There is no denying the RCI is going to announce that three crimes have been committed. First is Bank Negara lost US$10 billion gambling on the forex market. Second is they lied to the Cabinet by saying that the loss was only RM5.7 billion and is merely ‘deferred expenditure’ and ‘unrealised losses’. Third is they lied to Parliament, first by denying the whole thing and calling it opposition lies and propaganda, and a year later by saying that it was a very small ‘paper loss’ and not actual money paid out.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
People are wondering why is it that Lim Kit Siang is now able to work with Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad when once-upon-a-time he wanted the old man hanged upside down from the nearest tree. People who ask this question do not understand politics or realise Kit Siang’s true intentions.
Kit Siang’s target was never Mahathir. In fact, if today Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak resigns from Umno and joins Pakatan Harapan, Kit Siang will sing his praises and call him a “Towering Malay” and “True Malaysian Patriot” and so on. Anyone who supports Umno and Barisan Nasional is bad while anyone who opposes Umno and Barisan Nasional is good. That is the simple way Kit Siang analyses things. White, good. Black, bad. Right, good. Left, bad. Anti-Umno, good. Pro-Umno, bad. All the rest do not matter. There are no ‘grey areas’.
Umno’s political dominance in the Number One Enemy as far as DAP and Kit Siang are concerned. And that was precisely how Chin Peng felt as well, which was why the Baling Talks failed. And anyone who also opposes Umno’s political dominance will be DAP’s and Kit Siang’s friend even if you are a thief like Mahathir, Tun Daim Zainuddin, Muhyiddin Yassin or Anwar Ibrahim.
Umno’s political dominance represents Malay and Muslim dominance as well. Islam is mentioned in the Federal Constitution of Malaysia as “The Religion of Federation” and yet Kit Siang insists that Malaysia is a Secular State. The Raja-raja Melayu represent “Ketuanan Melayu” so Kit Siang is opposed to the Monarchy because he is opposed to “Ketuanan Melayu”. And because of that DAP and Kit Siang are opposed to Perkasa as well, even though Mahathir is behind them.
READ: Malaysia under DAP’s ‘anti-Malay, anti-Islam rule’ if Umno rejected, Najib warns
Just over 13 years ago, on 10th January 2004, when Kit Siang was still opposed to Mahathir, he said, “Nor Mohamed’s first job is to issue a White Paper to “exorcise the ghost” of the RM30 billion Bank Negara forex losses a decade ago to establish his suitability as the Second Finance Minister – apart from professionalism, a full commitment to accountability, transparency and good democratic governance.”
“Up to now, the government has failed to “come clean” on the colossal Bank Negara forex losses as a result of speculation in the international currency markets from 1992-1994, with the losses cited as ranging from RM10 billion to RM30 billion. In Parliament in 1994, I had given reasons as to why the Bank Negara’s forex losses as a result of its forex speculation operations could have amounted to as high as RM30 billion, which had not been seriously rebutted by any top government leader or Bank Negara official,” said Kit Siang.
“One question which I raised in Parliament on May 3, 1994 in my speech on the 1993 and 1994 Supplementary Estimates had remained unanswered in the past decade and continues to haunt the corridors of power – whether Bank Negara’s maximum exposure at the height of its forward foreign exchange speculation was in the region of RM270 billion, which was three times the country’s GDP and more than five times the country’s foreign reserves at the time!”
“The reasons which I had advanced in Parliament in 1994 for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the colossal Bank Negara forex losses remain valid today,” Kit Siang argued.
Yes, in 1994, and again ten years later in 2004, Kit Siang asked of a RCI to be set up to get to the bottom of the US$10 billion losses Bank Negara made gambling on the forex market. Kit Siang suspected that there is more to the story than just a straightforward or normal loss. He suspected that quite a lot of the money was stolen or siphoned out and disguised as forex losses.
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