We’re all down with 1MDB fever
Is the government too preoccupied with defending 1MDB to give enough focus to governing the country?
Scott Ng, Free Malaysia Today
We’ve come to a point where every news organisation in town might as well merge into the 1MDB News Network. It seems like that’s all we talk about these days. Not a day goes by without a fresh expose about some hanky panky or other involving the sovereign wealth fund. Quite frankly, I think Malaysians are sick of reading about it all. Hell, we’re probably sick to death of Najib’s pet project in and of itself by now.
It does look like 1MDB will prove to be Najib’s Achilles’ Heel. Its management has been questionable at best, and Malaysians from all walks of life have demanded greater transparency and, more importantly, accountability from both the Prime Minister and the company itself, only to be met with inelegant silence and ever more reports of mismanagement or dubious transactions, or the involvement of questionable characters. You name it, there’s probably a news report about it.
Even as I write this, a former Terengganu Menteri Besar has come forward with claims that he was forced out of his post when he caught wind of something not quite right with 1MDB at its very beginning, back when it was still the Terengganu Investment Authority. This latest expose came to light in the Terengganu State Assembly. Coming from an Umno warlord, it’s a signal that there are those in the party who are just as sick as we are of 1MDB.
Nevertheless, there is no denying that we are magnetically attracted to news of 1MDB, much in the manner of horrified onlookers witnessing a car crash. Ultimately, the movements of 1MDB may well determine the future prosperity or poverty of our country. Thus, we are invested in the outcome of all the controversy. And that’s why so many of us are interested in the answers we hope to receive from the Prime Minister regarding the troubled company.
However, there is something more troubling beneath all the exposes and controversy. Is the government truly focusing on the job of governance or is it too preoccupied with defending or supporting the beleaguered 1MDB? With fresh scandals appearing weekly, it looks like all the government’s time is spent putting out the fires and covering up the abysmal potholes in the ground caused by 1MDB’s gaffes.
It has come to a point where the Prime Minister has to come down and personally advise Tabung Haji on what to do with the piece of land it acquired from 1MDB. Of course, many Malaysians think the Prime Minister himself or people close to him had a hand in the Tabung Haji deal in the first place. This raises the question of whether Najib and his administration are forgetting that they were elected to do a job, not play nanny to a sovereign wealth fund that sucks funds into a black hole and, when asked where those funds are, bashfully hides its grubby hands behind its back and says, “Eh, where got? It’s not with me, but it’s safe la.”
