyed by digital media journalists, who are not restricted by the ethical standards of the profession, had challenged and submerged the journalism ethics upheld by the traditional media practitioners,” he told his audience of Umno/BN propagandists at Malaysian Press Night 2016.

Thus Zahid managed to not only give the very words ‘ethics’ and ‘journalism’ a bad name, but also by implication to deny that the diseased regime that he so disgracefully represents also misuses public money to pay teams of so-called ‘cybertroopers’ to disseminate its lies and false denials of wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, governor of Bank Negara Malaysia, Muhammad Ibrahim, declared the BNM’s case against 1Malaysia Development Berhad ‘closed’ on the grounds that 1MDB had allegedly paid a fine for failing to fully comply with directives issued under the Financial Services Act 2013.

As he refused to reveal the amount of the fine, however, or proffer any evidence of its payment, his ‘case closed’ announcement is no more credible than the similar earlier pronouncement by attorney-general Mohamed Apandi Ali following a so-called ‘investigation’ of 1MDB, and by investigators within CIMB who found nothing improper about their CEO’s involvement in disbursing mysteriously-sourced funds for his brother, Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

As closed as Umno/BN would like the case to be, however, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Azalina Othman Said confusingly still apparently considers it open in declaring it sub judice and thus not open for discussion in Parliament in light of the Malaysian Bar’s application for a judicial review of the attorney-general’s clearing of the prime minister of any wrongdoing.

In any case, the entire 1MDB fiasco seems to be pretty well out of Umno/BN control, having progressed from a nasty Malaysian financial infection to something approaching a global pandemic.

‘Trail of destruction’

As Malaysiakini reports, “the 1MDB saga has left a trail of destruction across three continents, with key corporate and banking figures having to resign, bankers charged and accounts frozen.”

“However, the biggest casualty to date is BSI Bank, which faces criminal proceedings for, among others, failing to adhere to anti-money-laundering regulations in handling transfers lined to 1MDB.”

And there is clearly a great deal more grief to come, as investigations are still under way in the US into the source of funds suspiciously acquired by Najib’s step-son for investments in movie production and purchases of expensive real estate in New York and Los Angeles.

Also of considerable interest to investigators is Najib’s original partner or prime-mover in the 1MDB fiasco, Low Taek Jho aka Jho Lo, who so far seems to have somehow evaded questioning.

Though not for much longer, perhaps, as the Wall Street Journal has yesterday reported that, contrary to earlier claims by the Malaysian government that a key company in the 1MDB saga, Good Star Limited, was owned by erstwhile 1MDB joint-venture partner PetroSaudi International, it was actually owned by Jho Lo.

And if this is turns out to be true, as has every previous WSJ report on the 1MDB debacle, then the fat could be well and truly in the fire for not just Jho Lo and Najib, but for the entire Umno/BN regime, whose cabinet and so-called law officers have colluded in attempts to cover-up this clearly criminal enterprise.

In short, I can console myself with the thought that my current case of the sniffles is nothing compared with how sick so many Umno/BN bigwigs must be feeling in the face of being prosecuted for planning, aiding and abetting the snaffling countless billions of ringgit.

And how relieved so many millions of Malaysians must be at the prospect of finally ridding themselves and their beloved country of this vile and virulent regime.  

DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors writers and authors and practises as a writing therapist. Published books of his columns for Malaysiakini include ‘Mad about Malaysia', ‘Even Madder about Malaysia', ‘Missing Malaysia', ‘1Malaysia.con’ and ‘Malaysia Mania’.