Friday, September 11, 2009

How Many Task Forces Do We Need To Fix PKFZ?

This reminds me of the jokes about "how many people do you need to change a lightbulb?"

Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak's “performance now” government is fast becoming a farce with the set up of another 3 “high-powered” task forces to investigate into the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) mega-scandal. The 3 new taskforces comprising of the Chief Secretary of Government, the Treasury Secretary-General, the Attorney-General and officials from the Transport and Finance ministries will look into (i) misappropriation, abuse of power and illegal acts, (ii) good governance and (iii) the financial feasibility of the PKFZ project respectively.

These 3 taskforces are set up 3 months after another “Special” Task Force and 2 committees were set up by the Ministry of Transport in June 2009 to deal with the exact same issues.

The Special Task Force comprises of preeminent lawyers, accountants, quantity surveyors and building cost consultants from top rated professional firms were appointed to assist in the legal review and financial restructuring of PKFZ.

Port Klang Authority (PKA) has also set up a Committee of Corporate Governance led by Datuk Paul Low Seng Kuan, President of Transparency International Malaysia and Encik Nik Mohd. Hasyudeen Yusoff, President of Malaysian Institute of Accountants. In addition, an Executive Committee was formed to plan and monitor the business development of the trade zone.

The special task force and committees had been set up in response to a report which had been prepared by another Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) task force which had already revealed some major discrepancies, conflict of interest, abuse of power, the absence of governance as well as major incompetence in the management of the PKFZ project.

Now the Prime Minister, instead of acting on the detailed report prepared by the Special Task Force for the Cabinet, has decided yet again to set up another 3 task forces to “investigate” further. This is completely ridiculous on 2 separate levels:

Firstly, millions have been spent by the Ministry of Transport to hire the best in the industry to come up with the various detailed report including Mr Vinayak Pradhan from Skrine & Co, a former Commissioner with the United Nations (UN) Compensation Commission and member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Have the reports by Skrine and PwC been so incomplete and inconclusive that the Government must set up another task force to investigate further? If that is the case, then the Prime Minister should demand the Special Task Force to do their homework properly, especially since millions of public funds are being paid to them.

If however, the Special Task Force has done their investigations diligently and comprehensively, then why is there a need for a separate new “high-powered” task force?

Secondly, it defies logic completely that the task force will comprise of senior officials from the Ministry of Finance and Transport who were themselves involved both directly and indirectly with the project, some right from its very inception! How can we expect this new “high-powered” task force of Ministry officials to act impartially and professionally when they themselves are vested interest parties?

What's more, many of these officials have been summoned by the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to assist with the investigation of the PKFZ scandal, and the PAC has already found them to have failed or neglected to perform their duties in a responsible and competent manner, as revealed by the PAC chairman, Datuk Seri Azmi Khalid himself.

This leads to the next point that besides the task forces, PAC is also investigating the mega-scandal, and so is the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission (MACC). The latter has been investigating without anything to show since December 2004 when the first Anti-Corruption Agency report on PKFZ was lodged. This means that there are now 9 task forces, committees or agencies which are investigating or have investigated the PKFZ scandal!

Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak should not be setting up any more task forces, especially not one led by civil servants with vested interests on PKFZ, but instead use the detailed report by the Special Task Force comprising of top notch professionals to take appropriate actions against those who has been singled out as having been criminally negligent, abused powers, corrupt or defrauded the Government.

If the Prime Minister still insist on another investigating task force, then let it be an Independent Royal Commission of Inquiry on PKFZ to ensure that all responsible parties are brought to book, regardless of whether they are current or former Ministers, senior or junior civil servants who caused Malaysia's ugliest scandal ever.

27 comments:

· 康華 · said...

YB,

I agree with you totally. In fact, I have written 2 related articles this week wondering on why there are so many task forces, committees etc etc, are PriceWaterhouse and Skrine etc not good enough? It's saddening to read news like these.

taxy said...

Just realised you have the word "task force" in every paragraph. Ha ha!

Anonymous said...

It looks to me that "they" are trying to covered stuff again..... things maybe out of thier control if the task force continue.
This "super TF" ppl are to perform "super cover-up" job , I guess. And we can say bye-bye to OTK.

marcus63 said...

tony, this is damage control and cover up. if there are 6 reports which are damaging, then umno/bn need to come up with 7 new reports to say not guilty. then the score is 7 to 6. they will use the msm's to spread the propaganda. umno/bn is still under the delusion that the rakyat are still fools. if this does not work, then set up more task forces and drag the whole thing to infinity...
the clear picture is the pm is telling otk to shut the fuck up as this is saying all previous reports are useless. if otk has any integrity left, he should take mca out of bn, or get out himself.
otw, his silence only confirms he is part of the conspiracy.

KoSong Cafe said...

They are trying out and hope to find one 'mother of all task forces' able to sort out things in their favour.

It would have been easy to find the culprits and charge them, but if it is going to affect VVIPs and their own survival, then it gets complicated.

We are getting used to and able to foresee how things would end up.

Robert Gan said...

Mr Pua.... UMNO led government style..1st there is audit then we have edit and edit again... 1 Malaysia motto cover up.

Anonymous said...

How many TNB technicians are needed to change a light bulb? Answer: 10. 1 to hold the ladder, 1 to change the light bulb, 8 to claim OT.

Same with PKFZ.

Anonymous said...

aiya YB ahhh... lagi mau tanya. Semua orang tak percaya sama Najib ma....
Just trash them UMNO/BN come next election the people will be happy.
We need to move around and get to the people as Najib continues to cheat Malaysians.
let PM sleep with his task force as he is still having the feeling as defence minister where he always talk about task force of how to make money.

Unknown said...

WE WANNA SEE THESE FILTHY ROBBERS BEING BROUGHT TO COURT AND BEHIND BARS!!! NOT ANOTHER INVESTIGATION TEAM!!!

c'mon Crime Minister, you have tons and tons of thiefs/robbers; why can't u just catch one to soothe the public???!!!

if u can nail down Khir Toyol, i will praise u & only talk good things about u for the entire year!!!

KIMHO8 said...

No Big deal at all.

We, non political party ordinary Malaysians always address them with many many names such as:

Malaysian Cabaret Assoiciation
Mongrel Caught in Action
Mampuslah Cina Akhirnya
Mau Cari Aqua
Mau Cari Ayam

for an irrelevant Chinese based party which did nothing for the people.

Unknown said...

i don't think any of them will be brought to court under the corrupted government

btw, since the rakyat is the victim; cause we gonna bear the cost. can we hire lawyer to sue the government / those persons in-charge???

Anonymous said...

1 HYPE is the Word.

Anonymous said...

Najib is a bit wrong do not invite opposition party leaders as committee in the "High power task force".
Without the participation of opposition leader such as Anwar, LKS and Tok Guru Nik Aziz, The so called "High power task force" can not be the perfect committee.
Najib, you have missed another chance to promote your 1 Malaysia.
Just pity!

Anonymous said...

whatever it is, a win by pakatan in bagan pinang by-election will trigger a panic button to bn-umno. be prepared.

Anonymous said...

bn-umno boleh! lain lain tak boleh.

http://anwaribrahimblog.com/2009/09/11/mirzan-mahathir-appointed-director-on-san-miguel-corp-board/

Anonymous said...

Ong Tee Keat's cyber boys are desperately making him the hero. In fact, his cyber trooper network works extensively, managed and coordinated in three major locations, from his close aides of his ministry linking to party headquarters and right up to Star's discreet executives. Of couse, his political secretary Simon Lim holds the reins to the cyber boys and including many Chinese blogs on the pay-roll. These cyber brainless robots spin, manipulate and also attack opinion writers, commentators who do not support superman Ong. These cyber "machineries" can't tell the difference between an "anaylsis from a opinion" piece of article and like "red ants" they chew and spit on anything remotely anti-Ong.

As a self-claimed staunched Buddhist, "superman Ong" has feng shui and Buddhist monk masters (Thailand and Taiwan). But he is approving all this sleazy campaign of lies and character assassination to keep himself as party president. He also believes in feng shui to the extend of being like fetishism. He innovated his 9th floor's presidential office at party headquarters two times, under two conflicting feng shui masters, costing more than half a million ringgit. He also directed the presidential council chamber, a traditional meeting place for top leaders to be abandoned and instead spent another few hundred thousand to "create" another council at the 6th floor.

This is the MCA president who claimed to be brave, reformative and courageous to lead the chinese community.

Anonymous said...

It's like telling a kid to look after the candy jar.

picktotell said...

Cartoons on PKFZ Scandal Task force
http://picktotell.blogspot.com/

Thanks for the idea for my drawings.

Samuel Goh Kim Eng said...

RIGHT PEOPLE AT TABLES TO BE STABLE

We are in need of many more modern parables
To help turn all the necessary messy tables
So that we can help make the world more stable
When we have the right righteous people at the tables

(C) Samuel Goh Kim Eng - 120909
http://MotivationInMotion.blogspot.com
Sun. 13th Sept. 2009.

Anonymous said...

Only the weaker minded man will put himself to Feng Shui convolution .
As president of MCA, he should reject anything concerning superstitious avoid promoting it as power tool that might help him resolving problem in party matters and issues. It is unwise to have believed this Feng Shui to any other thing else beside his self formed working capability and efficiency.
In the world of reality, today's trend of politic is changing. A stagnate party is going to be eliminated itself if not taking up "Change" into consideration as to put it into official tasks.
MCA and Gerakan both are seeing their ships are going to be sinking. What can they do in BN?
Since Ong takut has found an opportunity to investigate scandal of PKFZ, this may give him credit and fame of hero image in his party even to Chinese ethnic community. But Najib has cruelly taken it away from him. And he(OTK) still praises Najib as super hero by forming another investigation of high power committee that sticks its nose into PKFZ and conveniently takes away Ong's remaining nimbus to be famed.
Can MCA change itself to be powerfully speaking for Chinese and other races of Malaysians? It is a lame duck can not swim itself freely in communal political sea, how can it do their job efficiently for people?
Even the MIC has seen its finishing shift.
We people must know how to judge them. Together we put them into deleted bin for good even they have adjudged the wrong doing of PKFZ. This is their job to upright it since it was caused by them.

Anonymous said...

Totally agree with Marcus63.

Tony,
you must compile all these cheats / curruption issues to be printed for circulation come the next GE coz malaysians have short memories. Moreover, many voters still do not have internet facilities, thus it will make good reading/reminders when the time comes.

I hope the voter registration drive is stil going strong.

k a l a m b o n g said...

Why do you want to limit the number of task force?

Is there a hidden agenda behind your objection?

There should be a "Look at longkang" task force, and then there should be another "watch grass grow" task force, as well as yet another "lick icy pole" task force

Have a heart, man !

Those unemployable task force members need jobs, man !

Anonymous said...

many issues on pkfz...but has the public lost focus on MAS...?

l藍海 said...

这个问题的答案视乎牵涉的人有多少,职位权力有多大。
;)
想办法脱身也需要时间安排妥当,例如金钱上的来处和去处,文件证明之类的东西。
不慢了,我个人认为在多一个月整就能够找出替死鬼和妥善的解决方案。
:)_
若是这件时间牵涉的人无权位比起首相还要高的人设计在内;)你们还打算继续要求反弹会的人查吗?
:O以上问题纯粹是我无聊好奇发问罢了,别在意。
对了,那个什么山埃采金的公司:O那个州属的王族真的有份吗?如果真的是:P那就难怪找不到解决问题的方案了。

Anonymous said...

...merge them and you get SUPER ULTRA SPECIAL TASK FORCE !!!

1st the govt waste RM 12B. But to get to the bottom of the RM 12B, they need to spend another RM 1B by employing all the Super, Ultra & Special Task Forces mah chai that will then come up with nothing. In the end, it becomes an NFA file...the rakyat become suckered another RM 1B. the whole PKFZ will be at RM 13B, right under the rakyat nose due to this sandiwara. govt laughing to their bank acc coz they managed to suck rakyat just like that.

Anonymous said...

Hi Anon 3:55pm,

My friend is cyber trooping for CSL camp. Not bad the pay as he is not top class level.

I've heard OTK is going to chop off all those corrupted ones out of the house.

SNEESS

Anonymous said...

the money is gone into sombody mouth . How to dig out .THe public will never see any single peny-cents from them .think other way and prepare for next scandle.