Sidek’s “do-nothing” job at 1MDB: Loyalty to political masters pays!
TWO profound “human virtues” stand out from the confession of former chief secretary to the Government Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan as to how he had received an additional RM30,000 fee as a member of the 1MDB board of advisors (BoA) for “doing nothing”.
(Focus Malaysia) – Mind you, this remuneration is on top of his monthly salary of RM29,125 for being Malaysia’s top civil servant at the time.
The first “human virtue” I find here is how former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak had given him a role on the scandal-plagued 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), with a monthly remuneration of RM30,000 out of the kindness of his heart to compensate his “low salary” as a civil servant.
Of course, reading between the lines, Najib is obviously not a fool to have offered such a perk that matched – if not exceeded by a whisker – Sidek’s salary merely out of kindness.
Surely, nothing in this world is free!
A brilliant strategist that Najib is – he knows all too well that money can buy loyalty.
And who wouldn’t want to have the country’s top civil servant on his side to “smoothen” things out when the storm strikes? In fact, Sidek should be lamenting that he has been “underpaid” for his role, even if the job scope entailed “doing nothing”.
On a more serious note, it is certainly not by chance that Sidek raked in RM30,000 a month for just being a figurehead. It was probably to create a feeling of being grateful or indebted, hence minimising his intervention on all 1MDB-related matters.
The second “human virtue” from Sidek’s revelation as a prosecution witness in Najib’s 1MDB-Tanore trial is that guilt or remorse was seemingly absent in his court testimony.
Guilty feeling, anyone?
This gives the impression as if the 71-year-old PETRONAS chairman felt that he deserved every penny from the RM30,000 advisory fee, which could amount to at least RM720,000 overall assuming that he had served 1MDB from July 1, 2010 until his retirement from the civil service on June 23, 2012.
