Friday, February 27, 2015

1MDB CEO Arul Kanda Should Start Giving Straight Answers

1MDB CEO Arul Kanda should stop trying to be clever by beating around the bush with his constant pussyfooting and start giving straight answers to simple questions.

Newly appointed 1MDB CEO, Arul Kanda Kandasamy stormed into his role like a whirlwind on the 5th January, nearly sweeping many off their feet.  He gave dozens of interviews, injected a shot of confidence into a fumbling 1MDB and certainly sounded like a man who meant business.

However over the past month, Arul Kanda had sounded more like a man who is performing awkward evasive manoeuvres to hide the colour of his briefs after discovering a glaring tear in his trousers.

Thursday, February 26, 2015

KPMG Should Declare Its Role In The 1MDB Petrosaudi Scandal

Did KPMG fail their duty to protect the interest of the Government and the Malaysian public when scrutinising and signing of the Financial Reports of 1MDB in the light of the Petrosaudi exposé?

The Sarawak Report exposed the secret 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) and Petrosaudi International Limited (PSI) joint venture (JV) agreement dated 29 September 2009, revealing details which points towards a highly elaborate scam to siphon money from 1MDB.

Despite knowing that “1MDB Petrosaudi Limited” had a dubious existing debt of US$700 million, 1MDB agreed to invest US$1 billion (RM3.5 billion) into the newly set up company to subscribe for 40% of new shares.  Hence 1MDB had invested US$1 billion in a JV where the JV partner immediately gets to siphon 70% of the funds out of the joint venture for practically nothing in return.

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Idris Jusoh Should Learn What's "World Class" Education

Deputy Education Minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh should stop making a mockery of our Higher Education system by liberally interpreting what is “world class” and selectively highlighting statistics which are favourable to the local universities.

Despite being mocked publicly for his statement that Malaysia has “world class higher education”, Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh continued to dig trenches to defend his fantastic claim.

The Deputy Education Minister continued to defend our local universities’  “world class” status by citing the various overall and subject rankings produced by British firm, Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) over the years.

Idris had said Universiti Malaya (UM) was now in 151st position (up from 167) in the list of 400 top institutions in the world in the 2014 QS World Ranking of prestigious universities.

He said besides the aspect of foreign students enrolment and university rankings, the country’s higher education could be said to be world class based on other factors such as achievement in subjects, whereby 11 public institutions of higher learning were listed among the top 100 universities in the world.

For example, “based on QS Ranking by Subject, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) is in the 28th position in the world for environmental science while Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) is ranked 54th worldwide for agricultural science based on the Best Global Universities Rankings,” he said.

Firstly, assuming that the QS World Ranking Table is a reliable measure of quality, there is absolutely nothing “world class” about UM being ranked 151st in the world.  None of the other 19 local public universities, 36 private universities and 30 university colleges ranked within the top 250 in the world.  Even if Malaysia chooses to define the 151st ranking as being “world class”, one swallow certainly does not maketh a summer.

Secondly, while all ranking methodologies are imperfect, why did Datuk Seri Idris choose to cite only the QS rankings out of several reputable global university rankings tables out there?  In fact, of the handful of rankings tables, QS is perhaps the most criticised for its lack of rigour and consistency in its methodology.

Between 2004 and 2009, QS had produced their university rankings in partnership with The Times Higher Education (THE) Supplement, the leading publication on higher education in the United Kingdom.  However that partnership ended when THE rejected QS and its much criticised methodology, resulting in THE creating its own separate rankings.

Among the biggest critics of the QS rankings is Professor Simon Marginson, a professor of higher education at the University of Melbourne. He described the QS World University Rankings as having "a lot of dark spaces and problems the way they go about it", adding that 40-50 per cent of the ranking was based on reputational surveys.

"They've got a ranking process which they've done very cheaply ... and that's a loss leader for a lot of other business activities," suggesting a conflict of interest between their ranking table and their provision of various consulting services to universities.

Without even taking into consideration of the quality of QS’s work, all other widely cited University Rankings Tables in the world do not rank any Malaysian institution of higher learning anywhere near the top 200.

Not a single Malaysian university made it into the Top 400 list institutions of the THE World University Rankings for 2014 .  The Academic Ranking of World Universities produced by Shanghai JiaoTung University placed UM in the #301-400 category in 2014 .  For the US News “Best Global Universities” listing, UM again was the only Malaysian institution that made it into the Top 500 at #423 .

In the Ranking Web of Universities compiled by Webometrics, UPM was best ranked at 420, followed by Universiti Sains Malaysia (480), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (552) and UM (646).

Let me emphasize here again that no ranking system is perfect. Such tables do however provide indicative relative quality rankings between global universities.  The question to ask is therefore, why is the Ministry of Eduation only selectively interested in the QS Rankings, and failed to cite any of the other studies?  Is it because all of the other studies rank Malaysian universities very badly?

Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh appears to be behaving like the proverbial “ayam berkokok, riuh sekampung” when he insisted that Malaysia has achieved “world class” higher education standards.  As the Deputy Education Minister, Malaysians would hope that he could be more enlightened and honest in his assessment of our local education standards.

While we are thankful that we are certainly not in the league of many Third World countries, we are far from being able to proclaim ourselves as world class without sniggers from both the academic world and the knowing public.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

1MDB In Serious Financial Distress?

A RM3 billion bailout from the Ministry of Finance for 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) proves that 1MDB is in serious financial distress despite the valiant denials by the Government.

It did not come as a surprise to read the headlines of The Edge Financial Daily yesterday which hinted of a “MOF Cash Injection For 1MDB” in an article entitled “After loan from Ananda Krishnan, 1MDB may need the ministry’s money”.


The breaking story reported that “1MDB was not only helped by billionaire T. Ananda Krishnan to settle its RM2 billion debt to banks, but it may also require a cash injection of as much as RM3 billion from its owner, the Ministry‎ of Finance (MoF), say sources.”

Monday, February 23, 2015

1MDB CEO's Response To 1MDB Petrosaudi JV Scam Raises Further Questions

CEO Arul Kanda must explain where is the purported US$488 million of “profit” arising from the 1MDB joint venture with Petrosaudi International.

The Sarawak Report exposed the secret 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) and Petrosaudi International Limited (PSI) joint venture (JV) agreement dated 29 September 2009, revealing details which points towards a highly elaborate scam to siphon money from 1MDB.

Despite knowing that “1MDB Petrosaudi Limited” had a dubious existing debt of US$700 million, 1MDB agreed to invest US$1 billion (RM3.5 billion) into the newly set up company to subscribe for 40% of new shares.

Immediately after the signing of the agreement, “1MDB Petrosaudi Limited” repaid in full, the US$700 million (RM2.5 billion) of advances to PSI using the newly received funds from 1MDB.

I had earlier asked the Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Najib Razak and 1MDB to explain why on earth did 1MDB invest US$1 billion in a JV where the JV partner immediately gets to siphon 70% of the funds out of the joint venture for practically nothing in return?


The response from the newly appointed CEO of 1MDB, Arul Kanda Kandasamy was both disappointing and obviously evasive.

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Secret 1MDB Petrosaudi Joint-Venture Agreement Exposed: Gross Abuse Of US$1 Billion Of Funds Revealed

The scandalous 1MDB-Petrosaudi joint-venture agreement stinks to high heavens, highlighting gross abuse of US$1 billion of funds guaranteed by the Federal Government.

The Sarawak Report exposed the secret 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) and Petrosaudi International Limited (PSI) joint venture agreement dated 29 September 2009, revealing details which points towards a highly elaborate scam to siphon money from 1MDB.  This agreement was signed between Tarek Essam Ahmad Obaid, CEO of PSI and Datuk Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi, the then Managing Director of 1MDB.