YOURSAY ‘Does Rahman Dahlan have the guts to call Dr M a clown, too?’

Scrap 1MDB 'bailout', Dr M tells Tabung Haji

Hmmmmmmmm: What can they possibly build on that piece of land in Tun Razak Exchange (TRX) to make a profit?

Land cost is RM188 million. Development cost would be at least twice that or else it'll look very silly economics-wise for the land to be more expensive than the development.

So total cost would be approximately RM600 million. Assuming they build luxury units worth RM2 million each, they'll need to build 300 units just to break even.

Somebody can work out how many storeys that will translate into, bearing in mind that these are luxury units and so you cannot have too many units per floor.

Anonymous$&@?: Former PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad's remarks puts Housing and Local Government Minister Abdul Rahman Dahlan in an awkward position after he called PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli a "clown" for saying the same thing.

Does Rahman Dahlan now have the guts to call Mahathir a clown, too?

Nes: Rahman Dahlan, maybe you can have a go at Rafizi on bailouts, but how can you argue with the old man? After all, he knows a thing or two about such bailouts.

Vijay47: What we are witnessing is the shameless carnivorous hypocrisy that Umno has been practising all along as they brutally raped every public institution within reach.

It has now reached feverish almost desperate levels in realisation of the fact that the gravy train will soon derail and opportunities lost forever.

Whenever such scandals were revealed, Umno's stock response was that all was in defence of race, everything for protection of religion.

What shocks is that the Malays themselves allowed their own to cheat them blind for a lifetime. Perhaps Tabung Haji is god-sent, it has shown that Umno's rapacious avarice has no limits, and it is eternally open season even on institutions set up to fulfil faith obligations.

Umno, where are your many Islamic phrases and verses you were so quick to quote even as you were blatantly robbing us? How sad that the Malays seem to have woken up only when this latest criminal act was committed. My contempt is matched only by my disgust.

Wg321: If 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) sells a plot of government land at RM2,779psf (per square foot) to a Chinaman, there is a net gain for the government.

But when 1MDB sells the same plot of government land is sold to Tabung Haji at RM2,779psf, where is the net gain for the government? Remember both 1MDB and Tabung Haji are controlled by the government.

Indeed, what type of strategic investment is 1MDB doing? 1MDB is instead behaving more like a land speculator. Tabung Haji might as well buy the same plot of land direct from the government at RM90psf.

How can the chairman of Tabung Haji (Baling MP Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim) be so stupid? He should resign.

GMK: We must not forget Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ). The same strategy was used where land was first obtained very cheaply but later sold at a rocket-high price.

For PKFZ, the profit went to the crony. In the case of 1MDB, the profit will be used to partly cover its losses. It indirectly benefited the corrupted cronies too.

Antibody: To say that it is a good investment by Tabung Haji is the most ridiculous thing. I wonder if the Tabung Haji chief has been trained in economics and real estate development. Or he is just a pen pusher.

To buy raw land with zero approved infrastructure facilities like road, power supply, water supply and communication services and say it is a good real estate investment is like sending your son to a college with no buildings, no teachers, no management, etc.

Oh Ya?: Well, well, well. Didn't former PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad admit in Parliament that he granted the then UEM (United Engineers Malaysia) a contract to build the North-South Highway to rescue Menara Umno, which had defaulted its loan and was almost auctioned off?

How many times did he use EPF (Employees Provident Fund) contributors' money to bail out his cronies? Not to mention using Petronas, which is supposed to belong to every Malaysian, to bail out his second son?

And the biggest bailout of all is none other than Proton, which would have closed shop long time ago if not supported by high tariffs imposed on other car makes.

Consequently, all Malaysian car owners have to pay through their noses and incur heavy debts to own cars.

Swipenter: Indeed, Mahathir himself is just as guilty in using national financial resources to bail out floundering businesses of his cronies and sons during the 1997 Asia Financial Crisis.

He was lucky then because the country was saved by relatively high oil and commodities prices. Only now Bolehland is facing a self-inflicted financial crisis due to continuing massive corruption, greed and massive financial mismanagement, exacerbated by falling oil and commodities prices.

The Najib administration has no choice but resort to dip into the collective wealth (controlled by Umno) of the ordinary Malays to bail out the country from an imminent financial meltdown.

Tabung Haji is the first but won’t be the last to be ‘persuaded’ to invest/buy 1MDB assets. Let the rakyat eat cake and the privileged few enjoy their obscenely lavish and ostentatious lifestyle, and let’s see how long this can go on.

Odin: To all of you who have been saying, "What next, the EPF?" For your information, Najib has already had a go at the EPF. The sum "borrowed" was RM3.8 billion.

It was taken out by a company called SRC International (SRCI), which was at the material time a subsidiary of 1MDB. The money was supposed to be used to invest in Gobi Coal & Energy Ltd, an energy company based in Mongolia. PM Najib Razak said later that SRCI had a 50 percent equity.

After the second tranche of the loan was disbursed (meaning, all the money had been taken), Najib pulled SRCI out of 1MDB and put it directly under his ministry (Finance Ministry). It has been revealed by Sarawak Report that SRCI's investment amounted to only about RM0.2 billion. That means RM3.6 billion is unaccounted for.

The ‘SRC' in SRCI stands for Strategic Resources Company. It may interest you all to know that Jho Low has a company called SR Global. The ‘SR' in SR Global also stands for Strategic Resources.

It may also interest you to know that at the time 1MDB was into the joint venture with PetroSaudi International, Good Star Limited was presented as a subsidiary of 1MDB; whereas it was not - it was and is actually owned by Jho Low.  I shall leave it to you to extrapolate what all this could mean.

Kickstart: At this rate, the country and all its institutions will be bankrupt in two years' time. It’s time to take out all your investments in this country.

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