Sorry. Chances are, according to Tony Pua, you already have.
Some of you might have seen a video on your feed, where Tony Pua claims to have uncovered this huge scandal about how our Prime Minister is robbing the country’s future away with this 1MDB fund. But at 30 minutes, we doubt many of you actually watched the whole thing, so we watched it for you, and we can honestly say, it’s a very scary video.
What’s almost as scary is how few people know what this whole thing is about. Here are some comments from our own office.
“Eh i thought it’s like BR1M”
“Oh it’s not a property thing like Iskandar project?”
Nope. Nice try guys.
So today, we’re gonna tell you how this fund might actually result in every household in Malaysia giving RM4000 to our PM to invest in some rather questionable activities. In a nutshell here are 5 easier-to-understand points about the mysterious 1MDB fund, 100% speculation-free.
We want to stress that we really tried to find the real numbers here, and not take anyone’s word for it. Figures here are not from Tony Pua’s video, but sources such as TheStar.com.my, Edge Investments and 1MDB’s own site. If you spot any better sources, let us know in the comments and we’ll try to fix em!
1. 1MDB is a private investment company, that borrowed RM38 billion, and is run by … the government?!
Yep that’s right. So it’s private, but it’s 100% owned by the Ministry of Finance, with our PM, Ah Jib Kor as it’s Chairman(makes sense since he’s also our Finance Minister).
So what’s it do? Well, in the five years since it’s been around, it’s just been borrowing ALOT of money – RM38billion worth, in fact. Here’s what our PM asked the team to do with that money.
“Be bold and daring… to break new ground and do things differently” - Prime Minister Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib Tun Haji Abdul Razak instructs the 1MDB team on 11 January 2010
So where does all this money go into? Well on their site, it lists 3 things.
Two development areas, and a bunch of power plants. Hmmm. When we think bold and daring, we’re thinking more of this stuff.
So maybe 1MDB’s power plants are solar or like fusion reactors!?
Erm…. nope. Just good ol’ coal and gas.
2. A lot of the ‘profits’ are kinda dodgy
![DilbertMadeUpNumbers](http://static.cilisos.my/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/DilbertMadeUpNumbers.jpg)
from the brilliant mind of Scott Adams
We’ll give you one example. Easiest one to understand…
One of the biggest projects from 1MDB is the Tun Razak Exchange (TRX), a new financial district behind Berjaya Times Square. According to Tony Pua, and matched by this report from The Star, they originally bought the land from the government in late 2010 at RM191 million
In 2011, they revalued it to RM1.1 billion
In 2012, they revalued it to RM1.8 billion
In 2013, they revalued it to RM3.5 billion
In 2014, they revalued it to RM6.2 billion
WHOAH. But why? Ah. So this gets a bit complicated. Let’s explain it this way.
“Say a guy wants to date this girl. But her mum refuses to let her go out with anyone but a millionaire. Unfortunately, the guy only has a house worth RM600,000. So he gets his friend, who’s a real estate agent, to tell the girls mom that the house is actually worth RM1.2 million.” – MAT MATIK
Problem solved!
Except that in this case, every year, that house doubles in value. Since its original buying price in 2010 at RM191 million, the house has appreciated by 3250%. Erm okay… Pavillion Residences is nearby to TRX – and in the same time period, it’s only gone up by about 43%.
So why does 1MDB do this? Well, imagine that the mum is The Rakyat. And we want this company to be successful, so it keeps revaluing its house to show us that it is. Except that DESPITE these questionable gains, last year, 1MDB still lost RM665.3million.
Yikes. And that’s only one example. Here’s another and another.
---- You can read the rest of the articles on http://cilisos.my/would-you-give-our-prime-minister-rm4000-to-invest-for-you/ -----
Oh, and here’s Tony Pua’s 30 minute video again. Hopefully, we’ve increased your chances of sitting through it now
cn21
good job! Mr. Chak..
2014-11-26 19:52