How long before Australia wakes-up to the fact we are bankrolling the most corrupt people on Earth?
Case
in point: Sarawak potentate Taib Mahumud, educated under the Colombo
plan at taxpayers expense. Today Australian taxpayers still subsidise timber for one of Taib's proxy ventures called Ta Ann
Tasmania. This company pays no tax but still gets handouts from the Australian and Tasmanian governments.
Take a look at how the Sarawak Mafia live?
From Sarawak Report
This was the nice little prezzie that Taib bought his young wife to
celebrate their 5th anniversary and his 80th birthday last weekend.
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35 year old Ragad’s 5th anniversary present – a RM1.5 million Bentley |
After all, there have to be compensations for having a husband half a
century older than yourself and for a certain type of lady a new RM1.5
million Bentley clearly does the trick – even if the family garage is
already stuffed with endless other variations on the same theme.
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Same couple, different flash motor |
We are, of course, merely talking about the transportation of a
family of suspicious wealth from one side of their modest capital to the
other – the roads outside of Kuching are not fit to use such motors,
thanks to the policies of Taib himself.
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Ragad, present and its donor. |
Meanwhile, it is noticeable that the lavish anniversary celebrations over the weekend were not attended by the Prime Minister.
Najib, having hung around as much as possible to ‘gain the glory’ of
Sarawak’s rigged state election ‘win’ for BN, was also noticeably absent
from Adenan’s swearing-in ceremony.
Insiders have surmised that the reason was that the occasion
inevitably gave a centre stage to Governor Abdul Taib Mahmud, who
remains, of course, the real power behind his protege and brother in
law, Adenan, and who still controls the economy of Malaysia’s richest
state.
The two ageing billionaires (Najib and Taib) are said to have fallen
out in a rather spectacular way as the 1MDB scandal plunged into its
present debacle – according to one insider
“frozen bank accounts create very bad tempers”.
Back in the beginning it was UBG
It is known that Jho Low, who is at the centre of the scandal, had
already been working hand in glove with Taib in the planned off-loading
of his family’s UBG group from 2008. Low spearheaded an investment into
the group (becoming a 50% shareholder through his company Majestic
Masterpiece) and became an alternate director to Taib’s son Abu Bekir.
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Another little run around for Ragad |
Jho Low was later introduced directly to Najib, say insiders, and of
course the evidence now obtained by Sarawak Report shows that Low used
US$260 million obtained from 1MDB to then buy both himself and Taib out
of the group at a very handsome profit in 2010.
That money enabled huge sums to be leveraged from banks such as
AmBank to achieve the buy out, which must have pleased Taib immensly at
the time. Now, however it has left all parties exposed in the glare of
publicity.
Worse, there is growing speculation as to the sources of the money
lent to 1MDB at highly favourable rates of interest. Specifically,
Goldman Sachs have made clear that one of the reasons they charged such
enormous rates and the costs were so high for the US$3 billion loan
taken out in March 2013, was because 1MDB (ie Najib) was in such a hurry
they wanted the money raised in a week.
Could Taib Mahmud, who was known to be close to Goldman boss, Tim
Leissener (who was at one point engaged to his neice) have been the
eventual source of that enormous profitable loan, people in the know are
now asking?
In which case the tensions would be all the more explicable between Taib and Najib!
Meanwhile, it is clear that Taib has started to get used to his
prizing from his previous Chief Minister’s post, a move he quite
accurately blames on Najib, who had decided that Taib’s increasingly
dirty image gave him the excuse to clip the wings of this over-powerful
local leader.
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Sabah’s Musa Aman |
That was before Najib’s own image started to suffer the consequences of exposure, naturally.
Indeed, the developments over 1MDB can be said to have saved the
political skin of East Malaysia’s other timber crook, Musa Aman, next
door in Sabah.
Najib had also planned to chop him too, according to our
intelligence, but is happy to cling to fellow crooks in return for their
support, now that his own political position is undermined.
Meanwhile, Taib is currently plainly determined to try and enjoy
those billions, which he has abused his position of trust to obtain and
he is back flashing his wealth and overly young wife round little
Kuching.
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Ragad driving Taib round his Kuching ‘manor’ |
Likewise, Ragad, who has been known to lose her temper and kick her
fragile spouse from time to time, seems now settled into the prospect of
a good eventual settlement.
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Enough food for a town of hungry Sarawakian folk |
After all, Taib has always put his business before anything else and
had indicated that his eventual plan was to concentrate on that full
time, once he had secured control of decision making in Sarawak through a
willing agent.
Originally, this had been assumed to be his sons. Now, however, his
ex-brother in law Adenan appears to be doing just as good a job of
ensuring that the contracts and concessions pass the way of Taib’s
family companies as previously.
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Adenan’s former wife, Taib’s sister Zainab, is 4th from left |
Adenan has proved content to speak reform, but to continue the
management of Sarawak (and its ‘elections’) exactly as before – for the
benefit of this clique of families and to the misery of the rest of the
people and destruction of the jungle.
They must hope that the swirling clouds of global corruption
investigations do not suddenly burst open over their heads also, or that
the house of cards will not totally collapse, or that the chain
reaction of revelations will not continue……..
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