Doa Pengasihan Surat Yusuf Ayat 31 Paling Ampuh

Doa Pengasihan Surat Yusuf Ayat 31 Paling Ampuh

pada pertemuan kita sekarang kami akan membahas tentang doa pengasihan dari surat yusuf ayat 31 paling ampuh. Dimana amalan pengasihan ini diambil dari ayat Al-qur'an yaitu pada surah yusuf ayat 31. Anda tidak perlu khawatir tentang hal yang membuat badan menjadi kurus. Karena
amalan pengasihan nabi yusuf ini tanpa melakukan ritual ataupun puasa.

Anda cukup melakukan tata cara secara benar dan anda dapat melihat hasil yang akan didapat.

Doa pengasihan ini yang berkaitan dengan kisah beliau As. Beliau memiliki kelebihan yang diberikan oleh Allah. Dikisahkan bahwa wanita yang telah mengiris buah tidak sadarkan diri telah menyayat tanganya dengan pisau.

Karena mereka telah terpesona dengan ketampanan nabi yusuf. Bukan wanita
yang muda saja yang dapat terpesona oleh Beliau, namun wanita yang sudah tua dan sudah bersuami juga dapat terpesona oleh ketampanan beliau tersebut. selain itu dahulu para pria khawatir dan gelisah sebab mereka takut jika pasangannya terpikat dengan ketampanan beliau yaitu nabi yusuf.

Sehingga doa nabi yusuf digunakan sebagai wasilah untuk memohon agar diberikan aura nabi yusuf sehingga dapat untuk memikat lawan jenisnya.

Amalan pengasihan nabi yusuf ini di jamin ampuh apabila dilakukan dengan tata cara yang benar. Lantas bagaimana tata cara dalam mengamalkan amalan pengasihan surah yusuf dari ayat 31 ? Berikut ini adalah tata caranya.

1. Sahadat (sebanyak 3 kali)

2. Astagfirullaahal ‘azhiim min kulli dzanbin wa atubu ilaih (sebanyak 3
kali)

3. Sholawat (sebanyak 3 kali)

4. Subhanallah wal hamdulillaah walailaaha illallah wallaahu akbar laa
haula wa laa quwwata illaa billaahil ‘aliyyil ‘adziim (sebanyak 3 kali)

Dilanjut dengan send surat Al Fatehah kepada :

1. ila hadratin Nabi muhammad SAW

2. ila hadratin Malaikat Jibrail, wa Mikail, wa Isroil wa Izrail

3. ila hadratin Abu Bakrin, wa Umar , wa Ustman , wa Ali radiyallahu anhum

4. ila hadratin Syaikh Abdul Qodir Jaelani

5. nama yang dituju ( nama wanita dituju binti fulanah)

Bacaan surah yusuf dari ayat 31 :

"Falamma roainahuu akbarnahuu wa qoth-tho’na aidiyahnuna wa qulna haasya
lil-lahii maa haadzaa basyaroo,in haadzaa illa malakun kariim"

Yang Artinya :

“Saat wanita-wanita itu melihatnya, mereka terpesona kepada keelokan rupanya, dan mereka tanpa sadar melukai tangannya,. Seraya berkata :
Maha Sempurna Ya Allah, ini bukanlah manusia. Ini benar-benar malaikat yang mulia”

Cara mangamalkan :

Dibaca sesudah shalat hajat minimal 313x, sesudah shalat shubuh minimal
100 x selama 7 hari berturut-turut. namun setelah selesai selama 7 hari.

pada shalat wajib doanya dibaca 7 kali secara rutin (tanpa berhenti). Jangan lupa setiap membaca doanya lalu ditiupakan kedua telapak tangan kemudian usapkaan pada wajah atau muka.

Itulah pembahasan singkat tentang surat yusuf digunakan sebagai pengasihan. Banyak orang yang berpendapat bahwa doa pengasihan surat yusuf ayat 31 paling ampuh diantara pengasihan yang lain dalam memikat hati orang yang anda sukai.
==============

Suara Rakyat Kunak

Sacked Without Notice - The Plight Of PNG's Oil Palm Workers Thanks To Malaysian Companies

Dayak landowners of Sarawak will take no pleasure but experience little surprise in hearing how the people of Papua New Guinea (PNG) have related their ill-treatment by the logging and oil palm plantation conglomerates based in East Malaysia.  These are companies who first robbed Sarawakians of their landrights before extending operations into virtually all the remaining timber reserves on the planet.

East Malaysia’s timber tycoons are a destructive force in the Congo, Amazon, Indonesia, The Solomon Islands, Tasmania, New Zealand, Siberia, PNG and beyond. Their practices rate amongst the worst in the world in terms of trashing the environment and the rights of indigenous people.
Now, as profits from the earlier palm oil boom have slumped, Sarawak Report has learned first-hand how these same Malaysian companies have been simply telling local workers in PNG that their jobs are finished and to find their way home, without compensation or support. All we spoke to were being paid illegally low salaries in the first place.
In one case Gilford Limited, a subsidiary of the multi-billion dollar company Rimbunan Hijau which continues to extract billions of dollars worth of valuable timber from PNG (without recording a single year of taxable profits over decades) axed an estimated 90% of its workers in part of a 50,000 hectare plantation in the West Pomio region just last month, without warning or any indication when they might offer future work. The ex-employees told Sarawak Report that their Malaysian managers simply informed these local people there was ‘no money left’ to run the company.

Disgraceful practices

Sarawak Report together with a film team and international NGOs toured the massive tropical timber island extensively last month.  The landscape has been decimated by Malaysian logging companies much like East Malaysia itself.
Alongside this latest abuse of sacking without notice, which follows the present downturn in the palm oil market, we recorded numerous instances of blatant exploitation, plunder and corrupt practice all conducted by the same handful of companies which first made their fortunes back home in East Malaysia under the protection of the Taib Mahmud regime.
Some of the most shocking examples of callous disregard for workers viewed by SR included forcing female workers to routinely spray dangerous pesticides that are banned in most countries, without even gloves, masks or protective clothing. We also found families of plantation workers living without access to basic services (water, sewerage or electricity), schools or medicines amid disgraceful living conditions in workers’ camps.

PNG workers slide in the mud around dangerous tools, whilst Malaysian managers drive in protected cabs in protective gear

Elsewhere, male logging workers were seen perilously slipping, bare-foot on muddy slopes, as they were tasked with fixing chained logs being dragged by moving bulldozers, using bare hands.
Their Malaysian managers remained safe with protective clothing inside their cabins.
Tree fellers themselves explained they have asked numerous times for boots, protective garments and gloves whilst using chainsaws, but again these immensely wealthy Malaysian companies have denied the local workers (the actual owners of the land) such basic equipment, even though they are being employed to fell the valuable timber from their own property, corruptly sequestered by the Sarawak tycoons.
Companies like Rimbunan Hijau, Samling and WTK (along with newer West Malaysian players who are now investing in plantations) have destroyed millions of hectares of tropical rainforest on this the world’s second largest island (Borneo is the third largest) by ruthlessly undermining laws designed to protect native customary land rights and by currying favour with local legislators, as Sarawak Report was able to document in several instances.
Public commissions of enquiry have further exposed the shocking extent of scandal that has recently resulted in a change of government in Papua New Guinea.

“They are exterminating us”

A handful of Sarawak based Malaysian companies are responsible for nearly all logging of this nature in PNG and they have expanded the vast wealth obtained from that ruthless exploitation into a virtual capture of the economy of the country.

Logging and oil palm was supposed to transport PNG families into the present century – here they live in camps with no schools or running water

These timber, palm oil and petroleum conglomerates have employed their deep pockets, thanks to their earlier plunder of Sarawak, and have used the same tactics in targeting and corrupting key local decision makers to gain control of native territories.
Most ordinary Malaysians, of course, have little idea of what has been carried out in their name in PNG, but as we discovered their name is dirt as a result of these activities amongst most ordinary people in that country.
Numerous people told us they want the Malaysians to “go back home”. When Sarawak Report asked one community campaigner if the process should be described as ‘colonialism’ by Malaysians of PNG, he replied it was “far worse”. He said it is more a case of “extermination and genocide”, such is the strength of feeling amongst people now deprived of their homelands. Many Sarawak communities are in a mind to agree.

Development and Progress?

The sad state of PNG’s down-trodden capital Port Moresby, which is largely now controlled by the same East Malaysian companies, is a testimony to the false promises that lie behind the logging invasion that has been underway since the 1990s.
As Sarawakians are only too familiar with, these logging companies promise wealth, modernisation and ‘development’ to the communities they seek to exploit for their lucrative natural resources, but in fact they have merely plundered for themselves.
Port Moresby, like PNG’s other main towns, is poorly developed and ridden with potholes.  This despite the fact that the country’s ports are thick with ships exporting raw logs worth tens of millions per load.
A clue to how the plunder is being sanctioned is how so many local politicians have also ended up rich shareholders in the landgrabbing enterprises that have left ancient local tribal communities struggling to survive.

Palm Oil

As with Sarawak, a ‘second stage of development’ in the form of mass agriculture – namely palm oil plantations – has been rolled out across many of the former logging concessions in PNG by subsidiaries of the same Sarawakian conglomerates, doubling the burden on native landowners (tied up in 99 year leases handed to the likes of Rimbunan Hijau).
The terms of the concessions are highly questionable in most cases, given that they have been carried out in the name of local tribespeople, most of whom never actually signed up to the proposals in their name (Sarawak folk know the process).
Talking to plantation workers we learnt that despite promises of prosperity (likewise made during the earlier logging) they have all been illegally under-waged and received none of the promised benefits which had included roads, infrastructure, schools, hospitals and basic development.
Conditions in camps we visited were dangerously unhygienic. Children are not provided for. Monthly wage slips we saw averaged between 300-400 Kina, which is equivalent in value to Ringgit. Yet prices are far higher in Papua New Guinea than Malaysia, particularly in the camp shops run by the companies themselves in distant plantations, and workers complained their pay runs out almost immediately, leaving them trapped from home.

A worker at the Drina Camp managed by Gilford shows his latest fortnightly pay of 132 Kina

Last month workers at Gilford Limited were confronted by notices at the camp which listed the names of who were to be laid off. We understand that the number amounted to up to 90% of he workforce and the dismissals were instant and without compensation.
We asked one of the laid off workers if he was anxious over the loss of this job. His reply was that nothing could be worse than what he had endured for the past two years and so he felt liberated and plans to join campaigners in PNG who are challenging the role of the Sarawak based logging conglomerates in their country.
Sarawak Report will seek to enquire from Rimbunan Hijau and the Malaysian Oil Palm Board how many of its subsidiaries have laid off workers and what its response to accusations of illegal practices in the acquisition of licences (described in a law suit brought by the local Catholic Archbishop in Pomio as “unconscionable”), in the management of the environment and the treatment of workers in PNG might be?
Huge sums of money have been spent promoting Malaysian palm oil in recent months. Sarawak Report suggests that money would have been better spent on doing the right thing by such ordinary workers struggling in PNG rather than permitting this callous treatment by super-wealthy Sarawak companies who have made billions from their country.

We found local people across PNG lining up to demand their new government combat the plunder of their homelands

 
[Sarawak Report will be reporting in further detail soon on its research into the scandal of East Malaysia’s timber giants and their actions in PNG].

   

 

   

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More Telling Admissions From GPS/PBB - SARAWAK'S FINANCIAL CRISIS UNFOLDS

The son of Ibrahim Mahmud, Ahmad Ibrahim, now Chairman of PBB, is one of many in Governor Taib Mahmud’s extended family made super-wealthy thanks to disgracefully corrupt hand-outs from his uncle Taib and associated sweetheart deals (as earlier exposed by Sarawak Report – see excerpt below).

Without betraying the least shame for that enrichment (a trait still championed by his ‘Bossku’ kleptocrat cheerleader from the dock in Kuala Lumpur) Ahmad Ibrahim has emerged as a champion of his family dominated state government, attacking Malaysia’s Finance Minister and others who have dared point out Sarawak’s growing financial difficulties caused by such greed and plunder.

This week he jumped defensively onto the bandwaggon once more to attack this blog for pointing outthat Taib’s former political secretary, Karim Hamza, has at last publicly admitted (by mistake) that the state’s destructive hydro-electricity programme has yet to find a buyer for its “excess energy”.

Sarawak’s “Excess Energy”

Karim Hamza had courted headlines in joyfully welcoming an Indonesian proposal to move that country’s capital from Jakarta to Kalimantan  …. on the basis the Bakun Dam, completed a decade ago, might finally find a buyer for its unused hydropower.

Sarawak Report in turn called him out for admitting at last to Sarawak’s “excess electricity” problem, so long denied by his political colleagues.

Lambasting Sarawak Report for its pains, Ahmad Ibrahim again leapt to the defence of the PBB dominated state government by supporting the grand and optomistic claims that the state can rescue its financial fortunes by selling electricity to dream cities, as yet undrafted and unbuilt, over the border in Kalimantan.

In the process however, Ahmad Ibrahim further admitted to the wider financial crisis angrily denied by his PBB party managers till now, which is that the dire mismanagement by this political party of all Sarawak’s rich resouces over 50 years has left the state high and dry with respect to its traditional revenues.

Just take a look at what well-off Ahmad Ibrahim acknowledged to the KTS controlled Borneo Post:

“While rubbishing news portal Sarawak Report’s allegation that Sarawak has wasted public funds on existing hydroelectric power dams, Ahmad pointed out that Sarawak can no longer rely on its traditional exports of timber as well as oil and gas.

“When the time comes, where we can only export less of our sawn timber due to pressure from Green Peace environmentalists and the Western World, when oil and gas resources are replaced or used less due to the rise in substituted fuel availability, or not the main source of preferred fuel for the future, which is likely within 10 to 20 years’ time, and/or when coal is no longer an acceptable commodity for our export, what is left for Sarawak? Affordable power or electricity supply,” [Borneo Post]

Blaming environmentalists for Sarawak’s timber exhaustion is a bit like blaming your priest after being arrested for commiting sins, but there you go. This Chairman of the Taib family’s political party PPB is now on the record admitting that in less than a decade timber exports will have dried up.

Timber Crisis

In fact, Sarawak Report has seen evidence that the situation is far worse because timber will dry up quicker. According to experts who wish not to be quoted, timber supplies are already 70% less than what was available in 2000 and will be 90% less within two years.

This is owing to the sad fact that instead of sustainably logging Sarawak’s forests for the benefit of the wider population over past decades, greedy state politicians and their timber cronies conducted a firesale of everything their bulldozers could mow down. Environmentalists pleaded for them to stop, but could not prevent the foolish greed.

These money grabbers then rolled out badly managed plantations over millions of hectares which, according to the experts who have spoken to Sarawak Report, are no longer competitive or profitable, quite apart from the mass erosion, river pollution and species extinction along with human misery they have created.

Sarawak’s Secret Borrowing Black Hole

Sarawak’s state politicians are responsible for all this mess and also for the shocking state of Sarawak’s present finances, where a huge segment of the public budget is now annually diverted to pay the interest on billions of dollars worth of mysterious unaccounted loans, much like the situation that developed over 1MDB.

Their answer is to lecture the public to pin hopes and dreams on unbuilt Indonesian cities, which they now promise will buy the electricity from mega-dams they used at least some of those dodgy off-shore loans to build years ago.

The stolen timber made these Taib family politicians rich. Selling off plantation licences made them richer. Constructing dams using borrowed public money made them richer still. Yet all of these activities left the native owners of the land they plundered far poorer than before.

Sarawak Report points out, fantasies aside, there is one definite source of future income left for Sarawak to reclaim. That is to be found in the illegal assets and bank accounts of these greedy political families, particularly the clan of Mahmuds to which Ahmad Ibrahim belongs, and their business cronies who stole all that resource wealth from Sarawak in the first place and then cashed in on further borrowing on top.

Ahmad Ibrahim could make a handsome start by handing back the illegitimate profits his Dad (an ex-police officer) made from selling on corrupt concessions like Masretus, handed by his chief minister brother (cum land and resources minister) back in the day, making him by far the richest retired cop in Sarawak. Ahmad should not forget to add on the interest for all that cash as well.

Maybe then he can lecture others about the state economy, if they are prepared to listen. Meanwhile:

“What has Sarawak Report done so far? They only criticise and attack the state government and its leadership constantly with no end; instead of producing feasible or real solutions to create ample jobs for the locals and building our nation’s economy,” Ahmad said.
He challenged Sarawak Report to provide a conducive economic solution for Sarawak’s development.

Sarawak Report is happy to take up this thief family member’s challenge to come up with an alternative model for Sarawak’s development and will do so. It will be based on that first move against stolen wealth. Our other proposals will be presented over the coming period.

**Sarawak Report exposed way back in 2011 how Taib funnelled a huge windfall to his brother Ibrahim Mahmud and sons through Masretus Plantations – excerpt below

Family First, The People Last

Stealing money for brother Ibrahim

We can expose yet another scandal where this greedy Chief Minister has taken the land belonging to the people of Sarawak and then sneaked it into the possession of one of his brothers, so that he can then make millions selling it on at the market price.  Once again the people who traditionally owned that valuable area have been deprived of the chance to both live a comfortable life and to keep their rich and beautiful environment.

In this case the Iban community of Pasai Siong, Sungai Retus went to court after their traditional Native Customary Rights Lands were  discovered to have been ‘alienated’ by the State and passed to a palm plantation company called Masretus Sdn Bhd.  As usual the community had not been informed of the decision regarding their traditional lands, so by the time the case was came to trial the judge dismissed it because it had been brought too late after the event!  This is how justice works in Sarawak.

But of course the identity of the real profiteers from this land theft has never come out.  It was concealed by a quick sale and with just a brief announcement before ownership passed on.  Sarawak Report can now reveal that these original profiteers were Ibrahim Mahmud, brother of the Chief Minister and his sons.  They grabbed the huge plantation area by a familiar method which has often been used by the family of the Chief Minister.

Masretus Sdn Bhd

By this method the company which was originally awarded the Land Titles to the Sungai Retus area near Sibu by Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud (also the  Minister of Resources & Planning and Chairman of Pelita, the Land Grab Agency) was Masretus Sdn Bhd.

On 17th February 2009 Masretus quietly  received the titles to four large plots of land in Sungai Retus amounting to  768 hectares for the nominal payment of just over RM500,000.

But within just 6 weeks on 3 April 2009 there was a quick sale.  The major palm plantation company, Tradewinds (M) Berhad, made the following announcement to the Malaysian Stock Exchange:

“The Board of Directors of Tradewinds (M) Berhad wishes to announce that TWS through its wholly-owned subsidiary namely Retus Plantation Sdn Bhd has on 3 April 2009 acquired the entire issued and paid-up share capital of Masretus at a total cash consideration of RM7,208,600.00 (“Acquisition”)”

This represents a turnaround profit of nearly RM 7 million for doing nothing at all.  The same announcement confirms that Masretus was a private company formed in January 2007 and that

“Masretus is currently the registered holder of a provisional lease over all those parcel of land with an aggregate of 768 hectares (1867 acres), situated at Pasai Siong Land District, in Sibu, Sarawak. The principal activity of Masretus is cultivation of oil palm”.

The lucky benefactors of this more than tenfold leap in the value of the company in just six weeks were of course the shareholders, whose identities are also publicised by the official announcement as being Ibrahim Mahmud, Taib’s own brother and his two sons Yayha and Mahmud and two others. Ibrahim, an ex-policeman with no identifiable palm plantation experience, had thus walked off with a profit of just under RM 7 at the expense of Sarawak’s taxpayers who received a premium on only a fraction of the land’s worth.

The Tradewinds announcement listed the original shareholders of Masretus. Ibrahim Mahmud, Taib’s brother, and his family made millions in one quick turnaround deal that stripped the people of Sungai Retus of all their lands

 

   

   

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Malaysia Goes For The Jugular Against Goldman Sachs

It has become a given that white collar criminals, particularly bankers, never need fear a jail sentence because they always settle (at the expense of their shareholders of course).

1MDB has already proven something of an exception in that regard. Singapore put two BSI bankers behind bars for their part in the scandal as well as the Singapore head of the Abu Dhabi Falcon Bank, Jens Sturzenegger, widely considered as having taken the flack for his superiors including former CEO Eduardo Leeman (ex-Goldman Sachs) now under criminal investigation in Switzerland.

In America Goldman’s two Asia based operatives Tim Leissner and Roger Ng are also in the midst of criminal proceedings, with Leissner having pleaded guilty and paid a $43 million fine for cooking up 1MDB’s bond deals and associated kickbacks to Najib Razak (the former PM prefers to call them ‘donations’ thereby exempting him from the whopping RM1.69 billion tax demand he just received).

However, today’s sweeping charges against 17 top executives and former executives at Goldman Sachs International form a league of their own and bear out the repeated claims by US prosecutors in their own indictments lodged last year (against Leissner, Ng and Jho Low) that several other top executives were knowlingly involved in the fraud and that such complicity in getting round compliance issues formed part of the culture of the bank.

One of the key former executives named by Malaysia was the former Vice President of Goldman Sachs International Mike Sherwood in London, who signed off on the 1MDB bond deals, which were apparently guaranteed by the bank.

Sarawak Report spotted the link at the end of 2016 when the high-flyer in charge of emerging markets suddenly resigned shortly after the year he delivered record bonuses for his department thanks to the commissions raised by the bonds in 2013.  A week later the Singapore Monetary Authority confirmed it was Sherwood who signed off on the arrangements.

A segment of that article is laid out below.  Meanwhile, piling on the pressure is undoubtedly a deliberate tactic by Malaysia’s top prosecutor to force the bank to help make good the country’s loses for which the Attorney General has demanded reparations of no less than $7.5 billion from Goldman Sachs.

Faced with depreciation of the assets Jho Low and others lavished money on, compensation from the bank is certainly one way Malaysia could hope to plug the financial chasm left in the nation’s accounts by this scandal.  Given the deadly nature of the evidence starting to emerge against the bank there is certainly a good chance of getting the money if it spares these individuals.

Charged – Sherwood left and Richard Gnoddy

As More Action Is Taken By Singapore Najib Demands Blind Loyalty From UMNO

2 December 2016

Najib Razak has been desperately seeking to instil military discipline into his UMNO ‘troops’ during their recent Assembly, decking all of them out in different coloured uniforms each day like Rosmah’s handbags, as if he were some mad dictator.

This is not least, of course, because he is a mad dictator.  He has ditched the requirement to re-elect him to his party position until after the next election, precisely because he fears they would take the opportunity to replace him.

Indeed, whilst he yesterday made ‘cleansing the party of traitors’ his prime target before facing the electorate, there are those who believe that voters would prefer to see a cleansing of the party.

Even the opposition believe that keeping dirty Najib in post is by far their best option for the threatened snap poll.

Najib’s big message therefore was that UMNO party members must obey him. Forget obeying the law, forget obeying the principles of right and wrong or indeed obeying the constitutional authority of the public who elected them. They must only obey him.

And, since he pays them, they all were happy to shout and wave and applaud as one corrupt leader after another was paraded up on stage and as Najib issued blood curdling Jihadist threats against political opponents and minority communities, as if they were an opposing army instead of neighbours with democratic rights.

This is what Najib has done to his party and to Malaysia, simply because he cannot give a straight answer to the question ‘What did you do with the money from 1MDB?’.

Singapore moves on banks

Meanwhile, neighbouring Singapore heaped yet more international humiliation on the Prime Minister, who had to sack his own Attorney General and Deputy (and many more besides) in order to pretend he didn’t steal billions from the public.

As the UMNO goons (all decked out in blue today) whooped and cheered, Singapore fined Coutts Bank and Standard Chartered, both for transferring money that the Monetary Authority described as having been misappropriated by 1MDB.

“The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has imposed multi-million dollar fines on the Singapore branches of Standard Chartered bank and Coutts & Co for breaching anti-money laundering regulations in relation to 1MDB-related fund flows through these banks, it said in a release on Friday (Dec 2).

StanChart was fined S$5.2 million and Coutts was fined S$2.4 million. [Singapore Straits Times]

Najib has, as we all know, declared that no money was misappropriated from 1MDB. He has also said that the $681 million that popped up in his personal account, which the US Dept of Justice traced back to 1MDB, in fact came from a secret Saudi Sheikh.

Cheers and claps from UMNO (more dedak please).

What are genuine good Muslims or good Christians or good anybody to make of such behaviour?

It seems not only has this man made his country financially bankrupt, he has made his party morally bankrupt.

Bonuses – what do ‘Fat Mike Sherwood and Najib have in common?

Indeed, there is good reason to believe that Najib’s sudden fighting talk about a snap early election is precisely because he is fearful of further damning revelations from the international investigations into the world’s biggest ever kleptocracy scandal.

Singapore has not only moved against these two banks.  The Monetary Authority also inflicted a ten year ban on the former Asia boss of Goldman Sachs.

Tim Leissner, a personal friend of Najib’s and Jho Low fixed up all the dodgy 1MDB bond deals totalling $6.5 billion, through the agency of corrupt collaboration with two Abu Dhabi fund managers working for Aabar.

The bank had already sacked Leissner and he is said to be cooperating with the US financial authorities, who are also investigating this, the world’s biggest single kleptocracy scandal ever, in a relentless fashion.

Few observers of 1MDB are in any doubt but that the distinctly fishyGoldman commission on those bond issues hides further dirty corrupt practices that appear to have involved more massive kickbacks for Jho Low’s ring of fraudsters serving Najib and rich payments to those who collaborated from other outfits.

The grilling of Leissner and others ought flush out the truth, sooner rather than later.

So was it coincidental that just last week Goldman Sachs’ International boss, ‘Fat Mike Sherwood’ caused consternation by resigning his powerful position unexpectedly, with few reasons given?

Fat Mike was till that moment considered a major contender to take over the top post at the bank, having built up its ’emerging markets’ business in a quite spectacular fashion in those lean post-crash years, just as 1MDB was getting going.

A big part of those fantastic profits were owing to 1MDB and today Singapore’s Monetary Affairs Authority confirmed that Sherwood signed off on those bond deals:

“Mr Leissner, who left Goldman Sachs in February, managed the client relationship with 1MDB for all of its three bond issues from 2012-13.

A team of Goldman Sachs staff, mainly from Hong Kong but also from Singapore, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates, arranged the bond issues and they were fully underwritten by London-based Goldman Sachs International, the MAS said.[Financial Times]

Should Sherwood have judged differently on touching such a deal and indeed on releasing an offer document that praised 1MDB for having a ‘robust three tier management structure free from political influence’ when in fact the fund was completely controlled by Najib and half the money raised was stolen on day one?

Perhaps, if this was not the actual reason Fat Mike resigned, then it should have been and perhaps soon we will receive the opinion of US regulators on the matter also?

Consider the news that made Fat Mike so famous back in the UK in the first place.  It was the fact that in the depth of a belt tightening recession for everyone else (as a result of a financial crash for which Goldman Sachs was in very large measure responsible) he and his UK international team issued the biggest bonuses ever in the winter of 2014.

Sherwood himself clinched no less that £13 million newspapers estimated.  Significantly, this hand-out was not for profits made that year, but the previous year of 2013 – exactly when GSI was reaping in its nearly $700 million reward, purely for having raised three dodgy bond deals for 1MDB:

So, like Sherwood, has Najib also decided to move before things get worse and to throw caution to the winds with a snap election before even more gets out about 1MDB?

   

   

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J C Fong Claims Sarawak Report 'Shielded' Mukhriz Mahathir - Astonishing Slur Against PM's Family EXCLUSIVE

Last month Sarawak’s state legal advisor J C Fong together with the deputy chief minister, Awang Tengah, lashed out at Sarawak Report for detailing allegations made in the course of a drawn out legal battle, where the two men stand accused of conspiring to prevent the payment of RM285 million awarded by the federal court.

Currently the official liquidators in the case are suing members of Sarawak’s Land & Survey Department over their part in the alleged conspiracy. Fong says he is also acting as counsel to the defendents.

Claiming in a public statement that Sarawak Report’s reporting on the various allegations in the case were defamatory the former state attorney general and present state legal advisor then suggested that Sarawak Report knowingly concealed an irregularity in the granting of the original lease by his own boss, the then chief minster and minister for resource planning Taib Mahmud, following a personal application letter dated 21 January 1994, from the chairman of the company Tanjung Tiara, whom he describes as “a well known West Malaysian politician”.

Sarawak Report has now established that the politician he is referring to is Mukhriz Mahathir, MP for Jerlun and son of the Malaysian prime minister. He is the former chairman of Tanjung Tiara whom J C Fong accuses Sarawak Report of intending to “shield” by omitting to mention his application letter to Taib.

J C Fong has even challenged Sarawak Report to lay the matter before the MACC for investigation, thereby implying apparent wrongdoing on the part of his own boss and Mukhriz as the recipient of the lease for an alleged “low premium”:

Without commenting on matters which are sub-judice, I wish to point out the glaring omissions in the Sarawak Report, seemingly intended to shield certain parties from being implicated with the alienation of the land in question, Lot 63 Sawai Land District.
For the record, the title for the land was issued to Tanjung Tiara Sdn Bhd on 28.03.1994 following a written application by its Chairman, a well known West Malaysian politician made to the then Chief Minister of Sarawak. I challenge Sarawak Report to name him and seek MACC’s help to investigate why the land was alienated to this person’s Company at what Sarawak Report claims to be “low premium”. I am sure Sarawak Report would be transparent enough to make such an important public disclosure of the identity of the person who applied for and was given the land. If Sarawak Report wishes, it could authorize the State Government of Sarawak to produce the original application letter dated 21 January, 1994 for public inspection. In any event, this application letter had been disclosed in 2 cases before the High Court and Tanjung Tiara Sdn Bhd and its liquidators do not dispute its authenticity. [J C Fong 29th July 2019]

At the time of the publication of our original article on July 27th Sarawak Report was not in fact aware of the existence of such a letter nor were we aware that at the time of the granting of the original lease for the disputed plantation Mukhriz Mahathir was the chairman and co-shareholder of the company, together with the present plaintiff seeking payment Tan Yik Soon.

Only Tan Yik Soon was registered in leaked Land Registry documents revealing the disposal of this and other leases by the Sarawak State Government

We are informed Mukhriz subsequently sold out his share to Mr Tan, by which time the once forested area had been logged.

Prompted by J C Fong, Sarawak Report has now obtained documents from late 1994, which confirm that Mukhriz was indeed  chairman of Tanjung Tiara and in correspondence with the Sarawak State Government about the clearing of the land.

We therefore conclude that he is the “well known West Malaysian politician” whom Fong has accused Sarawak Report of “shielding” in what is a plain accusation of improper behaviour made by this senior legal figure in Sarawak:

Letter to Mukhriz Mahathir as Chairman of Tanjung Tiara from the Taib’s Ministry of Resource Planning, acknowledging a request to grant clearing rights to a thousand hectares of forest

A letter (see above) sent by the then permanant secretary to the ministry of resource planning to Mukhriz Mahathir as chairman of Tanjung Tiara in December 1994 approved a thousand hectares for clearing in the concession. Mukhriz then sent a reply two weeks later (see below) acknowledging that permission granted.

Mukhriz replied to the department thanking for the permission

However, Sarawak Report has yet to obtain the original letter referred to by J C Fong, allegedly written by Mukhriz to his own boss Taib Mahmud in January 1994, to gain what Fong now implies was an improper lease. We therefore challenge J C Fong in turn to produce that letter himself, which he claims has been laid twice before a court and is therefore open to public scrutiny.

Sarawak Report is obliged to point out that we have no proof at this juncture, beyond J C Fong’s own suggestions, that the lease was improperly granted or undersold and we further challenge him to explain why he has publicly suggested this was so.

Indeed, we would like to ask why the former State Attorney General himself did not report on his own apparent concerns about the purported irregularity, as a senior official who was privy to the matter since at least the inception of the case (which has been going through the courts for the past decade) and possibly since the actual granting of the lease way back in 1994?

State Legal Advisor J C Fong

Commenting on the matter Mukhriz Mahathir has told Sarawak Report that he had cut his ties with Tanjung Tiara after just a few years.

Mukhriz said he was not aware of any impropriety and that his partner (Mr Tay) had handled everything to do with the company.

“I was involved in a small way with a plantation company in Sarawak over 30 years ago and cut ties with them just a few years after” he has told Sarawak Report.

Meanwhile, Sarawak Report finds it odd that on the one hand J C Fong has complained about this site’s reporting of a major legal battle citing possible wrongdoing by several of Sarawak’s senior public officials as being ‘sub judice’ and yet on the other hand he has condemned our failure to make an extraordinary allegation, not substantiated by any evidence we have seen so far, both against an MP who is the son of the present Prime Minister and also by implication against his own boss, the Governor of Sarawak.

Since the former State Attorney General has now made this public allegation we question why the top legal officer did not report his apparent concerns about this particular allocation of public land at the time his concerns were first raised?

   

   

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UK News Article Confirms Najib's Extensive Use Of Secret PR Advisors At Last Election

BN repeatedly denied before the last election that it had brought in secret foreign election managers and PR advisors to manipulate the electorate, despite several reports and warnings by Sarawak Report.

Today more evidence emerged from an investigation by the Guardian newspaper substantiated what Sarawak Report has also learnt from independent sources, which is that the PR firm CFT partners, run by the right leaning ‘reputation manager’ and election manager Lynton Crosby, was active in KL on behalf of Najib in the run up to GE14.

A senior director of CTF Sam Lyon was sent to Malaysia to set up an office there, the Guardian confirms. Lyon was previously the manager of the new UK prime minister Boris Johnson’s earlier mayoral campaigns, which in turn were bankrolled by a Tory party donor and former treasurer who is familiar to Malaysians as being an ally of Najib’s, Lord Marland.

As Sarawak Report has detailed, Marland’s own company SCL (he is one of the shareholders) was also hired to advise BN both in the 2016 Sarawak election and for GE14. SCL later gained global notoriety as the parent company of Cambridge Analytica, which abused Facebook data to seek to influence the US election and Brexit referendum in 2016.

Sam Lyon, the head of CTF Partners’ London office who previously worked as Johnson’s director of communications, was a member of the team who worked with the party of Malaysia’s then prime minister, Najib Razak. The Asian politician was later toppled amid ongoing accusations of involvement in a multi-billion dollar corruption scandal. [Guardian 2nd August]

After the Malaysian election defeat for the CTF client Lyon returned to run the London office for CTF, which is believed to have been quietly working on Johnson’s leadership bid from the moment he resigned as foreign secretary last year. That connection was only acknowledged just days before the party polls and it has now emerged that CTF provided their candidate with a loan to cover some of the costs of that campaign.

Sam Lyon is now being tipped by jubilant CTF office staff as the likely pick to be the new prime minister’s communications man, according to insiders information made available to Sarawak Report. Others have expressed concern about the dangers of undue influence over the new prime minister by a company that has numerous clients in big business and handles the reputations of some of the world’s wealthiest individuals.

Dirty Tricks

Today’s series of articles in the Guardian expose a series of apparently unethical and deceptive practices by the PR company, which hides its clients and operates anonymously in their favour by setting up social media and Facebook campaigns promoting their interests whilst pretending to represent the views of ordinary, unpaid members of the public.

Key clients for whom CTF have run covert fake media operations include the government of Saudi Arabia, for whom it ran sites promoting the country’s attacks on Yemen and the major coal mining concern Glencore, for which it created climate denying sites.  Likewise, in the run up to the conservative leadership vote, CTF staff set up what are believed to have been highly influential Facebook pages (they were pushed to millions of readers) promoting the once fringe concept of a No Deal Brexit and aggressively attacking political figures who oppose the idea.

These paid operators are accused of setting up the sites under their personal email addresses rather than CTF’s office address to disguise the fact that these were commissioned operations rather than an expression of genuine public opinion.

CTF is secretive about its client lists, to the extent of keeping its own staff in the dark about which clients their colleagues are working with – operating on a ‘need to know’ basis and fearsome non-disclosure clauses.  So, as yet it is unclear what the sources of income have been to fund the operation and what the agenda is.

However, Lord Marland is certainly understood to continue to be part of the inner circle and remains a regular visitor to Malaysia, apparently promoting trade and the development of closer bilateral ties as the UK looks set to lose much of its trading links with Europe.

Read the full Guardian articles here and here and here.

   

   

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"End The Plunder!" - Anwar Speaks Out On Deforestation

PKR President, Anwar Ibrahim, today signalled he would be making firm demands when he visits Sarawak this weekend for the state to end further logging encroachments on native lands.

He had been asked about his sustainability agenda during a ‘Conversation About Nation Building’ hosted by Sunway University on Thursday.

Questioned on his response to present global recognition about the impact of climate change and growing concerns in Malaysia about pollution and the management of the natural environment he focused first on the issues of social justice.

“I remember being at a Dayak Kampung with the Ketua Kampung as the lorries were passing by with the huge timber and what do these people get? They get dust”.

Then, pointing out one of the hottest days ever was again being recorded over in London he continued that denial of climate change is not possible, but said that this and the policies of Europe and China should not be the main driving force of Malaysia’s policies on such matters but rather the welfare of the country’s own people and environment.

“Excessive timber concessions is an issue of plunder, stealing and harassment – it is stealing from local tribes and it has to be stopped. You have billionaire companies and these people only get a small compensation and it is done. What sort of governance are you talking about?”

The veteran politician, who made a joke about being called ‘leader in waiting’ saying after 21 years he was in no particular hurry, but that journalists would interpret that also as some kind of impatience, also complained that Orang Asli were suffering in the same way all over Malaysia.

“Even in the Islamic state of Kelantan the plundering continues. Under Islam it is an afront to religion and one cannot use ones power to grab the wealth of the land and condemn Orang Asli to poverty”

These were the excesses of the past he said and Malaysia needs to take a firm stand going forward. He then said that of course the matter was also about the environment and particularly the impact of logging and burning on peatlands in releasing greenhouse gases:

“It is not only about Europeans, the US and Chinese. We are talking about our own survival and the survival of humanity”.

His stance indicates a clear disapproval of continuing deforestation in Sarawak, which claims to have already licenced a further 600,000 hectares for plantations yet to be cleared. The federal government has called for a freeze, which so far the state has rejected. Several examples of continuing logging on peat areas are being identified by NGOs..

‘Habits of the Heart’ 

Anwar referred throughout to his theme of the ‘habits of the heart’ that he said defined all humanity and democratic ideas – values of universal justice, tolerance and compassion that he believed underpins his religion and could bring all people in the nation together.

He said he believed this would meet the challenge of the ‘Malay Muslim’ first agenda of a projected uniting of UMNO and PAS.  The latter party he said had demonstrated tendencies towards non-Malay based and “obsolete and truncated new conservative views” where religion can be abused to commit crimes.

“This is Malaysia, we are a democracy” he said and “how can you be a good Malay if you don’t care for the down-trodden Indian? It is about decency and habits of the heart” he added, as he was asked to describe his positioning on religion.

Advertised as a key platform for the PKR agenda

Likewise, he said his experience in prison had given him some insights and sense of compassion towards immigration, which he said needed to be controlled but with empathy towards foreign workers who had given up everything to come and look for jobs in Malaysia, often only to be tricked by ruthless agents who too often escaped all punishment.

Many such Indonesians and Bangladeshis work on logging and plantations in places like Sarawak. If caught, such people should not be whipped he said, whilst their employers who had brought them in illegally went scott free.

“They lost everything. Don’t whip them”.

He said he remembered one boy who spent 6 months in jail on remand for stealing a pair of jeans, as he could afford no lawyer.

“Is the system just? No. We don’t cane the rich for plundering billions” he quipped “we make them Tan Sris and Datuks!”

There ought to be plenty to discuss this weekend in Sarawak.

   

   

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Will Britain's Boris Boost Business For Malaysia?

Whilst Foreign Secretary the front runner in the present Conservative leadership race appeared mainly concerned with selling weapons on behalf of British business, barking at visiting Malaysian dignatories “Aren’t you interested in buying arms?” in lieu of a more conventional welcome.  To which the answer has so far been a sensible no.

The question is how will trade and investment flow if Boris takes charge?  Brexit to one side (having to an extent performed its purpose in making him leader) it seems likely that Johnson will soon respond to some of the financial interests which supported his rise. These include businessmen behind what is termed as the ‘Commonwealth Agenda’, keen to revive what they see as the UK’s special ties with countries such as Malaysia.

Barely known in the UK, but long since recognised as a key promoter of this agenda and also of former prime minister Najib Razak is Lord Jonathan Marland, who set up a two pound limited company called the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council and appointed himself as Chairman after stepping down from a short stint as a working peer in the Department for Energy in 2014.

The Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council (CWEIC) has a ‘small secretariat’ at the Malborough House headquarters of the Commonwealth according to its website and Marland has hired the former Foreign Office minister Hugo Swire (from the Swire commercial  family and previously in charge of Malaysian matters) to be his Deputy.

The focus of CWEIC is concentrated on channelling foreign money into the UK as per a new so-called ‘Commonwealth Partnership Programme’ signed last week with the well-known off-shore haven of Jersey purportedly designed to:

“.. unlock opportunities for Jersey to increase its visibility and access to key decision makers in priority Commonwealth markets through CWEIC’s extensive cross-border networks and in-country expertise.
Lord Marland said: “I am delighted the Government of Jersey is strengthening its partnership with CWEIC.  Together we will continue to support the ambitions of the Government of Jersey to increase trade across the 53 members countries of the Commonwealth.”
Senator Gorst [of Jersey] said: “I hope … CWEIC’s support will maximise opportunities and encourage UK-based programmes or inward delegations to visit Jersey.”

As readers of Sarawak Report may be aware Lord Marland likewise claims he was the driving force behind the massive investment of Malaysian public money into London’s most costly ever development project at Battersea Power Station during his short term as a minister:

I think the only legacy [of his role] that… lasting legacy will forever exist would be Battersea Power Station which I was the minister responsible for getting that going… it is fascinating seeing the towers coming down and going back up again which I was utterly insistent upon and actually getting the Malaysians, they were brilliant, they are still. …
Q: What do you regard as your big achievement in office?
LM: .. I think opening trade relationships with some of the biggest countries in the world which had completely died. I mean, Malaysia for example, you know, the amount of Malaysia monies coming in… Getting those relationships going and then buying into British.  [Lord Marland]

As testimony to his role Marland attended the earth-turning on the project in 2013 together with private developers SP Setia, former PM Najib Razak (Malaysian Government concerns Sime Derby and EPF already owned 60%), former PM David Cameron and the then London Mayor Boris Johnson.

Swiftly, the major shareholder of SP Setia, Liew Kee Sin, managed to sell out his stake in the company to the Minister of Finance (also Najib) controlled fund PNB the following year at what could only be described as a surprisingly advantageous price of RM3.95 for each of his 67 million shares, which was RM1.00 above the market rate.

Having cashed out so handsomely Liew was perhaps equally surprisingly permitted to remain as Chairman thanks to the acquiescence of the new publicly owned shareholders. Meanwhile he transferred most of the SP Setia staff to a new company under his control, namely the now burgeoning property development company Eco World, which soon got down to a number of rival developments next door to Battersea itself in London.

Malaysia apparentlyceased the role after the election

Blind Eye?

So important was this now largely publicly funded Malaysian bail out of what had become London’s biggest white elephant that a minor difficulty such as 1MDB was clearly not to get in the way of Marland’s keen advocacy of continuing Malaysian investment in Britain.

Indeed, Malaysia (together with Malta, another country with a controversial record on corruption) was cited as a ‘Strategic Partner‘ of Marland’s Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council Limited (CWEIC) right until the overthrow of the Najib government, despite the scandals enveloping the country.

Only a month after the devastating DOJ asset seizure of 2016, complete with court documents tracing US$731 million of the stolen funds into Najib’s personal account, Marland and his CWEIC hosted Najib as guest of honour at a trade conference at Malborough House, which was used as a vital face-saving event for the Malaysian prime minister – looking for all the world as if it was an official occasion (attended by government ministers and UK High Commissioner Vicky Treadell).

Marland’s close relationship with Malaysia continues.  His son now works for the very same property developer Eco-world, started up by Liew Kee Sin and some 280 former employees of S P Setia after he made his killing selling on his interest in Battersea Power Station to the Finance Ministry controlled fund PNB.

2016 Eco World’s Liew, Najib and Lord Marland (right) launched the Eco World UK venture, Embassy Gardens at Nine Elms – adjacent to the Battersea Power Station development (benefitting from the investment of infrastructure such as a new underground station)

And after he left his government post soon after the Battersea deals went through Marlandhimself also set up as a founding director and substantial shareholder of a UK based subsidiary of Eco World Eco World Management & Advisory Services (UK) Limited .

The former architect of Malaysia’s Battersea investment thus became openly involved in the projects headed by Liew, such as the Embassy Gardens development in Nine Elms alongside the Battersea Power Station development itself (Liew’s Eco World bought into the project originally granted by Wandsworth Council to the UK company Ballymore in 2012).

Najib duly attended the ‘topping out’ of Embassy Gardens in 2016. The development being adjacent to the Battersea project benefits from the major infrastructure investments that form part of the Malaysian Government funded development (in 2017 the cost of that investment sky-rocketed to a record £1.6 billion).

The two British Shareholders are closely linked to Boris Johnson

Meanwhile, Lord Marland continues his activities at the Commonwealth Enterprised and Investment Council Ltd, which continues to operate its trade building ventures apparently in tandem with the Commonwealth Secretariat in Malborough House.

Team Boris

These connections are likely to play into UK/Malaysian relations should Boris become PM because another so far not hugely advertised fact is that Lord Marland has long since acted as a key member of what is known as ‘Team Boris’, advocating the progress of the populist politician first as Mayor and now PM.

A former treasurer of the Conservative Party and considered to be a wealthy and effective fundraiser, it was Marland who was reported as organising the finance behind Boris Johnson’s two London mayorial bids, which largely entailed meeting the hefty payments of the top Australian right-wing strategist Lynton Crosby in both those campaigns. Marland’s own Wikipedia page acknowledges he was a “key part of the team which saw the election of Boris Johnson as Mayor of London”

Separately, Crosby is listed as a member of the CWEIC’s Advisory Board.

In recent months Marland is said to have been again involved in discreetly engaging Crosby’s company CTF Partners on behalf of Boris for the leadership campaign. The ties have only recently been acknowledged, but the election guru has himself been quoted making the logical point “you can’t fatten a pig on market day.”

Influence and Communications

Alongside these electioneering  connections in the UK it has emerged that the same businessman is also a prominent shareholder in the ‘strategic communications’ firm SCL Group, which became associated with a number infamous antics linked to election campaigns around the world before its subsidiary Cambridge Analytica was caught in the headlines for its role in abusing illegally harvested Facebook data in 2016 to secretly promote Brexit and promote Trump in the US elections.

SCL Group and the Najib government denied reports by Sarawak Report that the company was also engaged to influence the Sarawak State Election in that year (via a contract ostensibly for Petronas), saying there was no such relationship.  However, on the eve of the 2018 General Election Sarawak Report obtained and exposed documents indicating that despite a raft of similar denials the company was also working with BN on attempts to shore up no less than 40 threatened seats.

The ties continue, as Sarawak Report has now received reliable information that a senior Crosby employee Sam Lyon was deployed to KL in the run up to the GE14 to open a branch of CTF in Malaysia. Clearly, this particular assignment would not be listed under the heading of great successes on the part of a company that is known to be discreet about its clientelle at the best of times. It is assumed that Lord Marland’s close contacts in UMNO funded the project.

Boris’s Right Hand Man – Sir Edward Lister

There is another interesting connection within this circle that once again indicates that the arrival of Boris at Number 10 might turbo-charge the hunt for Malaysian inward investment into the UK post-Brexit.

Edward Lister, Boris’s key fixer

The other British national on the board of the Eco World’s London subsidiary is one Edward Lister, famous for his controversial leadership of Wandsworth Council (the local council for Battersea Power Station) during the Thatcher years and later credited for doing most of Boris Johnson’s managerial work as Deputy Mayor and chief of staff during his period as London Mayor.

It has been widely touted that Lister will be drafted back into position at Boris’s side should he enter Number 10 in order to perform the donkey work (of actual government) that Boris is reputed as prefering to avoid.  Meanwhile, the former local government boss has also just been renewed for another three years in a pivotal and high profile post in the world of construction as Chairman of Homes England a government agency directed at procuring affordable housing for people in England.

This may not be the remit of Eco World, which is in the business of making a profit. However, Eco World Management & Advisory Services (UK) Limited records having made a substantial payments to Sir Edward Lister as one of its directors. £186,846 was paid in 2018 for services commissioned from a consultancy company solely owned by Lister (in 2017 Lister was paid £60,000).

Sole owner of consultancy paid to advise Eco World

The purpose of Eco World is to extend its property investments in the UK using foreign inward investment, a pattern that could be seen to mirror the strategy of the Battersea Power Station development, which has been primarily marketed abroad to foreign buyers primarily from South East Asia.

Given the housing crisis in London and the cry for more affordable housing in the capital the focus on foreign buyers has been controversial, but the potential clash of interests has continued.

Earlier in March Lister, who like Marland is an enthusiastic advocate of Brexit and of reviving Commonwealth ties, advised a conference in his capacity as Chair of Homes England that the property industry ought not to worry about Brexit, because the demand for housing would remain voracious, providing enticement for foreign investors in prperty development:

Sir Edward Lister, chair of Homes England, said that the international investors could see the “underlying demand” for new homes in the country, and that this would remain regardless of what happens with Brexit.
Speaking at international property festival MIPIM, Sir Edward said that despite the country now building 240,000 new homes a year there were still 160,000 new households being created every year, leading to a “massive shortfall”.
He said: “The short answer is there is a massive demand for housing and people need to live somewhere. So ignore Brexit – the demand is there.”
Sir Edward was speaking on a panel alongside Nick Walkley, chief executive of Homes England, discussing what the state of overseas investment would be following the UK’s exit from the EU. [Inside Housing]

Ranging between the £350k-£500k (RM1.7m-RM2.5m) the housing units on offer from Eco World in London are clearly targeted at higher end buyers and not the provision of affordable housing. Once again the business in which he and Lord Marland is engaged appears targeted around inward investment to London by places like Malaysia.

Whether there is a conflict between Sir Edward’s public job promoting affordable housing (particularly given a contentious record and the desperate present demand in the capital) and this private role as director of the subsidiary of a foreign property investor and paid consultant is perhaps something for UK observers to consider.

From Malaysia’s perspective the key question is how Boris Johnson and his key fixers and allies will plan to approach Malaysia if he enters Number Ten. Commonwealth countries like KL will be top relationship targets for these Brexiteers, already champing for further deregulation and ‘free ports’ to encourage the influx of what many describe as dubious and secretive foreign wealth. They might even seek to pull the UK out of EU rulings (for example on bio-deisel) as a sweetner for future deals.

But, if the money is being encouraged primarily to flow out of Malaysia and into London property, how much profit is likely to return?

   

   

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Another Top Banker Under Fire As 1MDB Investigations Take A Mysterious New Twist

Readers of 1MDB-related coverage on Sarawak Report will have come across the name of Falcon Bank’s former chief executive Eduardo Leemann a number of times, relating to his bank’s connections to the scandal.

Now, according to press reports in Switzerland, the authorities there have finally opened proceedings against this former Goldman Sachs banker, who did a stint in Abu Dhabi before taking on the major role at the Aabar/IPIC owned Swiss based bank, which specialised in wealth management.

The Swiss Federal Prosecutor has opened criminal investigations against Eduardo Leeman, who maintains his innocence, say local media, however interestingly the subjects under investigation are described as specifically NOT being related to his role supervising the bank’s handling of hundreds of milllions that were diverted from 1MDB into prime minister Najib Razak’s private KL accounts.

Singapore trial notes and FBI investigation papers make clear that compliance sections and more junior officers at Falcon Bank had flagged up numerous concerns to bosses at their Zurich headquarters about these transfers, but had received the message from on high that the senior members of the Board (presumably the now imprisoned chairman of Aabar, Khadem al Qubaisi, and his deputy, Mohammad al Husseiney) wanted the transactions to be completed.

However, it is apparently OTHER activities that have got Eduardo into hot water not this.  No wonder clients have been complaining about frozen funds as investigators apparently examined the bank in total over the past several months on the proclaimed grounds of it being a potential criminal entity.

Khadem Connection

The specific statement that the investigations were NOT related to 1MDB interestingly mirrors official claims made in Abu Dhabi last month as a lengthy prison sentence was finally handed down against Khadem al Qubaisi (known as KAQ).  The authorities in the Emirate took pains to make clear to journalists seeking explanations about the trial that the punishment had nothing to do with his activities over 1MDB. It was about something else.

The sovereign wealth fund where KAQ formerly called the shots, IPIC (International Petroleum Investment Company) is presently locked in legal wrangles with Malaysia and 1MDB over who is to blame for the shenanigans over US$6.5 billion raised in bonds via Goldman Sachs, supposedly to be guaranteed by IPIC.

About half the money was immediately diverted 2012-2013, much of it into Falcon Bank and on to Najib (plus half a billion to KAQ himself).  The fact that those responsible are being imprisoned over something else, not this might be seen to assist the Abu Dhabi case that it cannot be blamed for the disgraceful mismanagement of the bonds and so is not liable.  Malaysia is likely to argue otherwise, given it wishes to avoid supposed payments for the guarantees and wants IPIC instead to contribute towards the refunding of the stolen money.

US Angle

There have been other significant recent developments linked to former KAQ properties in the United States, also the subject of many exposes by Sarawak Report, in particular the multi-million dollar Hakkasan nightclub chain which rocketed to a number one ranking in Las Vegas within 18 months of a series of vast investments following 2013.

Earlier this year Aabar/IPIC took over full ownership and control of the controversial nightclub chain, having earlier been only listed as the provider of a relatively minor $20 million loan.

Prior to that KAQ and his brother were the 100% registered owners of the entertainment mecca (featuring gambling, boozing and louchly dressed revellers entertained by ‘superstar DJs’).  However, their company Tasameem Real Estate Company LLC had benefited from a mysterious US$566  ‘non share equity instrument’ donated from an anonymous ‘third party’ as a ‘shareholder loan’, according to its UK registered company accounts:

Did IPIC/Aabar connected interests have a deeper investment in Hakkasan?

The media were informed that the $20 million loan due in 2016 had come from Aabar, a relatively piffling amount. There was also a tale tell $10 million injection from the KAQ owned Vasco Trust at Edmund de Rosthchild Bank in Luxembourg, funded entirely by money stolen from 1MDB, according to information obtained by Sarawak Report.  However, so far no admission to the owner of the half billion dollar stake:

The acknowledged loan from Aabar was relatively piffling

After KAQ’s arrest the club was first passed to a separate Abu Dhabi company fronted by directors with clear links to KAQ, but subsequently it was reported the businessman had complained from jail that he was being scapegoated over 1MDB and forced to turn over all his assets.  Shortly after Aabar emerged as the new owner in Hakkasan’s latest London accounts.

Reflecting the announced ‘transfer of ownership’ to Aabar are a quartet of new directors on the board of Hakkasan linked to Aabar itself.  These include the person who signed off on those accounts, none other than the present head honcho back at Falcon Bank Matthew John Hurn:

Awkward connections?

It seems fair to ask if the shareholder loan of over half a billion dollars had therefore originally come from entitities linked to Aabar and if so, why these were not more openly declared?  Aabar is now divesting much of Hakkasan’s Vegas assets, including a sale of 6 of its key venues in May this year to MGM.

Who exactly at Aabar was behind the loans to the racey nightclub empire, who authorised the half billion dollar injection, how much of the money can be traced to 1MDB and to whom KAQ was referring when he claimed he was being made a scapegoat by Abu Dhabi are all likely to become key areas of investigations for the Malaysian authorities as they press their case that the fund was conned and plundered by a circle of criminal entities that not only included Malaysia’s previous prime minister, but also an Abu Dhabi owned bank and fund managers, who claim they were made scapegoats by more powerful people also involved.

Meanwhile, America and Switzerland as well as Abu Dhabi appear content to limit the scope of their investigations to matters not related to 1MDB or to the ownership of Hakkasan.

   

   

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Time For Answers Over Sarawak's 1MDB

DAP Assemblyman Ting Tiong Choon has continued his rightful campaign to get answers from Sarawak’s so-called ‘great and good’, who have presided over the disgraceful dissipation of funds belonging to Native Land Rights owners, leaving the half billion ringgit Amanah Saham Sarawak (ASSAR) fund ringing empty save for a few remaining coppers.

It was Sarawak Report that first dubbed this disaster as Sarawak’s 1MDB when we exposed the scandal way back in 2016. At that time only 17 sens in the ringgit remained of the money that the native land owners had been forced to ‘invest’ in the state government controlled fund – their pitiful compensation in return for lands alienated by the self-same state and concessioned off to crony timber and logging concerns.

Now, according to YB Ting, there remains merely 2.9 cents. Unbelievably, more is being spent each year in ‘management fees’ than remains in the fund!

The fund was described as being set up to ‘educate’ rural people into the ‘shareholding economy’.  It was considered ‘irresponsible’ to just pay them money for their lands as they would (it was considered) just naively spend it, instead of saving it and investing it to provide income in later life.

Well, look who have turned out to be the irresponsible ones.  YB Ting’s speach (below) lays out in devastating tones the names of the so-called guardians of this fund and the list of august positions held in the state by each and every one – they are in short, Taib’s key henchmen.

When one considers the economic mega-mess perpetrated by these grandiose gentlemen on the funds belonging to Sarawak’s most disadvantaged and dispossessed people it becomes all the easier to understand why Malaysia’s Finance Minister last week described the finances of the state as being on the point of going bust.  After all, we are talking about the same people in charge.

Interestingly, until they cut and ran from Sarawak back in 2014, the trustees of this lamentable and disgracefully managed outfit were the global bank HSBC. The ASSAR scandal, more than any other, explains the hasty departure of this sanctimoniously self-promoting global bank (board any plane on the planet and you will be repeatedly and relentlessly informed of their alleged environmental and socially responsible credentials).

The truth is that ASSAR’s board and executives owe a 360 degree explanation for their record in having lost every single ringgit ever invested in the fund they were paid to manage on behalf of tens of thousands of native landowners, who were given no choice by this state government but to hand their money to them in trust.

Insiders have informed Sarawak Report about crony deals and conflicts of interest as the money from these people’s savings were handed out to friends and family… never to be returned, let alone with interest.

What better microcosm of the way the state has been managed by the plundering pals around Taib Mahmud for the past four decades?

Due diligence teams working for the fund, together with the Auditor General have asked over the years for a full explanation as to the apparent ‘conflicts of interest’ associated with the investments of this fund and the appalling ‘losses’ incurred.  So far, no answer. Hence the validity of the remarks below of YB Ting.

An MACC investigation should be launched immediately

AMANAH SAHAM SARAWAK
(Debate Speech by YB Ting Tiong Choon on the debate of Motion of Appreciation in the Sarawak State Legislative Council)

Tuan Speaker, I have previously comment in this house the viability of the Amanah Saham Sarawak, but the Minister has ignored the concern. Two weeks ago, I was given this Interim Report of Amanah Saham Sarawak dated 8th of February 2019 and signed by Tan Sri Datuk Amar Haji Bujang Mohd Nor and Dato Haji Idris Haji Buang.

Amanah Saham Sarawak is a Sarawak government linked investment holding company. It was set up in 1993 with the aim of providing opportunity for Bumiputera Sarawak to enter main stream cash and equity economy collectively. And I believe most unitholders are from rural Dayaks communities where cash compensation for compulsory acquisition of NCR land were channelled to Amanah Saham Sarawak for long term “growth and income fund”.

For the information of the house, there are currently 62,361 unitholders of Amanah Saham Sarawak, holding a total of more than 457 million units. Each of this unit is guaranteed the par value of RM1 by Sarawak Government.

As on 31st December 2018, the net asset value for one unit of Amanah Saham Sarawak is a mere 2.9 cents, and Sarawak Government is liable for the rest 97.1 cents for each unit as guarantor.

The net asset of Amanah Saham Sarawak has reduced by 62% in 2018, from RM35 million to RM13 million ringgit. Most of the asset in Amanah Saham Sarawak is in cash or bank deposit or non-trading stocks. The fund has lost RM4.3 million in the last 6 months, and most of these losses were due to ludicrous management fees.

Sarawakians entrusted their government to manage the State resources and the successive BN/GPS governments have performed poorly in the past 55 years. In Amanah Saham Sarawak, the real monies of Sarawak Bumiputera unitholders and the Sarawak government were virtually disappeared in front of their eyes.

Mr Speaker, I want to spend a few minutes regarding the operation of Amanah Saham Sarawak, which I think is the 1MDB of Sarawak.

Amanah Saham Sarawak has recently changed the fund manager to Amanahraya Trustees Berhad.

There are 3 Board of Directors:

1. Dato Sri Ahmad Tarmizi Bin Haji Sulaiman

He is our State Financial Secretary since 2004.

He was the CEO of Amanah Saham Sarawak Berhad between 1993 to 2002 He is also the Chairman of Sacofa Sdn. Bhd.

2.DatukAbangHajiAbdulKarimBinTunAbangHajiOpeng,aprominentcorporate figure in Sarawak.

He is the President of the Sarawak Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) He is the Chairman of Brooke Dockyard and Engineering Works Corporation

A Senior Director of Ta Ann Holdings Bhd.

A member of Sarawak Islamic Council and the President of Sarawak Bumiputra Chamber of Entrepreneurs

3. Ambrose Anak Enturan

A prominent Dayaks leader in PBB

Current member for N64 Katibas since 1991

He was Assistant Minister of Resource Planning, Assistant Minister of Finance and Assistant Minister of Rural Development and Public Utilities.

A Board of Director of Ta Ann Holding Berhad

The Executive Director of Hornbill Skyways Sdn Bhd.

We have the 3 of the most qualified persons in Sarawak sitting on the Board of Directors for Amanah Saham Sarawak and yet the Trust is now in danger of zero net asset within a year.

There are 2 other people in Amanah Saham Sarawak Berhad:

1. Pengerusi Tan Sri Datuk Amar Haji Bujang Mohd Nor

The Director of Sarawak Timber Industry Development Corporation The Executive Chairman of Harwood Timber Sdn Bhd

The Acting Governor of Sarawak on 2 separate occasions

2. Pengarah Dato Haji Idris Haji Buang

A member of this August House for Mara Tuang Senator for Dewan Negara between 2005 to 2008 Group Chairman of Hock Seng Lee Berhad

Director of Sarawak Energy Berhad

The Information Chief of PBB, and

A member of the Sarawak Public Account Committee.

The total asset of the fund is now only RM31.8 million (80% in cash) and it is inconceivable that ASS will able making profit again. The income for the fund is now minimal and yet the management fee is in excess of RM7 million a year. The management fee is exorbitant because the management fee of 1.5% of managed fund include the guarantee of RM444 million by Sarawak Government. So Amanah Saham Sarawak paid an extra of RM6.66 million to the fund manager for doing nothing. WHY?

It is also interesting to note that Amanah Saham Sarawak has a current liability of more than RM18 million to the fund manager as on 31 December 2018. In another word, the fund manager has not been paid for more than two and a half years.

In fact, this Fund’s expenditure has been consistently more than its income for the past few years. In 2019, the cost for managing Amanah Saham Sarawak is going to be more than 50% of the unit value and that is certainly not viable.

Tuan Speaker, has Amanah Saham Sarawak been operating while insolvent over the past few years? I predict Amanah Saham Sarawak would have no net asset before the end of the year. I would assume anyone with common sense would redeem their units immediately.

Amanah Saham Sarawak has asset of more than half a billion 25 years ago is now basically worthless to the unitholders if not guaranteed by Sarawak people. Tuan Speaker, if 5 calibre leaders mentioned above who are mainly from PBB if not all, are not able to safeguard our asset, how can Sarawakians expect GPS to preserve our resources and to protect our rights as Anak Sarawak.

Tuan Speaker, how many cases like this in Sarawak? How much public assets are mismanaged by the government? How much assets were trashed like this? Are there endemic in the Administration? I would recommend PAC to do a full investigation on Amanah Saham Sarawak before the case is taken up by MACC

   

 

   

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