YOURSAY | ‘The government is selling land cheap to get much-needed cash.’

Selling the family silver to cover prodigal son’s extravagance?

Here’s how gov’t can make RM90b from Bandar Malaysia

your say1yrsaysellingMalaysia Truly Asia: Writer P Gunasegaram, you are absolutely right, as I have quite a number of developer friends who tell me the same thing, and some say that if the government could earn RM50 billion from Bandar Malaysia within the next five years, that should also be enough.

However, if 1MDB sells its stake to the Khazanah sovereign wealth fund, or to any NGO entity other than the Ministry of Finance, the screamers and hantus will accuse them of bailout. That is the nature of the beast.

RM2.6 Billion Turkey Haram: The plan looks good. Making a profit of 90 billion for the country would indeed lessen the burden of ordinary Malaysians, but right now the aim is not to make as much money as possible.

More importantly, is how to get extra cash to cover the money allegedly embezzled by Malaysian Official 1 (MO1).

Rupert16: Well-articulated, Gunasegaram. We all know why Najib is so desperate and in a rush to get foreign parties to develop Bandar Malaysia.

Appum: And Gunasegaram, to further answer your question of why the government is not doing what you postulate here, it is very simple.

The government needs to pay the Arabs, and it needs to cover the losses in 1MDB.

Like all businesses, when you have massive losses in your business, you do not have the power and pleasure to hold onto your assets for greater gains in the future.

If you are cash-strapped and desperate for liquidity, the vultures are not going to pay a premium for your assets.

You also cannot make any demands, so you sell cheap and get your much-needed cash to overcome your problems.

Another pertinent point is the current managers, or powers-that-be, dealing with this problem are hard pressed to cover up the transgressions.

If the problem is not solved or covered up as soon as possible, they know they may face greater penalties in the near future if they lose power.

Anonymous #11109846: The question is, are we selling the family silver to cover the prodigal son’s extravagance?

But the problem is not about raising money to pay for the son’s extravagance (which includes all the alleged criminal things the son did).

Our immediate task is to (1) stop this nonsense, (2) take every punitive action, and (3) start corrective rescue action.

The land has nothing to with 1MDB or the Bandar Malaysia project. It is a family silver. It belongs to the entire family. Now that the son is in trouble, we want to sell the family silver.

But why the Sungai Besi land? We have many other family silver – why not sell the Seri Perdana, Petronas Twin Tower, the Clock Tower, the Istana Negara and many other palaces? We could go on and on.

The point is, why sell the family silver to save the son’s extravagance? Just for the sake of argument, why not sell the family silver to build more hospitals for the family?

Existential Turd: From the time Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) fighter jets were taken apart and sold as scraps, I already said, the whole of Malaysia will be divided into pieces and sold to the highest bidder.

The only thing I said wrongly was the part about the highest bidder. So much for gaining independence from the British. In the end, we are still being owned.

‘Strange to return Bandar M’sia deposit if consortium broke deal’

Kim Quek: The plain truth is that whatever cash that went into 1MDB and its subsidiaries, it has quickly evaporated except for the RM12 billion it used to buy overpriced energy assets.

That explains why the Malaysian people now have to carry the baby of RM50 billion in debts incurred by 1MDB.

The East Coast Rail Line and Bandar Malaysia projects are theatrics staged towards easing the RM50 billion burden.

The Analyser: Seeing as Petaling Jaya Utara Tony Pua is such an expert on 1MDB, I would like to ask him what strategies his coalition has to apprehend Najib when they win government.

My guess it that as soon as it looks like Umno might lose, Najib could be well on the way to his well-padded tax haven with no extradition treaty with Malaysia.

Any new government will have no powers to act until they are sworn in and an antagonistic public service to deal with. So, the chances of bringing Najib to justice are less than zero.

‘No flip-flop in termination of IWC-CREC’s Bandar M’sia deal’

Anonymous 2436471476414726: If the reason for the cancellation is the failure of Iskandar Waterfront Holdings (IWH) and China Railway Engineering Corp (CREC) consortium to meet payment obligations for its 60 percent stake of Bandar Malaysia, then as asked by Pua, why did 1MDB return the deposit.

Shouldn’t it be forfeited? For the sake of transparency, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Abdul Rahman Dahlan, please clarify this matter.

The rakyat are really fed up that everything to do with 1MDB is done in such a shady and suspicious manner.

Oscar Kilo: But Abdul Rahman, you still have not told us the real reason why the government abruptly terminated the IWH-CREC deal.


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