Ravi Menon, the Managing Director
of Singapore Monetary Authority (MAS) is taking tough actions against BSI the Lugano based private banking in Singapore and ordered the branch to
be shut down for serious breaches on money-laundering rules in its dealings
with our Malaysian sovereign wealth fund, 1MDB the brainchild of our PM Najib
Razak. Swiss financial regulators announced on Tuesday that they have agreed to
take over the desolation of Singapore BSI Bank which has been encroaching
severely on money-laundering acts. Prime Minister Najib Razak has been in the
heart of the 1MDB financial scandals which was rated to be the biggest in the
history of the world.
The Swiss financial regulators
have approved the takeover of the merchant bank by EFG International on one
condition that BSI is integrated and dissolved within twelve months from now
on. The Singapore and Swiss authorities are working together and have decided
to seize the 95 million Swiss francs on illegal profits and now probing on at
least on 2 former top managers of the bank.
The office of Switzerland
Attorney General had early yesterday opened the criminal
proceedings against BSI based on the information revealed by the criminal
proceedings on 1MDB. Ravi Menon the MD
of Singapore Monetary Authority the wrong doings of BSI in dealing with 1MDB as
the worst case of control lapses and gross misconduct that we have ever seen in
the history of Singapore financial sector.
BSI CEO Stelano Coduri resigned
abruptly yesterday as the dealings on the troubled 1MDB reverberate throughout
the banks (BSI) international operations. It’s now obvious that 1MDB has
brought down the international financial sector seriously and the infections
that 1MDB is contracting is too contagious to the extent that any bank or party
that deals with the Malaysian State sovereign funds will eventually faces predicaments
and distress.
The question now is why Najib is
keeping mum on the issue swirling 1MDB and the serious consequences faced by
many individuals in the banking system internationally when dealing with 1MDB?
Doesn’t one agree that Najib’s 1MDB has been seriously putting the
international banking system in jeopardy? In most cases it spins around the
money that was transferred in his personal account which in the end was
transferred to Singapore bank.
Najib has been denying that he
has done no wrongdoing while everyone that put the 1MDB deals through are now
under serious investigation and many have even been fired from the banks and
referred to the investigation authorities in five advanced nation. The heinous 1MDB
issue has gone global and why Najib is still loitering in power without shame
and embarrassment? Najib’s 1MDB
dealings have been putting the nation to shame and it’s very important that
Najib quits his job immediately.
Sooner or later Najib is going to
face the litigations at global courts and we cannot afford to stomach a leader
who is perceived like criminal to the international community especially within
the financial fraternity. Najib is seen as an orphanage leader among the
leaders of the world and he still acts with his poker face to the world
leaders, even though all leaders that he meets have such low impressions and
regards towards him. Najib is truly the man of the world but for negative
imageries and we just don’t understand how the Cabinet members can withstand
with their positions in the Cabinet without qualms and guilt.
Najib is not a deserving leader
for us and he should instead find ways and means to leave with some reasonable face
saving devices and leave the nation to be managed by someone who is in the
capacity to institute structural and institutional changes and that kind of
aptitude is not in the leaders of the current line of Najib’s Cabinet lineup.
As I have said it umpteen of times
changing the leadership from within the Cabinet lineup is not a change. To
change it through alternating it with political parties is also not a change.
The nation needs a leader who has the experience and with high magnanimity to
take on the mantle. Usually with the current bad culture of the ruling and the
oppositions a true leader of that attribute stays outside the Cabinet and the
party lineup.
The ordinary Malaysians are just
too impatient to wait for the moment of change, a real change.