TTF: Let’s do a summary review of what transpired after the 14th general election (GE14) to understand why Dr Mahathir Mohamad decided to scrap the HSR project (see news item far below).
Almost immediately after he became Prime Minister, Mahathir announced that the national debt was RM1 trillion and estimated the Debt-to-GDP ratio to be 80%.
He did this to send the share market into a tailspin so that investors would relinquish their ownership of strategic government-linked shares.
The drop in stock prices that ensued afforded his cronies the luxury of picking those shares up at dirt cheap prices.
One of these cronies was none other than Tan Sri Vincent Tan, chairman of the famed and conspiracy riddled Berjaya Group.
A report published by both The Third Force and Malaysia Today on the 25th of June 2018 revealed that the gambling tycoon snapped up 22.2 million of Syarikat T7 Global’s shares between the 15th of May to the 18th of May 2018.
T7 Global is the company that was awarded the East Coast Rail Line project (ECRL) at an estimated cost of RM55 billion.
Days later, we were told that the ECRL project, previously announced scrapped, was for some reason or other back on.
On the 25th of June 2018, I wrote (in red):
In a bolt from the blue, the government increased the cost required by Syarikat T7 Global to run the project from RM55 billion to RM70 billion. What this means, is that Vincent’s entry ballooned the cost up by a whopping RM15 billion for absolutely no rhyme or reason. Question is, will that RM15 billion now end in Vincent coffers before wending it’s way into PPBM’s war chest?
The minute that message went viral, the Registrar of Companies (RoC) undertook to disable a service that allowed members of the public to purchase company profiles online.
What this means, is that people will no longer know which crony of Mahathir is snapping up which share, when, where and how.
Two to three days after the mysterious ‘blackout’, Mahathir announced that the government agreed to scrap the HSR project “due to the high financial cost that was involved.”
The developer and asset owner of the said project on the Malaysian side was MyHSR Corporation Sdn Bhd, an entity fully owned by the Malaysian Ministry of Finance.
On the 31st of May 2018, MyHSR Corp undertook to cancel the signing of documents with MRCB-Gamuda consortium following the scrapping of the project.
The consortium was supposed to be the delivery partner for the northern section of the project from the Bandar Malaysia station to Melaka.
The minute the project was cancelled, Gamuda’s share prices suffered a 37.6% decline from the value it registered right after the 14th general election.
At closing today, the price was valued at RM3.35 and has yet to show any signs of recovery.
The company is one of Malaysia’s largest infrastructure entities and has undertaken various construction projects both locally and overseas.
On the 14th of March 2018, I wrote (in red):
On the 1st of January 2001, Syarikat Pengeluaran Air Sungai Selangor Sdn Bhd (SPLASH) became the second concessionaire to enter the Selangor water scene by bagging a 30-year contract to maintain the Sungai Selangor Dam. The company was 40 percent Gamuda Berhad owned while the remaining 60 percent of its shares were split between Kumpulan Perangsang Selangor Berhad (KPSB) and Tan Sri Wan Azmi Wan Hamzah. Wan Azmi was (and still is) a well known associate of Daim Zainuddin and is someone who shares a rapport of sorts with both Anwar and his wife.
Now, what does this tell you?
Well, it tells you that SPLASH is controlled by a Tan Sri who is as much a Mahathirist as he is an Anwarist. Then, you have the guys at KPSB who are controlled one way or the other by Dato’ Seri Azmin Ali via Menteri Besar Selangor (Incorporated), the state’s asset management company. Factor all this together, and you have sufficient grounds to reason that SPLASH is 60 percent Pakatan Harapan ‘controlled’ and not a ‘Barisan Nasional entity’ as Hannah Yeohwould have you believe.
See where I’m going with this?
There are 101 reasons why Mahathir and Dato’ Seri Azmin Ali would want the HSR project to be scrapped.
The duo are attempting to break every possible link there may be between Anwar, Wan Azmi and Gamuda’s largest shareholder, Raja Dato’ Seri Eleena Raja Azlan Shah.
Raja Eleena is the daughter of Raja Azlan Shah and happens also to be listed in Forbes’ 40 Richest Malaysians as among the country’s richest women.
Both Mahathir and Azmin are concerned that Anwar may share a rapport of sorts with Raja Eleena though the Sultan of Perak, Raja Nazrin Shah.
To prevent Anwar’s men from gaining control of SPLASH, Mahathir decided to scrap the HSR project to plunge Gamuda’s shares into a tailspin.
He then got his cronies to snap some of those shares up and is now a major player in the Selangor water scene.
Question is, was Vincent among the cronies who helped him sink his teeth into the Gamuda pie by proxy?
To be continued…
SINGAPORE: Singapore will try to recover costs incurred for a rail project with Malaysia, which have exceeded S$250 million (RM743.95) and are still growing, if the new government in Kuala Lumpur confirms it has cancelled the project, officials said on Monday.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has said he was cancelling the high speed rail (HSR) project to link Kuala Lumpur with Singapore. He said Malaysia would talk to its southern neighbour about any compensation it had to pay.
Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan and Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan said Malaysia had yet to officially inform Singapore of the decision.
“Should Malaysia cause the HSR project to be terminated, we will deal with the question of compensation from Malaysia for costs incurred in accordance with the bilateral agreement and with international law,” Balakrishnan told Parliament.
“The Singapore government has a duty to safeguard public funds by recovering these costs,” he said.
Transport minister Khaw said the total cost for Singapore had exceeded S$250 million as of the end of May and would grow rapidly with time.
Khaw said the costs incurred included land acquired for the project, setting up a government agency to handle the work and for the employment of officials there.
The project, valued by analysts at about US$17 billion and set to have been completed by 2026, would have cut travel time between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore to about 90 minutes from four or five hours by road now.
Mahathir, who led an opposition coalition to victory on the May 9 election, has made it a priority to cut the national debt and pledged to review big projects agreed by his predecessor that he says are expensive and have no financial benefit.
He has estimated Malaysia could cut almost a fifth of its US$250-billion national debt and liabilities by scrapping such big projects.
Source: NST Online
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