YOURSAY ‘It’s just that law enforcement agencies are under your thumb.’

PM: No laws yet, can't say what's right or wrong

Magnus: I disagree with PM Najib Razak because as everyone knows, there are already enough constitutional and federal laws and other legal safeguards in Malaysia for independent oversight, transparency, control, enforcement and regulation of political parties, political donations and the conduct of elections.

The Societies Act 1966 imposes oversight, transparency and checks and controls by independent qualified auditors and the Registrar of Societies (ROS) on the conduct of political parties and the reporting of annual income and expenditure, assets, cash and liabilities of political parties and how much of that annual income (donations, subscriptions, sales) has been received from foreign sources.

Section 3A of the Act also says: “In addition to the powers, duties and functions conferred on the Registrar by this Act and any regulations made thereunder, the Registrar shall have and may exercise all such powers, discharge all such duties and perform all such functions as may be necessary for the purpose of giving effect to and carrying out the provisions of this Act.”

The registrar and deputy registrars are all appointed by the Agong and not by the government and I presume that is to guarantee the independence of these registrars to act without fear or favour.

The Elections Act 1954 imposes controls on election spending limits and what is not to be done and spent on treats, bribes and other such inducements to unlawfully influence the conduct and outcome of democratic elections.

The transparency and oversight for that is provided by the constitutionally independent Election Commission (EC) regulator through the election accounts submitted to it by all election constituency candidates. It should not be too hard for the EC to add up the expenditure of all candidates and cross check those numbers with the annual audited accounts of those political parties.

The EC, presumably, has powers to carry out independent audits on any election and liaise with the ROS and/or the auditor-general to cross check the election account numbers submitted to it for suspect or false declarations so it can enforce the election law by way of the constitutionally independent attorney-general and public prosecutor.

The Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001 imposes controls for the transparency and validity of all monies coming into the country through the banking system via the banking regulations imposed on local banks by the central bank, Bank Negara, regulator.

On the draconian taxation front, there must be in existence now already very stringent and punitive tax laws to provide detailed oversight, transparency and control of all revenues due to the tax authorities from all taxpayers.

All individual earnings and other assets, however received, and whether in cash or through bank accounts, have to be declared to the tax authorities in each fiscal year for assessment and payment of the relevant taxes due.

The same applies for incorporated entities like companies which also have to account, audit, report and file annual accounts with their shareholders at AGM (annual general meeting), with bankers and public regulators like the Registrar of Companies/Companies Commission, and declare and file their audited accounts and taxable profits to the tax authorities for payment of taxes due.

So the only way any monies coming into or being made in the country can escape oversight, transparency, tax and controls from this array of current laws and public regulators is if the cash is snuck in and out of the country in suitcases, or if all the applicable controls are deliberately overridden through fraud and collusion, or if the regulators are shirking their obligations by either sleeping on the job or pretending to sleep and so, deliberately turning a blind eye to all law-breaking that is going on under their noses and which must be evident to them.

Why do regulators do that when they know their failure will be punishable by the law and serious consequences will follow? It must be because they were either willing to collude in the law-breaking for gain or through fear, or they were ignorant of the law-breaking or they knew there was no rule of law. Any which way you look at it, they will hang themselves because the buck for regulatory failure stops with those at the top.

Najib, Malaysia already has all the necessary laws any country needs to control and regulate its affairs. Bringing another new law or another new regulator will not work.

The answer to more political funding control or anything else is not to have more laws and regulators but to just get rid of the abuse of power now evident from the executive through its fascist authoritarianism, corruption, cronyism and racist and religious supremacy-based nepotism.

Then you, as chief executive, can agree to a confidence motion and resign yourself gracefully after losing that confidence vote so we can change the government through a clean and fair GE14.

Ng Kam Loon: Indeed, Najib, there are many laws that you have allegedly broken. It’s just that all the law enforcement agencies are under your thumb. This way you can still continue to talk rubbish to your select audience.

Negarawan: Indeed, with his well-entrenched grip of the cabinet and government institutions, Najib can virtually say and do anything he wants within the country to exonerate himself.

The rakyat and international community have witnessed his audacious attempts to suppress investigations into 1MDB and to impede the flow of evidence.

In his inebriated state, Najib cannot see that more and more people, including those within Umno, are shedding their fear and timidity to express their indignation of his blatant and arrogant abuse of power. His PMship is in a tailspin together with the ringgit.

Anonymous 2252781438928216: Najib, I am on holiday in Singapore. On my way to the hotel by taxi, your name automatically pop out from the taxi driver upon learning that I am from Malaysia.

The driver was so amazed that you could get so much 'donation' and you shamelessly declared that it was not corruption.

Never mind, this morning I took another taxi to Sentosa Island. Again the taxi driver wondered how thick skinned and shameless you were. I really feel embarrassed that our PM is so despised by the people here.

And to save further embarrassment by taxi drivers, I decided to travel by bus and MRT for the rest of my holiday.

PM has lost moral authority on funding reform

A PM who can’t tell right from wrong

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