The power of witchcraft

Malaysia Today
02 January 2006


The power of witchcraft

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Up to early 2000, Terengganu State used to earn about RM800 million
to RM900 million a year in Royalty. The money was Terengganu’s 5%
share of all the oil and gas extracted from the state. Terengganu
contributes to half of Malaysia’s petroleum wealth; the other half
coming from East Malaysia.

Under the Petroleum Development Act passed by Parliament about 30
years ago, by a stroke of the pen, all the states in Malaysia lost
their right to their oil and gas resources -- which should actually
be entirely state-owned under the terms of the Federation in 1957.
You could say the Federal Government ‘robbed’ the states of their
rights to 100% of the oil and gas income and reduced them to a share
of only 5%, which was then called ‘Royalty’ as stated in the
Agreement the Federal Government signed with all the states.

But in 2000, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad denied that any such
Agreement existed and denied that the states were entitled to this 5%
Royalty as stated in the Agreement plus the Petroleum Development
Act. The fact that the Act itself violated the Federation Agreement
was of no consequence. Now, even the Agreement signed between the
Federal Government and the states plus the Act of Parliament were
ignored.

Dr Mahathir then withdrew the 5% Royalty that Terengganu was entitled
to. But only Terengganu, the state that fell to the opposition in
1999, suffered this fate. Other states still under the ruling party
continued to enjoy their 5% Royalty. In justifying his actions, Dr
Mahathir argued that so such arrangement exists and the states are
not entitled to any 5% Royalty. What Terengganu was enjoying all
those years from the mid-1970s until early 2000 was ‘goodwill
money’ (wang ehsan), not Royalty, said Dr Mahathir.

Even Parliament is beneath Dr Mahathir and legally signed agreements
need not be honoured, though they may have been signed between
governments.

Then, in 2004, the ruling party won back Terengganu State. But Dr
Mahathir had argued all along that no such arrangement exists. The
state is not entitled to a 5% Royalty on its oil and gas resources
and what the Federal Government had been paying for about 25 years
was goodwill money. So how to now reinstate the Royalty payments?

Then they came out with a very ingenious plan in how they can give
Terengganu back its 5% Royalty, yet not admit that they are doing so
-- and at the same time make sure that the money goes to certain
individuals and not into the state coffers.

And the way they did it can only happen in Loony Malaysia.

The Federal Government will not pay Terengganu State a fixed 5%.
Instead, it will finance certain projects that the state proposes and
subject, of course, to the approval of the Prime Minister’s
Department. The projects, however, would not be state projects but
projects mooted by its Chief Minister, Idris Jusoh. In fact, Idris
Jusoh had been managing this petroleum Royalty now called ‘goodwill
money’ all the while the state was under opposition control. It was a
sort of shadow government, parallel to the duly elected government of
Terengganu.

Needless to say, those managing the RM800 million to RM900 million a
year became extremely rich over those four years just by virtue of
the fact that the money by-passed the state coffers and went straight
into the hands of those managing the money. Ever wonder why when the
JE epidemic hit the country the Terengganu folks joked that
Terengganu too has its own version of the ‘JE’ scourge? What they
meant of course was Jusoh Enterprise, the private company owned by
Idris Jusoh’s family that has its tentacles in almost anything you
can think of.

Recently, they were at a loss as to how to siphon out more money. The
year was about to come to an end and they needed to get their hands
on the money before the accounts closed for the year. So they came
out with a very clever plan.

On 26 June 2005, they set up an events management company called
Premium Project Management Sdn Bhd (company number 692728-M). Then,
on 9 September 2005, the name was changed to T-Best Events Sdn Bhd.
The company’s paid-up capital is only RM2.00.

The company is supposed to be a Terengganu based company but its
registered address is at no. 23A, Jalan SS 21/60, Damansara Utama,
Petaling Jaya, Selangor.

The two shareholders of the company who hold one share each of RM1.00
are Saharuddin bin Abdullah and Suhami binti Kiman. The directors of
the company are Wan Hisham bin Wan Salleh (Terengganu), Mohamed bin
Awang Tera (Terengganu), Chew Kok Foo (Petaling Jaya), Peter William
Gilmour (Australia), Chua Hooi Sian (Petaling Jaya) and Lim Poh Tiang
(Petaling Jaya).

The name to note here is Wan Hisham bin Wan Salleh, a (EXCO) member
of the Terengganu State Government, and the man behind the entire
operation. Wan Hisham’s brother, Wan Mohd Farid, is the political
secretary to the Minister of Home Affairs, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi,
who, coincidentally, is also the Prime Minister of Malaysia. But Wan
Hisham is only there to give the company political weight. The man
running the company is Patrick Lim. And Patrick Lim’s job is to
conjure up events that the state can embark upon -- which, of course,
would require a couple of hundred million Ringgit to finance.

One very ingenious project they came up with was to hold a sailboat
race from 29 November to 4 December 2005 called the Monsoon Cup.
Instead of everyone running for the hills in fear of a Tsunami
hitting this country like it did around Christmas of 2004, they would
congregate on the beach to watch sailboats race against each other in
the monsoon winds.

And the Monsoon Cup was given a budget of RM250 million, more than
enough money to go around. Only in Loony Malaysia can a RM2 company,
hardly a couple months in operation, get its hands on a RM250 million
government job.

The plan was to invite sailboat champions from all over the world to
participate in the race. This would give the Monsoon Cup credibility
and prestige that would rival the Langkawi powerboat race. But these
world champions would need to be given suitable accommodations and
the only five-star hotel in Kuala Terengganu was certainly not
suitable enough.

So they built 50 new houses on Mermaid Island, known locally as Pulau
Duyung. Each house was priced at RM1 million, so RM50 million would
be needed to build these houses. Of course, you and I can build these
same houses for around RM250,000 each. But that is not the issue
here. The issue is: the foreigners need to be made to believe that
they are living in a million dollar house (though it would only be
for a few days). Pricing the houses at four times what they actually
cost to build was not for purposes of siphoning out any money. (And
if you believe this then you will believe that pigs can fly).

Everything was plain sailing -- pun intended -- until race day
arrived. Then, on race day, the monsoon winds suddenly died down and
the sailboats ended up dead in the water.

Sheesh! The Pengkalan Pasir by-election was being held in
neighbouring Kelantan State at that same time and the monsoon was
threatening to dampen the election campaign. They were also worried
that the flood would prevent the voters from coming out to vote. So
someone had engaged a team of bomohs (witch doctors) to cast a spell
to keep the monsoon away. But they forgot to tell the bomohs to keep
the monsoon away from just Kelantan, not from Terengganu that needed
the monsoon.

Just to digress a bit for the benefit of those who do not know what
Malaysian bomohs are capable of. Malaysians of all persuasions
normally engage a bomoh to cast a spell if they want to keep the rain
away in the event they are having a garden party, to make a girl or
boy you have taken a fancy to fall in love with you, to destroy a
competitor’s business, to break up someone’s marriage, to ensure that
your football team wins the match, to win an election, and so on. If
you want to get rich then bomohs are also able to give you the
winning numbers of the lottery -- but why bomohs themselves are never
rich and remain poor though they can ‘see’ winning numbers in a
lottery has remained a mystery till today.

Anyway, back to the Terengganu story. The Monsoon Cup was proving to
be a disaster. Without a monsoon, how to have a Monsoon Cup? So
Terengganu, in a panic, also engaged its own team of bomohs to cast a
spell to bring back the monsoon. But then there is a one week lead
time for spells to work. When you cast a spell it does not take
affect immediately. It may need anything up to a week to work -- sort
of like clearing an outstation cheque.

Eventually, they had to call an end to the RM250 million Monsoon Cup
and everyone went home extremely disappointed. Then the monsoon hit.
Terengganu was now facing a threat of being washed into the South
China Sea.

To help save the state from total destruction, the Terengganu
Religious Department sent out circulars to all the mosques throughout
the state asking the mosque congregation to pray for deliverance
(sembahyang tolak bala). No doubt they needed the monsoon to ensure
that the Monsoon Cup would meet with success and the bomohs engaged
to cast the spell had done a fine job. But the monsoon came too late
and now they did not need the monsoon anymore. Furthermore, the spell
cast by the bomohs was too powerful and the monsoon was going to
drown the entire state. (You can’t blame the bomohs though. They are
experts at casting spells to keep the rain away but this is the first
time they had been asked to cast a spell to create a monsoon).

Well, never mind, the bomohs may have failed and the Monsoon Cup may
have been a disaster, but the objective of siphoning out RM250
million had been met; and that is all that matters.

Hmm...I wonder how much the bomohs were paid to create the monsoon. I
suspect they were paid with post-dated cheques so that is why they
made sure the monsoon came only after the cheques had cleared. Next
year, Terengganu State should pay the bomohs in cash and maybe hold
back 50% of the payment, to be paid only when the monsoon comes.

Ends