Clang! Clang! Clang!
If the Geng Loceng had call for an emergency retreat to regroup following new revelation from Attorney General that the RM2.6 billion donation was given to Dato Najib by Saudi royal, it would have sounded like that.
The term Geng Loceng was introduced by Rocky Bru to describe a group of anti-Najib bloggers in his posting yesterday.
Wonder why he did not use kompang instead of loceng to describe their modus operandi to create noises of rumours and spins on cyberspace. However, it is not too difficult to guess who are the members.
Not sure if they had a meeting but retreat they did as OutSyed the Box is running for cover as he cowardly restrict his blog to only approved members. Prior to this, he would take off any postings made by the next day. Yesterday, he withdrew a posting within a few hours.
He may seemed panicky but the other members seemed to do a tactical retreat.
Dow Jones vs BBC
Immediately upon AG's statement, the Geng Loceng went about to viral a nasdaq.com news claiming Saudi government official denial and laughably claim the already denied FBI is still investigating.
That only blew open to reaffirm their collaboration with WSJ, NYT, Sarawak Report, The Edge, etc as highlighted in Rocky's and many other blogs' postings before. Nasdaq.com is administered by Dow Jones, whose ultimate shareholder is Rupert Murdoch.
Typical of WSJ, the nasdaq news also did not specifically named their source. The author of the report Bradley Hope is a reporter with WSJ and have been slandering 1MDB and Najib.
Interestingly, the report claimed their source do not have info, refuse to elaborate further on their so-called claim it never happened, and no Saudi royal could be reached for comment. Basically, they had nothing but subjective opinions and doubts, like quite a large segment of the Malaysian public.
So let us not be misled by Geng Loceng.
The next day BBC report claimed their source confirm it was Saudi Royal's money. Reuters too made similar report.
Among the international media, the reputation and integrity of Rupert Murdoch and his coterie of media brand pales in comparison to BBC and Reuters. WSJ and nasdaq.com news are influential but turned rubbish since it fell to the hands of Rupert Murdoch.
Rocky argued that AG or these international medias will not dare mention the Saudi Royals if it is not true. Lest they are willing to face the consequence of lawsuit.
So what will the Geng Loceng do next?
Arab donation?
They could not sit still and allow logical arguments to percolate and eventually be widely accepted by the public. It must be nip in the bud.
Tun Dr Mahathir came forward to do a blog posting and say it makes no sense for Saudi to give so much. He had all the while claim that he could never get money from the Arabs.
All due respect but that is no quite true.
Arabs do donate a lot of money to Muslim countries. It is also an open secret that Saudi donate any riba received from their investment.
Saudi have been donating money to educational institutions like UIA, Kolej Islam Klang, and even built an MRSM for MARA. Saudi had channeled humanitarian money through Malaysia for oppressed Muslim minorities in the region.
Few members of the Saudi family can chip in and gather USD700 million easily. Or was it now US1.0 billion cause the amount is no more RM2.6 billion but RM4 billion. AS RPK argued, by changing figure it proves the USD700 million was intentionally cooked up to match the USD700 million payment made by 1MDB to Good Star Ltd.
One former and retired high official from the Home Ministry recently told us he was aware Tun M himself received political donation from Middle East for general election during his time.
Maybe it is not as much since Tun M did say he only need RM10 million to run a general election. So all these stories of corporate exercises to generate political funding could have been the wild imagination of opposition.
Naturally, opposition would not believe it is not true. Even some UMNO supporters expressed disbelieve in the social media.
Frozen account
While that serve to create doubt on the gullible and naive, Tun M tried another doubt creation tactic. He said how can Najib returned back the money when Singapore had frozen the accounts.
So he may know something we do not know. And he seem to know things we do not know in the past like claiming RM42 billion of money borrowed by 1MDB had disappeared and FBI will arrest Najib when he goes to New York for a UN session.
Till he share the proofs and the event actually happen, it will be difficult to take his words when he is on a political warpath and doing purely perception game.
The rumour of Singapore freezing accounts related to 1MDB happened in the midst of hype over the Cayman Island money parked in Singapore. Till today, there have been no development by Singaporean authorities. Is Singapore that inefficient or it's a WSJ propaganda for the Geng Loceng?
Negarawan mudah lupa. If money was returned, it would have been done long time ago.
Nevertheless, should Saudi denied AG's claim that the money was returned, it spells the end for Najib. Otherwise, one can only speculate, doubt and refuse to accept the fact presented. At the same time, the sceptics have nothing firm to hold on to. Only a Saudi denial will confirm their instinct.
Expectedly, there are many that remain in doubt over the latest development which limited few had known all the while, including yours truly.
It is understandable because the issue was not nip in the bud early. Najib decide to do the slow and proper way of getting qualified third party confirmation. He couldn't deny in the heat of the moment. No one will believe him then and doing the expected will put one into a trap set.
From the feedback of sceptics, the impression is the number of sceptics remain the same. It is anybody's guess. However, it is practically end game for Geng Loceng to continue and create new lies and spins, especially when one of their blogger chicken out.
Alahai ... talk of prominent blogger expecting MACC Commissioner on the way out.
That is copy and paste of Tun M's mind game. Tan Sri Abu Kassin had a slip disc surgery and he may not be that well yet. They may have anticipated he will retire thus spin it as Najib dropping him.
The latest development by MACC's Dato Bahri is strange. The power to prosecute lies with the AG. [Read Bigdog here.] It was MACC themselves that refuse to be given the responsibility to prosecute.
Is he getting even for a past incident due to boo boo by KSN and DG for JPA ...? Lets do a solat hajat like the last time around and seek Allah's guidance.The last solat hajat had been good eye opener thus far.
Slandering Azeez
The Geng Loceng did try to create something on Tabung Haji by leaking a BAFIA confidential letters to Minister in charge and Chairman cc to CEO of Tabung Haji. It may be targeted at Chairman Dato Azeez.
Rafizi, the court confirmed slanderer, echoed their attack to call for his resignation. Collaboration also?
Much information and answer have been given in the previous posting but something not quite right about the negative reserve term used by Bank Negara that was repeated by pro-opposition news portal.
If Bank Negara apply the same treatment on Tabung Haji to all the Banks, then all Banks should close shop. Banks operate with loan-to-deposit ratio of about 90% and maintain liquidity ratio of only 10 and 20%. It is has always been living on the edge.
Tabung Haji does short and long term investment. Unlike Banks, they do not lend on borrowed money. Any shortfall due to withdrawal can be addressed by liquidating short term investment. CEO Tan Sri Ismee mentioned Bank Negara did not include and considered all of Tabung Haji's investment.
God forbid should there be a massive withdrawal to Tabung Haji and Banks. If it happens, it is the Banks that will go under easier.
Whatever the prejudice and rumours against Azeez to demand him to resign, it is not easy to swindle money from Tabung Haji.
There are layers and layers of Committee that was instituted by Dato Abdul Wahid Omar when he was called in to address leakages in the investment back in the 90s. If Azeez manage to do so, then he must be a financial wizard.
The Geng Loceng may have forgotten and intentionally forget. To them, politics is everything. Bring Najib down at any cost. Lie if they have too.
Sound argument does not matter. As a result, the quality of their argument have declined. They have resorted to lowdown practices of name calling, bad languages and spewing insults.
If we are to reveal something about them and Tabung Haji, malu nanti kang ... So please leave it alone. Do not destroy an important Islamic institution though some of them hardly have any savings in Tabung Haji and subscribe to deviant Islamic beliefs and practices.
Edra desperation
In the sales of Edra, Geng Loceng resorted to lie that it was sold to China. It was to justify the simpleton spin that 1MDB bought IPPs from local to sell to foreigners. The fact is IWH Berhad of Johor has a majority control in the deal. Give them a chance la...
Subsequently, they tried to confuse the naive public as though the sales figure is not RM7 billion something but RM5 billion something using some public announcement abroad. Announced figure and final figure may differ slightly till execution is completed.
However, 1MDB is not stupid and SPM dropout to do such a lie. They would not be able to pull off a RM2 billion lie. It is already the most investigated and scrutinised organisation.
The shallow argument of jual negara is a simple and great propaganda to instill anger among the common folks. The problem with it is they are not consistent.
TPPA
On one hand, they spin to oppose the sales of Edra to China, but on the other hand, they are against TPPA because of American involvement. Then they say lets join BRIC which has the presence of China instead of TPPA.
Please make up their mind. What are they talking about? TPPA is about international trade, but BRIC is about financial infrastructure. Two different subjects!
There also this interesting argument against TPPA that Malaysia cannot withdraw. If they do, they will get sued. It shows they have not been doing their homework and going through the 6,000 pages document. A summary is available here.
The final TPPA is not the same as the terms in negotiations that we had opposed. Geng Loceng makes a big fuzz over TPPA and got their poodle NGO to participate in an opposition rally but why the silent when Tun M allowed Malaysia to go into negotiation by WTO for the GATT Agreement since 1995.
The terms are far worse than TPPA!
There was someone who promoted EAEG or was it EAEC. It was his idea that bloomed into TPP. Is it a case of hurt ego?
Irrespective of the political outcome to Najib and UMNO, as far as the argument to justify their dissent towards Najib is concern, it is already endgame as Bigdog puts it.
Many may not know of happenings behind the scene, but The Edge realised they erred and that made them U turn to give a glowing interview to Arul Kanda.
And, Tan Sri Zeti Akhtar showed glimpses of realisation that she erred in the CNBC interview.
* Edited 4:20 PM