Saravanan man, Dato Malik implicated in an Indian drug bust

The September 2023 enquiry on Dato Malik Dashtigeer's July arrest by MACC has no development yet and there is the likelihood that there is no case against alleged human trafficking former Minister Dato Saravanan's "business associate".

He is now implicated in an international drug syndicate involving India, Australia and New Zealand. The reporter inferring of his involvement claimed it involves Malaysia too. 

And, Malaysians apparently has a notorious reputation in the illegal drug trade. One was arrested early in the year in a drug bust involving an international drug trafficking syndicate.   

Five days ago on March 9th, the Narcotic Control Bureau of India (NBI) busted an India-Australia-New Zealand drug racket of pseudoephedrine involving a Tamil Film Producer, Jaffer Saddiq.  Four others were arrested in a warehouse in Delhi.

Adding a twist of this news, Senior Reporter and owner of media Savukku, A. Shankar made an allegation in an interview on Youtube that Malaysia is part of the drug racket and the boss to Jaffer is a Malaysian and influential in the Tamil film industry. 

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Ringgit: "See you at 5" didn't happen again

That was the line used to hyped the market into thinking ringgit will plunge further during the financial crisis back in 1997. Ringgit weakened from 2.50 level to hit 4.7958 in October 1998. 

Last yeat, it fell to a 25 year low of 4.7750 in October 2023. See you at 5 was heard again. Recently on February 20th, see you at 5 when it hit a 26 year low at 4.7965. 

The decline agitated the public as the spectre of 1998 reappear. Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Anwar Ibrahim, Economics Minister Rafizi Ramli and the Madani government took the brunt of the blame.

Premature accusation of failure to revive the economy were heard. This is despite the ringgit weakness and rising food prices are fiscal mess inherited from Mahathir 2.0 and the two subsequent PN governments. 

That seemed to be forgotten since fiscal reform came with increases in and wider coverage of consumption tax, new taxes for online businesses, and improvement on tax collection. Yet it is the same fiscal reform that is needed to strengthen Ringgit.

As of yesterday, it is interesting to observe that the outcry on Ringgit seemed to waned off. 

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Lives at stake to allow illegal FRCS and RCSEd scam

A memo from the Prime Minister, Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim to the Minister of Health, Dato Seri Dr Dzukefly Ahmad was to "follow the law" in resolving the initiative by former MOH DG, Tan Sri Nr Hisham Abdullah to carryout a Parallel Pathway Training (PP) with the Royal College of Edinburgh (RSCEd) for Cardiothoracic Surgery. 

The program was conducted illegally and ahead without prior approvals from both the Malaysian Qualifying Agency (MQA) under MOHE and the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC). 

More so, RCSEd did not issue the usual Intercollegiate Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons (FRCS) diploma prevalent among practising Medical Specialists, but the FRCS International (FRCSI) version. 

FRCSI program were organised by the Malaysian Association for Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery (MATCVS), instead of Universities. 

The training and exposure in Edinburgh seemed intentionally conducted to be too basic and insufficient. It gave a reason for RCSEd to not issue Certificate for Completion of Training (CCT). 

FRCSI were awarded but without CCT, trainees could not practise in the UK, the home country of the fellowship. This was the legally unchallengeable ground for MMC to not recognise FRCSI. Decisions made by MMC are never revoked or reviewed.

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Local institutions fall victim to MITI scam

In the midst of the shock from new Auditor General Datuk Wan Suraya Wan Radzi's report on LTAT and Felda in her findings on GLCs, a story broke out yesterday of a scam in which an actor may have been hired to scam MITI into a FDI signing ceremony involving a PLC. 

All looks like any typical corporate signing of a business venture with news report of a RM36.8 million private placement of new shares to finance the venture. That was till the hired actor uploaded a video on his Tik Tok and it went viral overnight. The video have been taken down but the one distributed in one  Whass App group is shared above.

It means the venture do not exist and it was all a show to convince the necessary financial institutions and approving bodies as though it was a bona fide deal. All along it was merely a scam to raise money from the public. 

The shares would likely be subscribed by institutional investors such as LTAT, EPF, KWAP, Felda, LTH and such. Auditors from the Auditor General office would not have known the legit looking shares in their portfolio are from scams that will turn out later to be worthless. 

Market sources claimed it a Corporate Mafia group stock market scam. 

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BSC, B'raya Devt. robbed by Daim using CLOB?

When Daim was being charged, keen followers familiar with the Malaysian corporate scene were sceptical the authorities had any chance of getting him. A friend and distancely related to him confidently claimed Daim would cover his legal.

Rather sceptical with such claims since had long known a controlling shareholder of a PLC directed by one of the two acquisitive Tuns to sell his company to one of their son and not getting paid.

So much for them labelling Najib as "pencuri, penyamun dan penyangak." Since the owner have let bygone be bygone and gentlemanly moved on, lets just let it lay. 

However, it was recently made known that an owner of a stockbroking firm directed to merge into a financial group suffered the same ordeal. It dispel the notion that the Tuns legitimised their actions. 

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Ghost from political past

Joceline Tan's Saturday column reminded of the first spirit to visit Ebenezer Scrouge in Charles Dicken's novel, Christmas Carol. The ghost from Christmas past gave him a glimpse of the future from his action and indifference. The vision was to save him from his past. 

The current Madani government is facing public backlash for raising SST from 6% to 8% and expanded scope to other services. Whether the GST remain in operation or its the current SST, the public has to face up to the new reality of fiscal reform to salvage the country's finances from deteriorating further.

There was no ghost to warn PH of their impact of their action to take up GST as a cause celebre together with 1MDB to topple BN in 2018. Teething problem in the implementation of a new tax policy was blamed for price hike, and made into Boston Tea party-like uproar that started the American revolution for independence from the Brit. 

However, the table has turned and tax-on-tax of their preferred SST system will accelerate price hike and cause public dissatisfaction, but not expected to significantly add to the tax revenue.

There are still other unimplementable promises to bring petrol prices down, hudud law, free education, abolish PTPTN, judicial independence, law and order, long list of freebies and the long list promised by PH and former PR.    

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May it be the last ever Bumiputera Economic Congress

Having attended many such Bumiputra-themed discourses that the current on-going Kongres Ekonomi Bumiputera did not motivate yours truly to attend. Judging from the attendance yesterday, UMNO Youth Chief looked juvenile for misunderstanding Ti Lian Ker's critique.  

The intention of KEB is towards a forward moving transformation, an economically independent Bumiputera, and not to replace NEP, which was soiled by Mahathir's greed and self serving motivation. The gut feel there will be the repeatedly disappointing same ole, same ole tune of "desak kerajaan", "minta kerajaan", and "kerajaan patut" this and that in the moulding of another Ibrahim Ali.  

KEB is supposed to be a discussion to bring forth issues and proposal from the participants. It will end up being the platform for EPU or certain government agencies to shove their plan and get the discourse to rubber stamp. 

What was discussed and proposed will be lost in the piles of papers and diverted to serve non-economic and sometimes self serving interest. 

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