Another Weekend At Sham's Sanctuary

Last weekend was spent in Ulu Langat at Sham's Sanctuary and the last time we were there was in February 2010.

Apart from the usual suspects Major Sham, Colonels Mike Naser, Shaik and Shafique, and General Dato' Amin, we had Colonel Sheikh "Bill" Tawfiq and Tigers KC Heah, Chris Cheng, Hamdan Azmir and Kamarul Shahrin. Tiger Capt Harjit was greatly missed as he had been called to Kerteh on Saturday.

It was another weekend of great company, food and drink (in that order) and this time around it was a rather sober occasion (we must all be getting old). Only about 12 bottles of wine, a bottle of whiskey and two cases of beer for the whole weekend (Friday evening till Sunday morning).

Food was again exceptional but with Annie (Mrs Sham) indisposed, variety and quantity were unlike last February. Nevertheless, Friday dinner was steamboat with two kinds (hot and sour tom yam and savory dragon fruit) of soup. There were also the customary Thai Miang Kham and cheese platter. It is fruit season and we had lovely durians, bananas, rambutans and dukong langsat from Sham's orchard.

Saturday morning breakfast was kampung nasi lemak and apart from the nicely cooked nasi and sambal accompaniment we had deepfried catfish slices cooked in chilli. Sheikh "Bill" Tawfiq arrived in time with one of the best sambal sotong in town (prepared with love by his better half; as he puts it).

Chris Cheng arrived with her son (and a delightful orange cake) in time for lunch and tuna sandwich snack prepared by Mike.

It was a lazy Saturday afternoon with some trying to catch up on sleep lost the previous night. Shafique was the main hero.

This time around we had the irrepressible Sheikh Tawfiq whose non-stop supply of jokes and anecdotes for every occasion kept everyone in stiches. That was before he took out his Yamaha keyboard and began belting out songs of yesteryear for the rest of the day and night! Not bad for a guy who plays by ear. When he finally went to sleep at 3.00 am even the crikets were intimidated into silence; late night at Sham's Sanctuary probably has never been so quiet...apart from the droning orchestra of muffled snores of course.

BBQ on Saturday was again Colonel Mike's show and it was as usual, excellent. This time around he served grilled chicken drumsticks wrapped in beef bacon, mashed potato topped with caviar, relish wrapped boneless NZ lamb, lemon sorbet, grilled Portobello mushrooms, peaches and ice-cream...and more! The lamb was simply scrumptious! Again, Mike was the chef and I was the cook.

Annie returned home that Saturday night with a pot of mutton curry with murungakai and it was not only the first time I had seen mutton curry cooked with "drumsticks", it has to be right up there among the best I have tasted!




Sunday lunch was catered from the Thai restaurant located just outside Sham's Sanctuary and included rebung (bamboo shoots) that Tawfiq brought which became a masak lemak with beef tripe. There were two green vegetables, crispy fried small salted fish, Annie's special mutton curry, fish masak lemak, and the pièce de résistance of the meal was the chilli brinjal.

Apart from being an analyst with TMB, Tiger Kamarul Shahrin is a talented photographer. He had brought his arsenal of expensive, high-end photographic equipment and I thought we were going to be treated to numerous professionally taken records of the weekend's proceedings. I was right with "professionally taken" but totally wrong with "numerous"! The bugger only took a handful of shots! He says an artist deals in rarity! Shit!!! So if this time around this blogpost contains fewer photos (low quality from the phonecam) it should be compensated by some breath-taking shots by Shahrin (you will know which ones they are by just looking).

Hopefully, more pictures can be posted up later if I receive them from the other camera owners present.

Stupid Sarawakians

I personally know quite a few Sarawakians. Judging from the limelight Sarawak Chief Minister has been getting about his alleged wealth, this latest from the Sarawak Report makes it no longer "alleged". It also makes Sarawakians who have given Taib Mahmud landslide victories for almost three decades, look STUPID!

Sarawakians, do read how stupid you have been and you continue to let the Penans get screwed (literally and figuratively), amongst other things. Then ask yourselves this; "If Taib Mahmud made so much, what about all the other stars in PBB?"

Having said that, what about Musa Aman in Sabah? Then we look across the South China Sea and we see Daim Zainuddin and the whole Barisan Nasional coterie. Damn it!!! Malaysians ARE Stupid!!!


UNMASKED! TAIB THE GODFATHER
Monday, August 9th, 2010 GMT

Sarawak Report has uncovered devastating documents which prove that Abdul Taib Mahmud, Sarawak’s Chief Minister, is the real owner of millions of dollars of property assets held in the name of family members abroad.

Held in trust by private agreement - 50% of the shares of Sakti International, worth approximately US$ 40 million.

The damning discovery lays bare a system of private deals, which enabled the Chief Minister to conceal his true ownership of the properties. This was presumably in order to hide the extent of his enormous wealth, for which he has yet to provide any legitimate explanation.

Under the system, whilst it is Taib’s relatives who are publicly registered as the official shareholders and directors of the companies owning the properties, a separate, private agreement ensures that the shares are actually held in trust for him.

Documentary evidence of elaborate concealment

260 California Street, San Francisco - Bijou Sakti Office Block

Among documents in its possession Sarawak Report has a copy of one such private agreement (see above) relating to the shares in Sakti International, a company that owns buildings in San Francisco. Sakti is part of a web of companies started in North America by the Taibs, which includes Sakto, a major Ottawa property company, and Wallysons, which owns the Abraham Lincoln Building in Seattle, housing a top secret anti-terrorist facility for the FBI.

The five official shareholders of Sakti International, which is registered in California, are Taib’s brothers, Onn Mahmud and Arip Mahmud, along with three of his children, Sulaiman Taib, Mahmud Taib and Jamilah Taib. However, as the document which we have obtained shows, a resolution made soon after the formation of the company has privately ruled that half those shares (a commanding majority) are held in trust for the Chief Minister. The value of these shares amounts to 40 million US dollars for Sakti alone, according to the company’s own documents.

Tip of the iceberg?

However, Sakti International, estimated to be worth US $80 million, accounts for just a small proportion of the Taib family wealth. Our previous exposes have revealed a vast portfolio of further international property assets, which are owned by members of Taib Mahmud’s immediate family. For example, Taib’s own children are the shareholders and directors of numerous companies controlling residential and commercial buildings in Canada, Australia, Britain and the United States together worth hundreds of millions of US dollars. Yet, suspiciously, many of these assets came into their possession when they were in their early 20s and still college students with no visible access to legitimate resources to invest. The inevitable question for Taib Mahmud, therefore, is whether, as in the case of Sakti International, they are also secretly holding these other properties in trust for him? If not, what explanation can there be for these investments?


Golden Wedding Couple - The Godfather and his family

A number of reports have already been made to the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission (MACC) regarding the recent disclosures of the Taib family wealth. These new revelations proving the direct link to the Chief Minister will increase the pressure on the MACC to respond with a proper investigation.

Further Fingerprints

The Sakti International documents in our possession, released as part of the disclosure in a recent court case, provide further extensive evidence of Taib Mahmud’s involvement in the company, despite his denials of any business connections. Indeed one of the company’s earliest official documents, signed in 1987, even lists him as one of the Directors of Sakti International.

Chief Minister's name in black and white, listed as a Director Of Sakti International

The document in question is a Domestic Stock Corporation Statement for Sakti International, which is required annually by the State of California. In 1987, the year the company was set up, its inaugural statement clearly registers Taib Mahmud, along with his brothers Onn Mahmud and Arip Mahmud, as a Director of the company. The only officer of the company is listed as Mahmud Taib, the Chief Minister’s eldest son.

It is well-known that in subsequent Taib family enterprises the Chief Minister has always scrupulously avoided including his own name in any documentation. This early mistake will undermine his constant claims that, in keeping with his role as Chief Minister, he has no direct business interests. It is clear that he in fact set up Sakti International, using the address of his own house in San Francisco.

Cover Up

Subsequently, records show that the structure of the company was altered to make Onn, Arip and Mahmud Taib the three Directors, while Rahman became the only officer of the company. But, as we are now able to exclusively report, Taib Mahmud secretly retained his control through a resolution by the company directors dated April 8th 1988. This resolution (see top) placed 500 of the 1,000 shares issued by the company in trust for him.

43 Presidio, Taib's San Francisco town house and early HQ for Sakti International

The Godfather

The Sakti documents give a fascinating insight into the manipulative methods used by Taib Mahmud to control his family members, who are supposedly the earners and ‘businessmen’ who have generated the Taibs’ legendary wealth. The five relatives who were selected to own shares in Sakti International were each been given a different number of shares. Each then surrendered differing proportions of these shares to be held in trust for the Chief Minister.

Brother Onn Mahmud gets 400 shares, but of them 200 are held for the Chief Minister, whereas brother Arip gets just 200 shares, 100 of which are in trust for Taib. Mahmud Taib has the same arrangement ast Arip. However younger brother, Sulaiman Rahman Taib, who was later made sole Director of Sakti, only gets 100 shares under the agreement and they are all in fact held in trust for his father. Daughter Jamilah also only gets 100 shares, but she gets to hold them all herself.

The system ensures that Taib Mahmud has half of all the shares held in trust for himself, whereas none of the others hold more than 200 shares. In this way he clearly keeps a commanding control over the company he pretends not to own.

Classic Car on Standby - Vintage Ferrari kept ready for Chief Minister's occasional visits to 43 Presidio Avenue. Son Rahman Taib, who shared his father's interest requested a 4,000 square foot garage to house his car collection in the States

Taib in charge

Former employees of Sakti have testified to the controling position the Chief Minister holds over the other members of the family. Rahman, as he was known in the States, was still in college when he became sole Director of Sakti and has been described as being in awe of his father, whom he once had to wait a week to get a meeting with.

“We always considered Taib to be the ultimate boss and decision-maker” one former executive has told Sarawak Report, “It was obvious that he was the source of the money and Rahman was extremely deferential towards him”.

Where did the money come from?

The Chief Minister has so far made no comment on the string of recent exposes regarding his wealth. However, this new evidence will increase the widespread demands for him to explain how he and his family accrued the millions necessary to acquire such investments. Taib’s personal salary from his numerous concurrent positions still only delivers an official income of just under 50,000 MYR (around US $16,000) a month.

Multi-billionaire? Chief Minister's finances beg immediate scrutiny

In past weeks the existence of Ridgeford Properties in London and Sakto Corporation in Ontario, Canada have also been made public (see previous exposes on Sarawak Report). These companies own and manage numerous office blocks worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Ostensibly the Directors and owners of these concerns are Jamilah Taib and her husband Sean (Hisham) Murray, a Canadian national. However, like Sakti, Sakto was originally set up under the names of Taib family members, not Mr Murray.

Although numerous members of Sean Murray’s family now work for Sakto, all the evidence indicates that these are in fact Taib family businesses, ultimately controlled by the Chief Minister of Sarawak.

Surely the weight of evidence is now such that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission will be unable to ignore the deluge of demands requiring thorough investigation into Sarawak’s White Haired Raja?

Najib vs Mad Hatter; Lawan Tauke? Nah...Too Much Baggage

Is Najib now trying to be his own man? Nah...despite what the following article in the Malaysia Chronicle says, I really do not think so. Since when has Najib had to fight for anything let alone been a fighter. Throughout his political career he has had positions handed to him on a silver platter as if it was his birthright. The only time he had to fight was in the 1999 General Elections and he almost lost that! Scrapped through by 241 votes! 

No; Najib is a lover not a fighter. He is more inclined to get others to do his bidding rather that to get into the thick of things. There appears to be not many around these days in his UMNO who are willing to bet the farm on him what with his own deputy Muhyiddin snapping at his heels. 

What about Najib's own baggage? We all know what he is saddled with don't we? Would you bet on Najib being his own man? Nah...better go ask Kak Ros to answer that.

This sendiwara is turning out to be a full-fledged bangsawan presentation...

The Malaysia Chronicle article:


Ling part of Najib's first salvo to show Dr M, Umno who's boss...
by admin@ malaysiachronicle
Wong Choon Mei, Malaysia Chronicle

It looks like things are coming to a head between Prime Minister Najib Razak and former premier Mahathir Mohamad.

Najib is finally starting to flex his muscles – slowly and cautiously. Perhaps, too cautiously. It has given the wily Mahathir room to attack him at a time when he is overseas on personal leave.

Still, Umno watchers say despite the noise and obvious support from Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, Mahathir is unlikely to be able to do much.

According to them, the worst that Mahathir can do now is to tear at Najib’s credibility with the non-Malays, while at the same time, strike fear into the hearts of the Malays that their heydays of political power are numbered – especially if the PM’s 1Malaysia slogan is allowed to take off.

“The prime minister’s job carries enormous power. It is very hard to take on an incumbent and win unless his support in Umno itself has almost disappeared – like Badawi’s case. But Najib can still command support from many progressive leaders in the Umno supreme council,” the Umno watcher told Malaysia Chronicle.

“So Dr M can bitch and gripe all he wants, but judging from the way things are moving, Najib still has the upper hand. He sent a very strong message to Dr M when he allowed Ling to be arrested. There will be more coming, not just MCA and MIC people, but also from Umno. But Malaysians who want reform must be patient. If Najib unsettles the power equation in Umno too quickly, it might trigger his own downfall.”

Ling part of the first step

Indeed, Najib has been slammed for 'putting on a show' when he arrested former Transport Minister Ling Liong Sik for cheating the government over land valuations in the Port Klang Free Zone debacle without going after Ling’s boss – Mahathir.

Mahathir had been prime minister, home minister and finance minister at the time when the decision was taken to launch the PKFZ project. Others believed to be involved include MCA leaders Chang Kong Choy, Chor Chee Heung, Ting Chew Peh, Yap Pian Hon, former UMNO treasurer Azim Mohd Zabidi, Bintulu Member of Parliament Tiong King Sing and former Port Klang Authority general manager O C Phang.

But so far, despite unofficial talk of more arrests to come, none have been made – giving Mahathir and Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim’s Pakatan Rakyat more ammunition to fire at Najib.

The man on the street too is confused because the long-serving Ling – like him or not – is an icon in his own way having contributed tremendously to Chinese education, although allegations of corruption have dogged him throughout his 17-year career.

Many Umno watchers believe that the only way for Najib to restore public confidence in his administration and more importantly reclaim his mandate to lead the nation, via his 1Malaysia plan, is to neutralize Mahathir and the ultra-Malay groups that Mahathir patronizes such as Perkasa and MPM.

“I think it no secret at all the Chinese in the PKFZ scandal are the small fry. Even Ling, with all due respect, he was just an order taker. But how does one go after a man the stature of Mahathir without causing an irreversible split in Umno. If Umno is shaken, the rest of nation will also be shaken. This is a fact and the non-Malays must be sensitive and patient,” the Umno watcher said.

“It is very hard to fight off accusations you are betraying your own race, especially hot-head groups like Perkasa and MPM – they politicize and racialise everything you say. Can Najib remain president of Umno if he is seen to be anti-Malay? Does it make sense? To nit-pick and argue at this point in time is wasteful.”

The big picture

According to the Umno source, if Najib were to openly challenge Mahathir and Perkasa, too much effort would be spent on unnecessary racial and political bickering and the economy would plunge to zero.

The better way out was to get the big picture right and then gradually fill in the new power equation. And getting the big picture right meant the first order of the day for Najib must be to reclaim his power. And finally get his 1Malaysia off the ground.

Right now, Najib is unable to move because of Mahathir, who after 22 years of ruling with a fist of iron, does not like the system of governance he set up to be changed. Also, his legacy of vested interests and his bevy of cronies needs to be protected, hence the enormous resistance to let go and let Najib rule as he sees fit.

“This is what the PKFZ is about – to show Mahathir who’s the boss at Umno and to tell Malaysians that he will keep his promises to reform and unify the races. But first of all, he has got to solve this huge problem called Dr M and his legacy from the past,” the watcher said.

Jibby vs The Mad Hatter?

Further to my "Tiger In The Dock" post, the question arises whether Ling's arrest is actually Najib finally trying to be his own man in relation to Tun Mahathir. After all, Mahathir was the Finance Minister at the time of those cabinet meetings. Najib lawan tauke? The following commentary I found in cyberspace seems appropriate to post here:


Will Najib be man enough to stand up what he proclaimed or is he going to be a wimp and head for the exit with his tails between his legs.

1Malaysia is indeed a beautiful and profound concept. It can simply mean that there should not be many Malaysias - each pulling away in a different direction or working at cross-purposes.

It is undeniable that Malaysia is fractured by ethnicity, religion, economic class, literacy, geography, socio-economic philosophies and a plethora of other such factors.

The concept is not difficult to understand.

What Najib obviously needs to do is articulate the measures that are required to attain 1Malaysia. Mere sloganeering, bill boards and simplistic 1Malaysia clinics are not going to get us there. However, if he were to lay down all the steps that needs to be taken in one go, certainly the divisive forces who love to retain 'ketuanan' status are going to rise in arms.

Najib is not so naive that he cannot understand this. But to his credit, understanding the entrenched positions of the many Malaysias, he appears to be moving towards that goal cautiously by chipping away at the dividing the walls in small baby steps. The New Economic Model and its proposed underlying polices seemed to be a good start in that direction.

Most unfortunately, the die-hard extremists led by by PERKASA and strongly supported by the fork-tongued Mahathir and an unsure Deputy Prime Minister, who does not understand whether he is coming or going, are doing everything possible to ensure that 1Malaysia and the NEM are still-born.

Mahathir is now actually teasing Najib by asking for clarifications. And maybe he has become a little unsure of himself now that his compatriot, Ling is being prosecuted. Did it take Mahathir one year, while all the time singing plaudits about the Najib administration, to suddenly realize that he does not understand what 1 Malaysia is. Uncharacteristic or Machiavellian - waiting to strike at the right time?

If Najib really embraced 1Malaysia with a visionary zeal and not for short term political gains, and if he wants to become a true leader and is really intent on pulling out a nation that is certainly sliding towards the abyss, then he should start fighting the evil forces openly because the enemies of 1Malysia, surreptitiously supported by Mahathir, have drawn their swords.

Well, does Najib have the spunk? Judging from his response to the flak Tony Pua has drawn from UMNO quarters for his suggestion that bumiputera discount for luxury properties be removed, things do not appear hopeful. Please read Tony Pua's comment on the matter.

Where's NEM's "Market-Friendly" Affirmative Action Programme?

The Prime Minister should drop all pretense of implementing a “market-friendly and merit-based affirmative action programme” under the 10th Malaysia Plan.

Over the past week, I've been vilified by Utusan Malaysia and Umno leaders for having suggested that one of the steps to renew investor confidence in the country's economic policies is to remove the bumiputera discount applied to luxury property purchases. The most recent threat comes from the Deputy Minister from the Prime Minister's Department and UMNO Information Chief, Datuk Ahmad Maslan who warned me not to “play with fire”, using the defense of the Federal Constitution and the “social contract” as the basis for the race-based property discount policy.

The most disappointing of criticisms however, came directly from none other than the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak himself. Instead of commenting on the merits of the policy, he warned DAP leaders “against continuing to place pressure on the Malays and Bumiputeras on this matter because it could cause anger and dissatisfaction among them."

In coming up with the above suggestion, I had no intention of fanning racial sentiments or taking away the rights of bumiputeras as defined in the Constitution. I was looking at the policy strictly from the perspective of economic distributive justice. A person who purchases a RM2 million property under the current scheme of say, 7% discount will receive a benefit of RM140,000. However, a lower income person who purchases a property of RM100,000 will only receive a benefit of RM7,000, a fraction of the benefit enjoyed by the rich. The current policy is skewed towards greater benefit or “subsidy” for the wealthier community, which runs against the spirit of affirmative action policies.

The Prime Minister had in his inaugural speech on March 30 to local and foreign investors on the New Economic Model (NEM) said that the new “affirmative action approach based on “transparent and market-friendly affirmative action programmes” “will mean greater support for the Bumiputera, a greater support based on needs, not race”. It is as opposed to the previous New Economic Policy (NEP) of “imposing conditions to meet specific quotas or targets”.

Datuk Seri Najib has since backtracked from the above NEM proposal of not “imposing conditions to meet specific quotas or targets” in the 10th Malaysia Plan launched in June. However he had maintained that while the race-based 30% quota or target for bumiputeras will be retained, the race-based affirmative action policy will be “targetted primarily at improving the livelihoods of Bumiputera in the bottom 40% households” through “more transparent, market-friendly and merit-based instruments”.

However, his latest outright rejection of the proposal to remove race-based discounts for luxury properties flies direct in the face of not only the original NEM objectives, but also the watered-down affirmative action reforms outlined in the 10th Malaysia Plan. There is nothing that is “market-friendly” or “merit-based” in the race-based affirmative action policy of granting property discounts to wealthy individuals who could afford properties in the range of millions of ringgit.

UMNO, its mouth-piece Utusan Malaysia and Datuk Seri Najib has instead chosen to racialise and politicise the issue, inflaming racial sentiments to achieve short-term political mileage at the expense of the economy.

The above is the perfect example of what Datuk Seri Nazir Razak, the CEO of CIMB Bank had lamented recently where “wrangling over affirmative action in the proposed New Economic Model (NEM) is causing uncertainty among investors.” He had added that the time has come for the government to protect the interest of the majority of the Malays and not just selected few.

Both local and foreign investors are confused by not only the indecision and ambiguity over the proposed reforms over the decades old affirmative action programme, they are also turned off by the clear indications that the deeds and policies of the Government often do not match their words, as expressed in the NEM as well as the 10MP.

If the Government has no intention to reform its affirmative action policies as it stands today, then the Prime Minister and UMNO leaders should stop the hypocrisy and pretense that the Government is going to implement a “New Economic Model” which will be based on “market-friendly” or “merit-based programmes”. It'll only prove to investors that the Government is “all talk, no action” and that the Barisan Nasional is completely incapable of change, much less the transformation that is required to take us to a developed nation status by 2020.