Monday, July 28, 2008

Petrol subsidy, what subsidy?

Malaysians have been deceived for so long that we have been subsidized for our petrol. In fact we have been paying more than our fair share for our petrol. How is this? We need to look at the big picture of petrol prices, the price of cars, toll charges, per capita income and the cost and efficiency of public transportation.

Let me make a simple comparison between Malaysia and Australia to show that we have been cheated all these years.

1. Per capita income of Australia (USD35,990.00) is more than 6 times that of Malaysia (USD5,490.00) in 2006. (Source: World Bank)

2. Starting pay of a graduate in Malaysia RM2,500.00 per month and in Australia AUD4,000.00 (RM12,000.00) per month.

3. Price of one liter of petrol in Malaysia RM2.70 and in Australia AUD1.75 (RM5.25). The price differential is RM2.55 a liter.

Assume we buy a similar new car in both countries, a 1.8L Honda Civic Auto cost RM110,000.00 in Malaysia and AUD24,000.00 (RM72,000.00) in Australia. That is a difference of RM38,000.00. If we divide the price differential of the car with the cost of petrol, 38,000/2.55=14,900 liters of petrol. This means that an owner of a Honda Civic will upon consuming the first 14,900 liters of petrol is actually not getting a single cent of subsidy from the government.

The cost of a new Honda Civic in Malaysia is equivalent to 44 months salary of a fresh graduate. In Australia it is 6 months salary of a fresh graduate. It is a known fact that according to our previous Minister of MITI she openly admitted that the government is now dependent on car duty as an important source of government revenue.

So where has the trillions of ringgit collected all these years gone?

I was holidaying in Australia recently, we drove about 8,000 km from Melbourne to Perth and return, and guess what? No TOLL all the way. The road condition is similar to that of our Malaysian roads.
The state of public transportation in this country is a joke and the government will never improve public transportation as this will force Malaysians to buy the national car!

If we look at the big picture it looks as if we Malaysians have been taken for a ride the Malaysian government all these years without realizing it. We have been fooled and conned by the Malaysian government into believing that the government has been so kind to us by subsidizing our petrol.

The government treated the rakyat like bodoh, yes for 50 years the rakyat are suckers, but, come the next election is pay back time. Then, you see who is the real "sucker".

Friday, July 25, 2008

Millions paid to RM650 company

LONDON : The Youth and Sports Ministry entered into a multi-million ringgit agreement to host a football tournament with a company with a paid-up capital of just RM650 and accumulated losses exceeding RM6.5 million.

If it had carried out a due diligence test, as is required by practice and convention, before entering into an agreement involving such a big amount of money, it certainly would not have parted with RM17 million as "bidding fees" to host the Champions Youth Cup (CYC) tournament last year. And certainly, it would not have parted with RM8 million as "advance" for this year’s tournament, which has since been aborted.

For the record, the tournament held in four venues was a failure in terms of crowd support, gate collections and television viewership, despite promises of "Malaysia being mentioned several hundred times in international dispatches".

Both the ministry and the London-based Gifted Group Ltd are now embroiled in a controversy over the now-aborted tournament after the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) refused to sanction the tournament. Both Gifted and the ministry have threatened to sue each other for breach.

All this could have been avoided if only officials in the ministry had carried out checks.

Gifted Group’s Jonathan James Price and former youth and sports minister Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said had always maintained that the monies paid to the company were "bidding fees" but nowhere in the world does any country "bid" to host any tournament for three consecutive years.

But an examination of Gifted Group’s filings with the Companies House here (the equivalent of Companies Commission of Malaysia) revealed that the RM17 million from Malaysia may have pulled Gifted Group out of financial trouble.

According to its accounts, it had accumulated losses of £1.044 million as of June 30, 2006. No further returns have been filed.

Price holds 74% of the shares (the other 26% being held by Indigo Holdings Ltd) and has six other subsidiaries of which only one – Gifted Management Ltd – is active. It, too, incurred losses of £58,000 (RM375,000) in 2005, which was carried forward the following year although records show there was no trading or transactions.

The records also show that the company has an outstanding loan of £600,000 (RM3.8 million) from an unnamed investor at an interest of 2% per annum. Interest due was £46,358 (RM299,000) and was to be settled on or before Nov 8 last year. The CYC was launched on March 16, 2007 and the tournament held in August. There have been no subsequent filings of company accounts.

Efforts by the Sun to seek comments from Gifted Group drew a blank as it is operating from an office suite complex in upmarket central London, a stone’s throw from Parliament House, to which access is restricted by receptionists who control access to all offices there.

Reached by phone from the reception at the ground floor, Price’s secretary, someone who gave her name as Marissa, said her boss was out of town. They have yet to return calls to the Sun.


R. Nadeswaran and Terence Fernandez

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Money - RM5 billion loss, more waste and losses

The Government of Dato Seri Abdullah Badawi has lost billions of Ringgit by cancelling the bridge project to replace the causeway, postponing the double-tracking and electrification of the North-South railway and the sale of M.V. Agusta by Proton.

The Government had also wasted money - RM2 billion in Terengganu.

Thinking that he had the right to use Wang Ehsan, the royalty from Petronas to the State of Terengganu totalling more than five billion Ringgit over several years Dato Seri Abdullah together with Dato Seri Idris Jusoh, the former Menteri Besar of Terengganu went on a spending spree.

Without any proper study and planning, without bothering about the rules and regulations about how Government money should be allocated and used, Dato Seri Abdullah and Dato Seri Idris and their cronies spent huge sums of the "Wang Ehsan" on a theme park (Crystal Mosque), Monsoon Cup, development of Setiu etc etc. More than two billion Ringgit were poured into Terengganu.

Then in 2008, Barisan Nasional won and Abdullah happily decided to spend more of the Wang Ehsan on fancy projects.

Unfortunately the Sultan of Terengganu refused to have Idris Jusoh as Menteri Besar. It was a slap in the face for Abdullah when he was forced to accept the Sultan's nominee as Menteri Besar.

This new Menteri Besar insisted that the royalty due to Terengganu should be paid to the State and the State should manage the fund.

This was as it should be. But the Menteri Besar insisted that what was spent before this in building the theme park, organising the Monsoon Cup etc worth about RM 2 billion was not from the royalty due to Terengganu. It was from Federal fund.

He demanded that the full amount of royalty over the years should be paid to Terengganu.

So RM2 billion of Federal funds have been expended on Terengganu, the richest State in Malaysia.

Failing this Terengganu has a court case initiated by the PAS Government which the BN State Government has not withdrawn.

The Federal Government will now have to find some RM5 billion to give to Terengganu. Where is this money going to come from? Obviously from the Federal Consolidated Fund.

Basically the Federal Government will lose RM5 billion because it had assumed that a tame Terengganu Menteri Besar would collaborate in some of the most wasteful projects for the State and the country.

I am told that a Disneyland designer was engaged to design the "Crystal Mosque" and theme park. Must cost a lot.

Some contractors made tons of money getting projects without proper processes.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Double Standard - Malaysian Education Sucks!!

Education Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammudin Tun Hussein’s son is doing O’ levels and will be going off to the United Kingdom this coming September to further his studies.

Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s daughter, Nooryana Najwa has been accepted into Georgetown University in Washington DC to read politics and international relations after doing her IB (International Baccalaureate).

Datuk Seri Hishamuddin Tun Hussein and Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s children are academically smart. However, it seems like both of them did not sit for SPM.
Before doing her IB, Nooryana had her education in Garden International School. Najib’s son, Norashman Razak had his education there too.

But Garden International School bases its curriculum on the National Curriculum of England. It teaches the English National Curriculum through Key Stages 1 to 4 and Cambridge ‘A’ Level.

So why weren’t Datuk Seri Najib’s and Datuk Seri Hishamuddin’s children following the Malaysian Education System? Were our DPM and current Education Minister trying to be kind to not let the government subsidize their kids’ education by sending their offsprings to a private school instead of national schools?

Or is it that both Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and Datuk Seri Hishamuddin Tun Hussein do not have confidence in the Malaysian Education System because it is too crap that they had to sent their kids to a private school which follows the English National Curriculum so that their kids would not be screwed up by the already screwed-up education system in Malaysia?

Why didn’t your kids go through like anybody else, SPM, then Matriculation or STPM before gaining admission to Uni.

Here, you government expect our kids to fight among ourselves to gain entry into local universities and make us believe in our Malaysian Education System, there, you guys send your kids overseas at the expense of the Govt.

This is practising double standard.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

BASTARDS NEVER LEARN

When the rakyat are suffering, these scumbags can still afford to enjoy life...

No oil royalty was used to purchase 14 Mercedes E200 Kompressors at RM3.43 million as official cars for Terengganu executive councillors and senior state government officials, according to Menteri Besar Datuk Ahmad Said.

In defending the state government's decision to purchase the expensive cars to replace the Proton Perdana V6 Executive cars for the same official use, he said it was meant to save cost in the long run as the maintenance of the Proton Perdana cars was too high."We are not saying that the national car is not good, but the reality is that in less than two years of use, the cars had to be repaired due to faulty components like the gear box.
"For example, the car used by the Trade, Industry and Environment Committee chairman Toh Chin Yaw had been repaired twice costing RM50,000. But the Merdeces cars, although expensive to purchase, will incur us less maintenance cost in the long term," he explained.

Ahmad was asked by reporters about the reported purchase of the Mercedes cars, after attending a 'tahlil' function held in conjunction with the birthday of the Terengganu Sultan, Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin, at Istana Maziah here, Sunday.
The function was also attended by Terengganu Regency Advisory Council member Tengku Sri Laksamana Raja Tengku Sulaiman Sultan Ismail Nasiruddin Shah, state executive councillors and state assemblymen.
Ahmad said the purchase of the Mercedes E200 cars was financed by a sum allocated earlier by the state government and not by oil royalty."How could we use the oil royalty when we have not even received it from the federal government?" he said.-- BERNAMA

Thursday, July 17, 2008

US Election's effects on Drugs Companies

Crow Tribal Council Chairperson Carl Venne and...Image via WikipediaFrom emails.

Obama’s Nasty Effect on Pharmaceutical Companies

By Charles Delvalle

Some of the most solid opportunities in the stock market are those that happen because of politics. Let’s face it, the government controls billions of dollars and could make or break industries. The effect an Obama presidency could have on Pharmaceutical companies is one you should be well aware of.

As many of you may know, Barack Obama (and democrats in general) is in favor of importing medicines from overseas, allowing the government to negotiate lower prices with drug companies, and increasing the use of generics. Sounds good for us, but not for big pharmaceutical companies.

First, if the use of generics increases, that means big pharmaceutical companies will make less sales. Second, drug companies charge Americans up to two times more for medicine than European or Canadians. If they have to cut those profits in half because the U.S. negotiated lower prices, that means they receive less profits. If they receive fewer profits you can be sure that their stock prices will fall.
So do yourself a favor and stay away from pharmaceutical companies until after November 11.

Adopted from Investors Daily

The 2008 Election: What does it mean for drugmakers?
February 6, 2008
By Maureen Martino

The winner of the 2008 election will be faced with making key decisions on a number of issues important to drug developers. Questions as to whether there will be more federal funding for stem cell research, a faster path for biogenerics, or a change to the structure of the nation’s healthcare system will have to be addressed by the next president, and how they tackle those issues will have serious repercussions for the industry. Here’s a look at the front-runners’ stance on several topics vital to the biotech and pharmaceutical industries.

Barack Obama supports:

  • Reimportation of drugs
  • Greater generic drug use by Medicare, Medicade, ect
  • Establishing a government institute for comparative research between drugs.
  • Allowing the government to purchase prescription drugs in bulk to reduce costs.
  • Universal healthcare
  • Embryonic stem cell (ESC) research


Hilary Clintion supports:

  • Doubling NCI and NHC funding
  • Increaseing the number of patients involved in cancer clinical trials.
  • A pathway for biogenerics
  • Lower prescription drug costs and universal health care
  • Giving Medicare the power to negotiate prescription drug prices
  • Stricter control of drug advertising
  • ESC research


John McCain supports:
  • A pathway to approve biogenerics
  • An increase use of generic drugs
  • Reimportation of drugs
  • Allowing the government to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs for the Medicare Part D program
  • ESC research
  • Zemanta Pixie

    Tuesday, July 15, 2008

    High time our King steps in

    We have been experiencing internal turmoil after the general election on March 8. Its crystal clear that the current ruling party, Umno, is manipulating the police force merely to give itself full protection.

    To achieve their (BN) objective to remain in power, they are now dragging in our army. All this wrongdoing needs be corrected by someone who is above all of us, and that is our King.
    The King is the right person to intervene to diffuse the political tension once and for all.
    Our BN government is not much different from the junta which administers Burma except that they (the junta) run the army and we are run by the police.
    The main task of the police is to keep the country in order but here they are creating more chaos for example Monday’s road blocks.

    It’s high time that our King interferes to make things right before the rakyat reacts. We are treated like fools by the ruling government and no one is coming to rescue us.
    I appeal to our King to please come forward to correct the situation as well as to return the country’s balance.

    Sunday, July 13, 2008

    Pak Li can one

    Breaking News!! Check this out!!



















    You think the Govt can subsidize so can our
    friendly neighbourhood kopitiam "Pak Li".

    I suggest you guys who likes to hang out at
    mamak (cut throat buggers) or kopi shop (kiasu)
    to patronize "Pak Li Kopitiam",
    cheap, clean and nice environment,
    and you know what
    free "Wi-fi" also man..

    Clowns with suit in the market

    We have two clowns in our parliament - one is the Kinabatangan MP Bung Mokhtar and the other Ibrahim Ali (Independent). They love to talk and do silly things in parliament in order to gain the attraction of the media..

    One shows an obscene hand gesture shamelessly and feels so proud that he has done something wonderful while the other talks so much about one male goat giving service to eighty female goats in Kelantan.

    What have these two things got to do with Parliament? The people`s representatives are there to talk and debate on important issues regarding the country but the two clowns have turned this place into an entertainment centre.
    Malaysian voters should be wise enough to cast their votes in the next GE. We should not be wasting money on these jokers who are there to make fun and thus giving the country a bad image.
    People who cannot contribute positively to the country should not be there at all.

    kaisim

    Thursday, July 3, 2008

    Watermelon Replaces Viagra

    Melon anyone ?

    "Watermelons contain an ingredient called citrulline that can trigger production of a compound that helps relax the body's blood vessels, similar to what happens when a man takes Viagra, said scientists in Texas, one of the nation's top producers of the seedless variety."

    You can divide it to more than four pieces..

    Watermelon juice may rise above $144 per barrel.

    Wednesday, July 2, 2008

    An Eyeful Keeps The Doctor Away!

    Via emails...



    Check out some references here and here

    Who is Jonathan Hayter ?