NEW YORK – October 1, 2024 – BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE: BLK) and Global Infrastructure Partners (“GIP”) announce the successful completion of BlackRock’s acquisition of GIP. The combination creates an industry leader in infrastructure across equity, debt and solutions – providing a diverse range of infrastructure sector expertise and exposure across developed and emerging markets. The combined infrastructure platform will be branded Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), a part of BlackRock.
These journalists admitted that the Malaysian media had not done their job, either. The natural thing for journalists to have done was find out as much as they can who this “employee”, get his views, talk to his employer, colleagues, and friends (foes, too, if any).
It is not our job to take sides; we just report the truth. But if we don’t report comprehensively, how do we present the whole truth?
For causing the sensational ejection of an MP from the Dewan Rakyat, albeit for six months only, surely this “EPF employee” deserves an investigation of sorts. We owe the voters - and our dear Readers - that much, at least.
Also, E.P.F. was implicated. And that’s us - you and I. The EPF or its Malay acronym KWSP has 16 million members in total, half of them “active” contributors. That’s half the nation’s workforce, ladies and gentlemen.
So, for whatever it’s worth (this is me, journalist and blogger, belatedly trying to do my job as journalist and blogger), here goes:
The “EPF employee” named by Wan Fayhsal is: is Mohamad Shahazwan Mohd Harris. Nicknamed Juan. I don’t know if he calls himself Juan (like I call myself Rocky) or if that’s a nick people assign to him but we can rest assured that this Juan has no relations to Don Juan, the legendary but fictional Spanish libertine (a person who freely indulges in sensual pleasures without regard to moral principles) who devoted his life to seducing women.
How does our Juan look like?
Now, one of the journalists did ask if he was related to the Palace or the PM or Azalina, the minister who tabled the motion to suspend Wan Faysal for naming him as the EPF employee behind BlackRock. It’s a fair question, actually. In the Malaysian context, it’s usually who you know or are related to.
But before we go further, a quick refresher’s first: Why was Wan Fayhsal talking about BlackRock and citing an anonymous letter in Parliament?
Well, the matter had become a thorn in Madani’s scheme of things after a deal by Khazanah and EPF to privatise MAHB, the company that owns and operates all airports in Malaysia except Senai in the Kingdom of Johor and manages several good and profitable ones abroad) went sideways. Reason it went sideways: GIP, one of the partners selected by Khazanah-EPF was being bought over by BlackRock, the world’s largest investment that, according to the UN, has been “profiting from Israel’s crimes in Gaza”.
Of course, PM Anwar Ibrahim as Khazanah chairman and the Minister of Finance had to defend the deal. I have also written on this blog (HERE) to defend the deal. But Wan Fayhsal seems to believe that contrary to PMX and my explanations, those Malaysians who brokered the deal may have known (but failed to inform the PM) that BlackRock was going to be in the picture eventually.
One of the people named in the poison-pen letter was EPF’s Shahazwan, a former Khazanah top exec.
Like I said, my job is not to take anyone’s side. But more and more, I feel that the decision to suspend Wan Fayhsal for ID-ing Juan was a wrong one.
The MPs who voted to suspend him argued that i) by referencing a poison-pen letter, Wan Fayhsal had “tainted the sanctity of the Lower House by citing inaccurate information to score political points” and ii) the individual (Juan) identified by Wan Fayhsal in the Dewan Rakyat was not able to defend himself due to the immunity granted to MPs.
I shall not debate the first point but I strongly disagree that the individual identified by Wan Fayhsal was unable to defend himself. Any PR person could have told you that it was a golden opportunity for Khazanah and EPF to clear its name (and Shahazwan’s) and defend the deal.
As a result of not having seized that opportunity, the allegations made in that poison-pen letter remain unanswered till today. And Shahazwan aka Juan remains, in some people’s heads, a suspect.
There are those who say we should not give poison-pen letters the time of day. In other words, jangan layan. Generally, I agree with that advice but in this case, it would have been better to get to the bottom of the letter.
Well, we all remember the so-called poison-pen letter written by High Court judge Syed Ahmad Idid Syed Abdullah in 1996 accusing the Chief Justice of holidaying and merrymaking with a top lawyer in New Zealand. A massive conflict of interest and corrupt practice of the highest level. There was no way the authorities then could defend the Chief Justice against the allegations so what they did was forced Idid to resign and vilify him to no end.
Years later, the nation discovered that he had written the truth.
It is not too late to deal with Juan’s poison-pen letter. It is, in fact, timely given that the BlackRock takeover of GIP is now, as if 1 Oct 2024, complete.
*the National Press Club’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, held at MITEC, where 17 legendary, not fictional veteran journalists, led by PC Shivadas and Hardev Kaur, were honoured for their lifelong service to the truth.
No comments:
Post a Comment