UMNO veteran club secretary-general Datuk Mustapha Yaakub has urged former leaders to declare where is RM 100 billion UMNO assets. Mustapha wants former UMNO leader Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and two former finance ministers, Tun Daim Zainuddin and Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop; where is the money now?
According to the UMNO veteran, something profound needs an explanation from these three former UMNO leaders because this issue happened when Dr Mahathir was prime minister. This serious issue involves enormous funds, as reported in a video on Malaysia Today reported.
On July 21, 2016, Universiti Malaya's former academic, Dr Edmund Terence Gomez, said companies formerly controlled by Umno had come under increasing government control. Gomez, said that the corporate sector in Malaysia had become increasingly centralised under state-owned companies.
"We are seeing that even the Umno assets are now under the executive," Gomez said at Universiti Malaya during a talk on the ownership of corporate Malaysia. He cited companies such as banking group CIMB, media group Media Prima and UEM Sunrise as among companies previously held by Umno but are now indirectly controlled by the executive via state firms.
Gomez said."The fact is that most of the asset transfer out of UMNO happened after the party was declared illegal after the Team A vs Team B battle. Among the people or proxies who benefited most was Halim Saad, with UMNO's leading companies under the Renong Group. After the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, when Renong ran into serious financial problems, these companies under its control were nationalised and became GLCs.
Gomez's study, funded by the libertarian think tank IDEAS, looked into the performance of seven government-linked investment companies (GLICs).
The seven companies were the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOF Inc), Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB), Khazanah Nasional Berhad (KNB), the Employees Provident Fund (EPF), Lembaga Tabung Angkatan Tentera (LTAT), Lembaga Tabung Haji (LTH) and Kumpulan Wang Persaraan (Diperbadankan) (KWAP).
Malaysia Today claimed in a video that the assets worth RM100 billion, including some cash, were now reduced to RM500 mil.
Meanwhile, in an article (June 16) 2023, RPK pointed out that UMNO today is worth less than RM500 mil, a fraction of what it was in its heydays.
"In the 15th General Election, UMNO had no money to spend, which is part of why it won only 26 seats when in the good old days it used to win over 100 of the 222 seats in Parliament," he added.
RPK also noted the issue of UMNO's assets is not a secret, as it has been published in many books. He did not mention the names of the books.
On Monday (July 3, 2023), former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak denied that RM114mil seized from his condominium in 2018 was his. Instead, he said the money belonged to Umno and was entrusted to him for the year's 14th General Election (GE14). "I state that the RM114mil that was reported to be returned to me does not form part of my assets because, at all material times, the RM114mil was held by me in trust on behalf of Umno following GE14 that had just concluded days before the raid on my apartment. As the (then) President of Umno, I was entrusted with said funds for the elections."
The question is, was the RM114 million, whether from UMNO or 1 MDB, was it declared to the Elections Commission in GE14?
Freelance Writer M.Krishnamoorthy (www.imkrishna.net) is a media coach, associate professor and undercover journalist. M. Krishnamoorthy is a media coach, associate professor, and journalist who worked and freelanced with Bernama, NST, The Star, and Malaysiakini. He also freelances as a fixer/coordinator for CNN, BBC, German and Australian Television networks and the New York Times. As an undercover journalist, he has highlighted society's concerns going undercover as a beggar, security guard, blind man, disabled salesman and Member of Parliament.
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