Suka atau tidak, inilah
DUA bekas Perdana Menteri Malaysia yang selama ini bersungguh-sungguh "melindungi" bekas Pengarah Urusan MAS, Tajuddin Ramli dari sebarang pendakwaan dan salah guna kuasa!
Menjelang detik kemerdekaan negara kita yang ke-53, semangat menghukum dan mendakwa pelaku rasuah dan salah guna kuasa semakin membara!
Jadi kita gantikan kibaran Jalur Gemilang dengan "kibaran poster memaksa rakyat turun ke jalan raya mendesak mereka yang curang dibawa ke mahkamah"!
Baru mat-mat Indon tak pijak bendera kita dengan taik mereka sendiri!/
Jalan Pulang
MAS's RM8bil losses: Badawi, Dr M, Daim shielded Tajudin
A seven-page detailed report (see below) to the MACC that leaves little to the imagination indicates the involvement of former prime minister Abdullah Badawi in protecting fallen tycoon Tajudin Ramli from being investigated by the police and the Attorney General over RM8 billion in losses racked up at Malaysia Airlines when Tajudin when its chairman.
Once amongst the region’s top airlines noted for its modern fleet and good on-board fare, national carrier MAS is now far behind peers in Singapore and Hong Kong. Despite several government bailouts to erase the red ink left by Tajudin, the trauma and destruction left in the wake of the tycoon’s systemic plunder of its assets and networks is still weighing on the once-high flying airline.
Who is Tajudin and what is the enigma behind the whole complex chain of financial skullduggery revealed blow-by-blow in the report? It will take years, if ever, for the truth to be fully revealed.
But one thing is clear though. Apart from Badawi, Tajudin is also closely connected to another former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad and to former finance minister Daim Zainuddin. A sharp businessman, Tajudin got his big breaks from Daim, who together with Mahathir had championed the advance of a breed of modern Malay entrepreneurs into the corporate world to compete with the Chinese.
Along with the other Daim boys such as the North-South Expressway’s Halim Saad and RHB’s Rashid Hussain, Tajudin was given special opportunities to take over government-controlled giants in strategic sectors such as MAS and mobile phone firm Celcom. But overtaken by greed, he created a mess. The question though is - was the greed all his? Or did Daim and Mahthir push him as well?
Mr Clean
Badawi’s emergence in Tajudin’s tale of avarice and corruption will surely disappoint many ordinary Malaysians, who had thought of him as their Mr Clean. But it looks like he compromised himself when he pushed Tajudin to sell to his brother Fahim Ibrahim an option to buy 51-percent of MAS Catering, which Fahim later on-sold to Lufthansa's LSG Skychef at an exorbitant profit.
The MAS debacle is now continued by Prime Minister Najib Razak, who like his predecessors has refused to order the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission to initiate an immediate probe - despite public outcry. The political opposition now plans to deliver a memorandum of protest to the King, after the MACC told PAS leader Salahuddin Ayub it could not probe further because the case had been reported to the police.
“Of course, we are not satisfied with this excuse. The MACC is going the same way as the AG and the police. Najib too is following Badawi and Mahathir in not wanting to act either. Why is this so - three prime ministers and still nothing can be done? Who will account for all the public money sunk into MAS over and over again to bail it out from Tajudin's mismanagement?” Salahuddin told Malaysia Chronicle.
Blow-by-blow MACC report lodged, no action yet
Tajudin was finally kicked out of MAS in 2001 but only after getting another superb exit deal from a very generous government. He sold the MAS shares back to the Mahathir administration, with Daim as Finance Minister then, at RM8 apiece. But this was the same price he bought from Bank Negara in 1994 even though the market valuation had by then already plunged to RM3.68, or less than half the original price due to the losses caused by him.
Frustrated by the long years of non-action by the government despite having lodged several police reports, Shahari Sulaiman, the managing director of MASKargo, finally submitted a complaint to the MACC in May 2009 on the instruction of the MAS management board.
The MACC report reveals that on March 26, 2007, nonplussed by the lack of police investigation despite the mountain of corruption trails uncovered by internal auditors, a senior management team from MAS led by Munir Majid, who had replaced Tajudin as chairman, met and briefed Badawi.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Idris Jala, who was then the MAS MD, and Ramli Yusuf, the former director of the police Commercial Crime Department, were also part of the team. They briefed Badawi and told him that various offenses had been identified and were prosecutable.
Badawi, who came to power in 2003 with a reputation of being Mr Clean, then instructed Ramli to submit a written recommendation to the PM’s Department’s further action. But even after Ramli submitted the CCD’s recommendation, Badawi did not follow through.
“MAS heard nothing more of the action taken by the Police/AGC or the PM’s Dept on the recommendation of the Director CCD,” point 10.4 of Shahari’s MACC report read.
Will Najib also ignore the RM8 billion in losses
What happened - was there a miscommunication within the sprawling PM’s Department or amongst the various government agencies?
Market sources tell Malaysia Chronicle this was highly unlikely, given that the amounts involved were monstrous. When Tajudin left MAS in 2001, the airline's losses were in excess of RM8 billion – more than the Port Klang Free Zone's RM4.6 billion in cost overruns.
“PKFZ is nothing compared to MAS. The airline was raped over and over again by Tajudin – yet he was allowed to get away with it. Even before the meeting with Badawi, before Badawi suceeded Mahathir in 2003, MAS had already lodged police reports but nothing was done. This indicates very powerful hands were behind Tajudin, not just Badawi but also Daim and Mahathir,” the source told Malaysia Chronicle.
Under point 7.1 in the MACC report, it is stated that MAS had lodged 2 police reports under Dang Wangi Report No. 347/02 in January 2002 and Dang Wangi Report 12532/05 in May 2005. The complaints were against Tajudin, his staff Ralph Gotz, Wan Aishah, his sister-n-law Rizana Daud and a few others
But the years went by and nothing happened. “MAS suspected collusion between the Police and the Attorney General’s Chamners in the investigation of the Police Reports. The AGC was reluctant to prosecute Tajudin Ramli for any offence,” read point 8.1.
All eyes are now on Najib. Will he step up to the plate and fight corruption as he has promised? Will the MACC, which was been busy trying to change the public perception that it was as corrupt as the culprits it is supposed to hunt down, finally come out from under the thumb of powerful politicians and do the job that it is supposed to do?
