Abolished ISA? Why not Isa too?

I am known to be a pessimist and it is disconcerting to know that someone who was found guilty of money politics in his own party is now in charge of Felda. We should be suspicious too as to why PM is also Finance Minister (unnecessary and unwise to follow past practice if we wish to ensure better transparency and accountability), and is also very interested in Felda. But if people should question, 'You think it is your father's business?' Najib can rightly say, 'Yes, my father started the Felda scheme... I inherited it!'

Money politics is just an euphemism for corruption, whether it is practised within a party or without. It runs contrary to rules set to ensure fairness in the election of party leaders. If it is allowed, then those with sufficient money can win easily against those who are just popular but without the means to do the same or refuse to go against their own principles. It can even mean a foreign power can influence who should win, and in the case of Umno, decide who should be PM of Malaysia. Money politics depends on large sums of slush funds (or war chests) accumulated by those who were or are still in positions of power, commonly known as warlords. Therefore, can we trust someone if he is perceived to have been involved in slush funds and its inherent opaqueness and lack of accountability?

Our PM Najib had just commented that Felda is financially strong. But for how long? He mentioned only assets, but what about liabilities when Rm6 billions are borrowed from EPF? I presume the collaterals used are the landed properties which Felda has in abundance. Is it necessary to venture into the unknown when the existing businesses are proving to be highly profitable? If by any chance, Felda should fail because of its new ventures, will it not affect EPF, the largest fund in Malaysia which has employees as their main contributors? The deal with Naza's TTDI to have a first class office building near Petronas Twin Towers seemed lop-sided against Felda and involved unconventionally fast payments to them, again at Felda's expense!

We have seen how Sime Darby lost huge amounts after its merger with a few other large plantation companies to become the largest plantation company in the world. Before that, SD ventured into banking (Sime Bank) and got burnt, sold it and vowed never to go into banking. Since the merger, SD lost heavily in their engineering and construction sector, another unfamiliar business. I can still remember MBSB ventured out from providing housing loans to become a developer and lost heavily because of dubious land deals and poor housing development management. After all these 'trials and errors' can we still be optimistic of politicians' involvement in big businesses?
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