The task is to decipher the moral basis of the Malay political community into actionable language . People in the end obey the law because they think it is fair and just, that it applies equally to all, and because they get morally habituated to it. It thus becomes a form of self-restraint . Hence, the demand for governance reform must emerge out of Malay moral core. Our schools must inspire the young with these ideals as a part of a broad citizenship project. Social media and technology are powerful tools in the hands of the young and they are capable of making these ideals dharmic habits of Malay heart. Only thus will we recover constitutional morality.The task is to decipher the moral basis of the Malay political community into actionable language . People in the end obey the law because they think it is fair and just, that it applies equally to all, and because they get morally habituated to it. It thus becomes a form of self-restraint . Hence, the demand for governance reform must emerge out of an Indian moral core. Our schools must inspire the young with these ideals as a part of a broad citizenship project. Social media and technology are powerful tools in the hands of the young and they are capable of making these ideals dharmic habits Malays heart. Only thus will we recover constitutional morality.
Behind the scenes a battle is raging between former PM Mahathir Mohamad and Najib Abdul Razak. Mukhriz Mahathir has suffered two serious defeats in as many months and Mahathir is sore with Najib.
In 1981, Mahathir’s political secretary, Siddiq Ghouse, was imprisoned for allegedly being a KGB agent, a few days before Mahathir became PM. Around the same time, three Soviet agents were deported for being KGB spies. Was Siddiq’s arrest and the soviet expulsion a coincidence, or a conspiracy?
In the mid-70s, then-German Chancellor Willy Brandt resigned when his aide had been arrested for being an agent of the Stasi, the East German secret service.
Mahathir’s enemies may have hoped that Siddiq’s arrest would cause Mahathir’s downfall, but it did not work, because Mahathir is not like honourable western, Japanese and South Korean politicians who resign after a whiff of scandal.
i
What is he up to now?
Today, Attorney-General Gani Patail is accused of having allegedly employed CIA operatives. Is Mahathir using the tried and tested UMNO Baru formula of “reds under the beds”, to discredit Najib’s government? A charge of sodomy against Najib’s closest aides may not work, because no member of the rakyat would believe this bit of histrionics, again.
Is Mahathir exacting his vengeance on Najib with talk of spies and espionage, using similar methods as those used to get him out of the way in 1981?
UMNO Baru and BN will use the bumis to advance their own careers. To them, the bumis are just cannon fodder. Nancy has insulted all bumis, she should make an unreserved apology.
Ahmad Zamri Asa’ad Khuzaimi said internet censorship for the interest of Mahathir and his many thieves Censoring the internet for the interests of the few Democracy is as depressing in practice as it is uplifting in theory. There have been so many corruption scandals in the past few years but political parties refuse to learn Mahathir always leads the country in bad behaviour,back to his crooked old ways before s, knowing full well its potential for fraud and waste. we have burdened a weak, corrupt institution with a massive new mandate. When institutions cannot implement existing laws, it is madness to create new ones. It only widens the gap between aspiration and performance, damages the nation’s moral character, and undermines the trust between rulers and the ruled.
Eric Schmidt is Executive Chairman of Google and Jared Cohen,In 1992, Francis Fukuyama, famous American political scientist wrote The End of History and the Last Man. Fukuyama argued that the worldwide spread of liberal democracies in the late nineties marks the end point of humanity’s socio-cultural evolution. He was referring mainly to the collapse of communism. It may be an exaggeration to call this The End of History. But the year 1989 which saw the dismantling of the Berlin Wall was no doubt a radical turning point in global history. It heralded the dominance of democracies, and the triumph of Washington in the Cold War between the American and Soviet blocs.
: “The Internet is among the few things humans have built that they don’t truly understand.”
THE BLATANT: China is the world’s most enthusiastic filterer of information. Entire platforms highly popular elsewhere in the world – Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr – are blocked by the Chinese Government. So are politically sensitive topics like Tianenmen Square protests, Dalai Lama, Tibetan rights movement, Google Chairman’s trip to Beijing in 2011, etc. The Turkish Government has had an uneasy relationship with an open Internet, though the filtering is not as blatant as in China. However, some 8000 websites have been blocked in Turkey without public notice, or official government confirmation,that the majority of the world’s Internet users encounter some form of censorship – also known by the euphemism ‘filtering’. But among countries, there are three models of filtering: the blatant, the sheepish and the politically and culturally acceptable.
“This is not about gadgets, small-phone apps or artificial intelligence, though each of these subjects will be discussed……
Most of all, this is about the importance of a guiding human hand in the new digital age. For all the possibilities that communication technologies represent, their use for good or ill depends solely on people. Forget all the talk about machines taking over. What happens in the future is up to us”
a caveat that the revolution ushered in by the internet and other modern communication devices have very serious implications for Mahathir and his gangs
Of late, the calls for internet censorship in Malaysia has gone louder and the latest is from Mahathir and his cronies this would be an insult to the intelligence of the Malays The irony is, of course, Mahathir had launched the Multimedia Super Corridor in 1990s with great fanfare and a 10-point Bill of Guarantees that include the guarantee of no censorship. But now, talk of censoring the internet is common place.is there a conspiracy? End the Master’s agony, please.Mahathir meanwhile refused to comment on the expose until he had read the statutory declaration of former Kuala Lumpur Criminal Investigations Department director Mat Zain Ibrahim that detailed the secret meeting.“Mahathir is functioning as a needle to poke Prime Minister to quickly replace Gani to allow Shafee to be appointed as the new AG. The rumours that Shafee will be appointed as AG is not new, and it has been circulating among lawyers, judges and even in AG’s Chambers since a few years back,” said Zamri.PAS Legal and Human Rights Department (JUHAM) deputy chairperson II Ahmad Zamri Asa’ad Khuzaimi alleged that behind the high-level meeting revealed in media between former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, senior lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, and several former top officers claiming to have discussed on Gani’s alleged misconducts, there was a plot to have Shafee to replace Gani.“Shafee’s presence in the special meeting to discuss about Gani’s conduct in Mahathir’s home last August showed that this agenda is actively on-going,” alleged Zamri .Shafee’s close ties with Mahathir, said Zamri, has made him unsuitable to be appointed as AG
Like many other newspaper readers I was greatly impressed by the revelations contained in the secret documents hacked by Julian Assange, Editor in Chief of WikiLeaks. So, I did feel very sorry to learn that he was under house-arrest in U.K.
Schmidt and Cohen interviewed Assange while he was under house arrest. Over the course of interview, Assange shared his two basic arguments on this subject. which are related: First, our human civilization is built upon our complete intellectual record; thus the record should be as large as possible to shape our own time and inform future generations. Second, because different actors will always try to destroy or otherwise cover up parts of that shared history out of self-interest, it should be the goal of everyone who seek and values truth to get as much as possible into the record, to prevent deletions from it, and then to make this record as accessible and searchable as possible for people everywhere.
Assange’s incarceration naturally reminded me of our own Emergency episode of the mid-seventies when over one lakh opposition activists were put behind bars as being a threat to national security, and media freedom was subjected to drastic curbs totally unprecedented. Instinctively therefore, I became inclined to view all controls on internet etc as undesirable, and therefore endorse Assange’s arguments above and his view that greater transparency will bring about a more just, safe and free world.
What can RM7.2 billion buy? Going by figures in the 2012 and 2014 Budget speeches, this could pay for Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia handouts to benefit a whopping 13.1 million people.
However, from 2009 till October 2013, the government spent exactly that amount to pay for private consultants, a written reply to Parliament has revealed.
The written reply to PKR’s Kelana Jaya MP Wong Chen does not state who these consultants are and what they were paid for. This action of the government in outsourcing policy work to consultants is not entirely new.
Top consultancy firm McKinsey said it has “advised the Malaysian government on public policy and economic development since the mid-1980s”, including on the Multimedia Super Corridor project.
“And today, we continue to advise the government on critical strategies for growth and competitiveness, for example high technology, logistics or education,” McKinsey says on its website.
At RM7.2 billion, however, it appears that the administration of 
Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak is taking the outsourcing trend a notch higher. One big winner under the Najib administration is Frost and Sullivan which, according to its website, is making Malaysia its biggest growth focus in the Asia Pacific region.
’100 consultants in three years’
The Frost and Sullivan website advertises a long list of jobs available at its Malaysian offices – mostly in consulting for government in the Iskandar region – but has only six jobs on offer for the rest of Asia-Pacific.
Established in Kuala Lumpur in 2010 with a handful of employees, its Kuala Lumpur office today boasts 100 consultants who serve 18 countries in the region.
According to technology news portal Digital News Asia, Frost and Sullivan counts the following government agencies and government-linked companies as clients:
- Iskandar Regional Development Authority (Irda)
- Malaysian Investment Development Authority
- Malaysia Development Corporation
- Mimos Bhd
- Malaysia Debt Ventures Bhd
- DRB-Hicom
- Telekom Malaysia
- Sime Darby
- Felda Holdings
Frost and Sullivan is not the only consulting company, foreign or local, riding the Malaysian government outsourcing gravy train.
Below is a list of consulting firms that list the Malaysian government as their client, based publicly-available information.This information is not exhaustive and does not scratch the surface of the RM7.2 billion bill – but it can still serve as a taster of what it was used for:
1. McKinsey and Co
Known Fees for Setting Up Permandu: Nearly RM 50 million: An Expensive Toy for Mr. Jala
- Setting up of the Performance and Management Delivery Unit (Pemandu), 2009 – RM36 million.
- National Education Blueprint, 2012 – RM20 million.
- Grooming mid-tier companies via Agensi Inovasi Malaysia 2012-2013 – RM36 million.
2. Hay Group
- Setting up Pemandu, 2009 – RM11 million.
3. Ethos & Co
- Setting up Pemandu, 2009 – RM1.5 million.
4. Alpha Platform (M) Sdn Bhd
- Setting up Pemandu, 2009 – RM1.5 million.
5. An “external consultant” named “Tarmidizi”
- Setting up Pemandu, 2009 – RM3 million.
6. Boston Consulting Group
- Setting up Pemandu and facilitating the Economic Transformation Programme labs, 2009 – cost unknown.
- Study on funds disbursement in the public sector via Special Innovation Unit (Unik), 2010 – cost unknown.
- Survey on free trade agreements for the Ministry of International Trade and Investment, 2013 – cost unknown.
7. Provectis
- Setting up Pemandu and facilitating the Economic Transformation Programme labs, 2009 – cost unknown.
8. Apco Worldwide
- Boosting Malaysia’s international image, 2009-2010 – RM76.8 million.
- Anti-Anwar Ibrahim propaganda (jointly commissioned with FBC Media), 2008-2011 -RM1.2 million.
9. FBC Media
- Boosting Malaysia’s international image 2007-2010 – RM84 million.
10. Brighton Education Group, British Council and SM HR Group
- English mentoring programme to raise standards of English language in national schools, 2010-2013 – RM270 million.
11. PA Consulting Group
- Assisted the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) in developing energy policy for the 10th Malaysia Plan – year and cost unknown.
12. Vision Technology Computing
- Assisted Pemandu in developing the Key Performance Indicator reporting system – year and cost unknown.
13. Alpha Catalyst Consulting
- National innovation strategy study via Unik, 2011 – cost unknown.
