BSI shut down, Najib's 1MDB causes pain to the international financial fraternity.

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.