Ku Li's loyalty

Oily politics. Loyalty, royalty? Play of words or silly mistake, it got me thinking of how much the Kelantan prince has lost since his disastrous attempt to come back to mainstream Umno politics and become its president and Prime Minister of the country.

Accepting DSAI's offer could rekindle that dream snuffed out so cruelly. Pakatan Rakyat is looking for a leader and Zaid Ibrahim, the man piecing together DAP, PKR and PAS into an official coalition very much like BN, has proposed Nik Aziz, which means it is not easy to find a Malay good enough (and acceptable to DAP and PKR) to be Chairman of Pakatan.

Zaid can't possibly nominate himself though I wonder why he didn't name DSAI! Ku Li would be a perfect candidate to be Chairman of Pakatan Rakyat, better than Tok Guru, Zaid or even DSAI. Been that, done there.

I don't expect the man who came closest to burying Dr Mahathir's political career to be too excited with Anwar's suggestion to make him chairman of a loyalty or oil royalty caucus. Quite beneath him. But in the unlikely event that Ku Li accepts the offer, it would be a start to another slippery ride in this oily business of Malaysian politics.

SPNB under scrutiny

MoF sets up Task Force. Remember my posting late last month about how the national housing board, SPNB, was said to have run out of money [Trouble bru-ing at SPNB? Oct 27] and then, just a couple of day later, the board said it was going to pay the RM500 owing to those poor 34 contractors [SPNB will pay Oct 30, The Malay Mail]?

Well, there was supposed to be a press conference at the SPNB headquarters at 2pm yesterday. We were very keen to hear what the SPNB wanted to report to the Press but the press conference was called off.

I'm not sure if the press conference was postponed because of what the latest development. This is what I heard: the Ministry of Finance has set up a special task force to investigate the RM500 million scandal/fiasco/claims.

Members of the task force will be interested to find answers to the following questions:

1. Why did SPNB go on dishing out contracts even when the property market was down?
2. Why didn'tthe board renegotiate downwards contracts when prices of materials were down?
3. Were the 34 contractors given 34 project worth between RM10 mil and RM15 mil each through a dodgy tender plan?
4. Is there need to review the tender process?

The SPNB issue was highlighted after Defence Minister Zahid Hamidi, who used to head the SPNB, alleged corrupt practices at the national housing board here. This blog later discovered about the RM500 mil (SPNB said it's less than RM300 mil). It was great news when SPNB said it was going to pay up BUT that, I think, would be too easy. The Government MUST investigate. It needs to STOP the leakage. Heads must roll.

Otherwise, this will just happen again.

Good news x2

First, the good news: Razeek Hussain, 51, has been made CEO of MRCB, ending speculation that the post could go to ex-4th floor exec Ahmad Zaki Zahid.

Now, the other good news: Ex-MRCB boss Shahril Ridza Ridzuan (pic), 39, will be made Deputy CEO of the Employees Provident Fund [not Chief Investment Officer as reported here] in charge of Investments, effective Dec 1.

Shahrir was sent to MRCB (together with Abdul Rahman Ahmad) to help revive the corporation after the end-90s currency crisis. Rahman went on to turn around Media Prima (and recently to Equinas) while Shahril stayed to lead MRCB. When Dr Mahathir, then the PM, sent the two young men out into the harsh business environment, one of his advices to them was, "Don't do side deals".