FEBRUARY 25 —There seems to be a lot of reasons why so many people have made it a point to attack 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB).
What makes it even easier to attack is because 1MDB stays quiet most times, hoping for the shouting to just fade away. But this 1MDB strategy hasn’t worked because the noise didn’t stop and just kept getting louder.
Why is this so? What makes so many people feel so personal and passionate about the need to bad mouth 1MDB?
The focus of the attacks seems to be on 1MDB’s huge debt amount and its supposed mismanagement of public funds.
Yet, somehow, the fact that 1MDB actually has over RM50 billion worth of assets in hand, as has been confirmed by no less than Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Abdul Razak, is usually conveniently not mentioned.
So, let’s put this into perspective. With RM50 billion, you can build two MRT lines and maybe have some cash left over.
Or maybe fly first class to New York on a holiday with RM10 million to burn through on extravagant shopping or partying, and then be able to do this another 5,000 times! Any which way, RM50 billion is too much cash to ignore. Yet somehow, every 1MDB critic fails to mention this amount.
Why?
There’s also another issue about how tightly access to 1MDB’s funds is controlled by the strategic fund.
It’s true that some form of transparency would be better for some check and balance. But while there’s lots of speculation as to how 1MDB’s money is managed, has the money actually disappeared?
Looking at it from another viewpoint, could it be that the constant criticism is really dismayed envy at not being able to get access to any part of the tantalising RM50 billion? If so, the amazingly continuous stream of venom against 1MDB is then perfectly justified. After all, who doesn’t want a piece of that big pile of cash? There’s enough to share among 100, or even 10,000 - where each gets RM5 million! And yet, the attacks continue to focus on 1MDB’s debts even though these don’t bring the critics any closer to gaining access to the RM50 billion. So why even bother with this strategy?
Perhaps the answer lies in the wise words of Sun Tzu, as written in his famous Art of War: “All warfare is based on deception”.
Maybe there’s another way for critics to get access to 1MDB’s funds. After all, hasn’t 1MDB already announced an IPO for its energy assets?
Everyone knows that 1MDB’s IPO is expected to be one of the world’s largest. Many also expect the IPO to do well after the shares are listed. This usually means the IPO shares will also be expensive when offered to the public. So, how to get the IPO shares cheap if you are not already within 1MDB – where you may qualify for the pink forms? Can it be the constant criticism is actually aimed at tricking 1MDB to believe the IPO might fail? Are critics hoping 1MDB might be fooled enough by all the negative attacks so that it will price the IPO shares very much lower? Looking at how the attacks against 1MDB picked up dramatically almost two years ago when rumours of the IPO began and later confirmed, that may be exactly the very idea driving all the really loud criticism.
So what happens if 1MDB falls for this campaign of criticism?
The IPO shares are priced lower, and critics who buy them stand to make more money when the share are listed. 1MDB will get less money than it would have planned for. While gains from the IPO will be enough to clear out its debt, there may not be much left over for two other projects 1MDB has taken on – the TRX and Bandar Malaysia.
Should that be the case, 1MDB will have to look elsewhere to get funds needed for these two major projects, maybe even forced to ask from its sole shareholder Minister of Finance Incorporated.
If this pessimistic forecast actually comes true, the critics will be proven to have been right all along that 1MDB cannot afford to take on these projects in the first place! This means that at the end of the day, only one group wins - the critics, whose pockets will most probably be overflowing by then from the IPO gains. Is the plan behind the attacks against 1MDB?
