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If you have articles, information, thoughts you want to share just send it to me at ali.syedakbar@gmail.com. Please keep your articles brief, not more than 1000 words or just use bullet points. If you have pictures to go with the articles, that is even better. Towards an excellent Malaysia.

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Surat Dari Pembaca : Sara 1 M'sia

I received the following from a reader. It is a comment. I dont see anything hugely incriminating here. It is a concerned argument which raises issues about using public funds again. There may be a proper explanation for this. N'theless I would like to share this letter that I received from a reader. Here goes :


"I read your blog with interest but have never written in before. I have come across something that may be of interest to you. I personally find it shocking, but unsurprising, considering the state of the Government today.


A friend who is closely involved with the Ministry of Finance told me that the Government is trying to use EPF money to finance the Sara 1 Malaysia scheme to the tune of RM4 billion.

If you remember, this is the scheme announced by Najib together with PNB to encourage low income families to 'save' by investing in Amanah Saham 1 Malaysia units. Supposedly, participants will walk away with RM8000 in five years without putting any money in as they get 100 pct financing to buy units. A fairly blatant vote grab just like BR1M.

The shocking thing though is that the cost to Government to implement the scheme is RM4 billion over the five years to subsidise the scheme's interest for participants, something which was never revealed. What's worse is that because this is unbudgeted, they don't have any money to do it and are trying to borrow the cash from EPF, in a repeat of the DBKL low cost housing fiasco.

I think this is terrible ! I hope you can use your resources to check if this is true and if so, please highlight it. If the BN government is really being this irresponsible, people have a right to know. Thanks."


Folks, if you are in the know about this, perhaps we can get readers to comment further on this issue. Lets share more information. The better informed we are, the less chances for not nice things to happen.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

"A friend who is closely involved with the Ministry of Finance..." is the source, huh. Check this friend's political leaning first, instead of running around chasing rumours. PRU 13 is coming up hence all kinds of rumours will be floated, by the ABU people.

Anonymous said...

Syed u shud be able to think yourslef. How come u so low publish this rumours for the sake of seeking the truth. It just the same like spreading the lies and influence people to hate the goverment.

The reader has no credibility. It just a hearsay and why u pick her i just dont understand. Maybe u shud be reminded again the GE is just around the corner. The news and the lies and the facts will comes in many faces.

Org BJ.

Anonymous said...

Why write to you. That person could probably got better mileage and faster respond from the government if that person went to Malaysiakini, or harakah or ask Rafizi, Nurul Izzah, etc. So whats the catch here?
Go make a police report or report to SPRM...

Anonymous said...

I have friend closed to Lim Guan Eng tell me that he want to sell KOMTAR ... and another closed friend of mine which is a clise friend of Anwar IBrahim told me that he do have millions in oversea banks account... are you kidding me????

Anonymous said...

Syed, one thing to ponder. The money is being used to transfer some wealth to low income families as a form of asset. the proboem with low income people, their lack of education means no matter what job they take it will be a a menial salary.Now people have been making a ruckus that rm1 billion is being used to finance low cost houses and this trust fund scheme for the lowmincome, why is this a badn thing?Grameed bank in Bangladesh has demonstrated that loans to poor people are repaid in full,hence we shoudo not prejudice that investment on the low income people is bad? Th loamds are a mere rm8k per family which should be manageable for the malaysian lower income, plus the intererest rates should be than the MGS ineterst rates at 3-4 percent. The EPF is a RM470 billion funds, and have consistntly brought higher than inflation rate returns to Malaysian, I find it ridiculous that some people are worried beyond reason that investing on the SARA 1 Malaysia is bad. Fisrts it is guaranteed by the government so if any losses occur the government will repay and the ineterest returns would still be higher than the nulk of EPF other invstments. by then we should make noise that EPF is buying property in London and australia because the property prices couod collapse right? But herebthe EPF is pitching in to help the low income possess some savings and assets and we are againts it?
For all imknow, the EPF is a professional body and I am confidentnthat they considered seriously before providimg the dole for SARA 1 Malaysia, their track record says it all.....even Temasek lost SG$50 billon in the stocks of BoA and Merryl Lycnh guess where that came from..the CPF..EPF has no such track record but it is good that we question their actions..