About Najib selling the country to the Chinese

By MT Webmaster Last updated Jan 12, 2016

They allege that 1MDB obtained its assets cheap from the government and sold it for a huge profit. Well, Vincent Tan also paid only RM25 million for something worth RM760 million and which would be worth billions had Abdullah and then Najib not jammed the licence.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

The opposition is alleging that Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak is selling Malaysia to the Chinese. What they mean is ‘selling’ to the Chinese from China. It is okay if the government sells the country to Malaysian Chinese, even if it is done ‘under-the-table’ and not openly like what 1MDB is doing.

In September 2003, just one month before Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad retired as Prime Minister, the government secretly awarded the sole sports-betting license to a company owned by Chinese tycoon Vincent Tan. The price was a steal at just RM25 million when it was valued at RM760 million. At about the same time, Vincent Tan’s Bukit Tinggi resort was also awarded 420 slot machine licenses worth hundreds of millions of Ringgit.

(SEE NEWS ITEM BELOW: Gaming License Sparks Contention in Malaysia)

The following year, in 2004, the new Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi froze Vincent Tan’s sports-betting license and this angered Dr Mahathir. When Tun Abdullah refused to relent, Dr Mahathir made his move on him and in 2009 the Prime Minister was forced out of office and Najib took over.

In a ‘signal’ to Najib, Dr Mahathir said, “Kalau saya jadi kerajaan, saya luluskanlah.” Najib, however, did not heed that message and this did not please the old man one bit. Instead, Najib suspended the sports-betting license and refused to allow it to operate — which practically sealed his fate when he refused to kowtow to Dr Mahathir. Until today, Najib has refused to allow the license to proceed.

In that same month, Vincent Tan sold 70% of his gambling license in Ascot Sports to Berjaya, his own public listed company, for just RM525 million — which is considered grossly undervalued considering the estimated legal and illegal gambling industry in Malaysia is RM25 billion a year. And he sold it at RM525 million for 70% when he only paid RM25 million for 100%.

And as Dr Mahathir said, had he been Prime Minister he would approve the licence and hence help Vincent Tan make billions over 20 years, just like YTL did over 30 years and now wants the IPP concession approved for another 30 years so that he can make even more billions.

And they talk as if 1MDB is such a big deal while not seeing the elephant in the room. And even more interesting is that Muhyiddin Yassin has promised to unfreeze the licence if he takes over from Najib and becomes Malaysia’s new Prime Minister. Now that may explain why they want Najib ousted so badly.

Gaming License Sparks Contention in Malaysia

Fear of Muslim Backlash Leads Officials to Rethink Tycoon’s Concession Permit

Leslie Lopez, The Wall Street Journal

A previously undisclosed license for a potentially lucrative Malaysian gambling concession granted to gaming tycoon Vincent Tan Chee Yioun by former Premier Mahathir Mohamad is stirring controversy within the country’s government.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s administration is rethinking whether to allow Mr. Tan to proceed with the concession — which permits nationwide “off-site” betting on international and local sports events — for fear of a backlash from Malaysia’s majority Muslim population, according to government officials and business executives familiar with the matter.

Government officials said Ascot Sports Sdn. Bhd., a private concern wholly owned by Mr. Tan, was awarded a license for 20-year gaming concession in June 2003 by Malaysia’s Finance Ministry, then headed by Dr. Mahathir, who retired last Oct. 31.

Mr. Tan declined to comment. One Ascot executive said the company is still negotiating with the government on implementing the new business.

In September 2003, Ascot paid a 25 million ringgit ($6.6 million) fee for the license, which allows the company to run a gaming business along the same lines as U.K.’s Ladbrokes Ltd., the international betting operation owned by the Hilton Group PLC. Malaysian gaming-industry executives estimate that a sports-betting operation, offering wagers on events such as local and foreign soccer matches and horse racing, could generate annual revenue of about $1 billion.

The awarding of Ascot’s concession was never publicly disclosed. Officials in Mr. Abdullah’s government said they only learned about it earlier this year after Mr. Tan informed them of his plans to begin his new betting business.

After mulling Mr. Tan’s plans for several months, Mr. Abdullah, who also serves as finance minister, raised the gaming concession at a cabinet meeting Wednesday. Government officials and others familiar with the cabinet discussion said several ministers warned Mr. Abdullah that the new betting license could prompt sharp criticism from the country’s conservative Muslim community, in particular the opposition Islamic party known as Parti Islam Se-Malaysia, or PAS.

PAS currently rules the north-eastern state of Kelantan and directly competes with Mr. Abdullah’s United Malays National Organization for the support of the country’s ethnic Malay Muslims, who make up about 60% of Malaysia’s population.

The Islamic party has long campaigned to shut down the country’s existing licensed gaming businesses. These include a casino run by listed Genting Bhd., a lottery and six other operations involving betting on combinations of numbers. One of those six operations is controlled by Mr. Tan’s listed Berjaya Sports Toto Bhd.

“The cabinet hasn’t decided either way,” said a Malaysian official familiar with situation. “But there are concerns about giving the approval” for the new gaming concession.

Should Mr. Abdullah’s government decide to withdraw the license from Ascot, it would mark the second time that his administration has reversed a contract or license award made by his predecessor, Dr. Mahathir. Shortly after taking office in November last year, Mr. Abdullah halted a controversial 14.5 billion ringgit railway contract Dr. Mahathir had earlier awarded to businessman Syed Mokhtar Albukhary.

An Ascot executive said the betting license awarded to the company carries several conditions that could allay the concerns of the Muslim community. For one thing, he said, it prohibits Ascot from accepting wagers from Muslims. The license also stipulates that Ascot must use existing gaming outlets run by Malaysia’s number-forecast operators to sell its new products, the executive said.

Gambling is big business in Malaysia. The combined annual revenue from legal gambling operations totals about 10 billion ringgit. Industry executives estimate that illegal gambling, which is controlled largely by syndicates that accept bets on foreign and local sporting events, generates about 15 billion ringgit a year.

Mr. Tan, whose listed Berjaya Group Bhd. has interests in property, manufacturing, publishing and gaming, has long lobbied the government to legalize other forms of betting as a way to curb the illegal trade and as a means of generating additional revenue for the government through taxes. “It’s almost insane not to tap the potential tax revenue from this business,” one group executive said.

This is Mr. Tan’s second bid at introducing sports betting in Malaysia. The businessman was first awarded a license in 1987 by then-Finance Minister Daim Zainuddin. Mr. Tan and his U.K. joint-venture partner at the time, Mecca Bookmakers, began operations in 1988 with three betting outlets in Kuala Lumpur. But the business ran into trouble a year later, after the government banned Mr. Tan from opening new outlets because of political concerns ahead of an impending general election.

Mr. Tan subsequently closed his outlets and surrendered his license to the government, but not before securing the first right to resume his betting operation should the government reconsider its position at a later date.

Government officials and people close to Mr. Tan said that in June 2003, he secured his new license after convincing Dr. Mahathir and senior Finance Ministry officials that Kuala Lumpur was losing hundreds of millions of dollars in potential tax revenue to illegal gambling operations.

Raja Petra Kamarudin RPK