Malaysia is No.1 in ASEAN again!

DO YOU LIKE YOUR COUNTRY

TO BE NO. 1  AMONG COUNTRIES
IN THE REGION OR THE WORLD?

If you said yes to the above question and you were a Malaysian, congratulations!!! Your country has struck another 1st in the ASEAN region. Malaysia has the highest public debt to the country's gross domestic product among the 10 ASEAN countries.  Yes, we are ahead of Indonesia, Philippines, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. This record did not come easy. Malaysia had to run 15 years of govt budget deficit consecutively to attain this title.

Extracted from The Edge. All rights belong to The Edge

This attainment should rightfully goes into Malaysia Book of Records. No previous prime minister in Malaysia before Najib Tun Razak had managed to achieve this feat. Further, Najib has creatively used 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) as a secretive investment arm to raise no less than RM40 billion debt on behalf of Malaysian Govt. The debt of 1MDB, on paper, is not included as Malaysian govt debt since it is considered 'off balance sheet' although Malaysian govt is still responsible for it. Read more about 1MDB's secretive history here: http://www.theedgemalaysia.com/highlights/249308-highlight-special-report-debt-laden-malaysian-fund-stirs-controversy.html

The man behind 1MDB, Low Taek Jho or also known as Jho Low, is helping Najib to indiscriminately raise huge debts under 1MDB for at times inexplicable reason, vaguely called development. We do know that Jho Low has a history of very high society lifestyle. He can splash money like pouring water when it comes to spending time with the world's celebrities. Who's money is he spending?  Read more about Jho Low here.

Jho Low side view

Jho Low (in black) front view

More intriguingly, Najib instructed 1MDB to raise USD3 billion just 2 weeks before he called for Malaysian general election on 5 May 2013. A prestigious American/Jewish bank, Goldman Sachs did the job for 1MDB at a cost of USD500 million. Yes, you have read it correctly, USD500 million. An astonishingly lucrative deal for Goldman. Reported by international Bloomberg news, Goldman could not get any deal close to this kind of  lucrative profit from raising debts or bonds for other Asian countries.


According to The Star newspaper in Malaysia, Jho Low is a financial genius who has started investing successfully at very young age. He simply could not be so dumb and failed to negotiate a more sensible deal with Goldman. Was Jho Low getting a kickback from the deal at the expense of Malaysians?  Who is the dumber here- Jho Low, Najib or Malaysian?  Read more about the USD3 billion debts raised by Goldman here: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-08/goldman-said-to-earn-500-million-arranging-malaysia-bond.html

Najib's cavalier attitude of raising USD3 billion by paying USD500 million and having channeled the USD3 billion to a tax haven Caymen Island company before general election in Malaysia raised many eyebrows domestically and internationally. General public in Malaysia has been deprived of the extent of this problem. Malaysian media is not known to have fair or balanced reporting. Najib simply ignored the matter and did not seem to care. Financial Times in United  Kingdom reported this highly dubious transaction here:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ed31cbde-b222-11e2-8540-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2dueyteZL

The Wall Street Journal has similar news on this outrageous deal between Goldman and Malaysia: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323798104578452802751076598.html

If you think about it, USD500 million equals to RM1.6 billion. If Najib had not spent the USD500 million on Goldman's fee, Malaysian govt would not need to raise price of petrol and diesel by 20 sen per litre recently just to save RM1.1 billion for the govt. You can see why the ordinary Malaysians are unhappy.

Najib forcefully takes away RM1.1 billion

from 28 million Malaysians but

he happily pays RM1.6 billion

to 1 American/Jewish bank

Malaysians have good reasons to be unhappy!