DEBUNKING
TALAM
The Talam fiasco requires a good
financial and accounting background person to fully understand or digest the
spirit of the whole issue. I will present the surface of Talam scandal
without involving complicated financial calculation or explanation.
1. What's the fuss about Talam?
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Selangor Pakatan
Rakyat government has been fishy (read: defensive)
in so far as Talam Scandal is concerned.
2. Why are they being fishy?
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Imagine today, a
seller values a house at RM 139,000 and yet somebody were to purchased the
house at RM 181, 000. If the figure is lower of RM139,000 then it still make
sense but RM181,000 for a RM139,000 house is something that is very unusual.
How many times we ever heard of people buying things way higher than the
seller's price? Much worse if you have a friend who owned a house in similar
area and his value is only RM81,000!
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The example above
is a good starting point to digest how come and why Selangor Pakatan Rakyat
government purchased different land, property, office, shares and etc in
extremely ridiculous price from what they are actually
worth? And the total of overvaluation amount up to hundreds of millions.
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If 1 or 2
purchase(s) are being overvalued or ridiculously priced, then maybe it is
acceptable where human may overlook or being careless or whatever you name
it. But then, there are easily more than 5 of their purchases that are overvalued. Would you
call that a coincidence still?
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Just imagine your
friend has a house worth RM 81,000, but I buy a nearby house from your
neighbor at RM 181,000 even though seller values it at RM139,000. You want to
sell a car that is valued at RM 113,000, but I buy from you the same car at
RM 345, 000. Your watch is worth RM 8,000, but I buy from you at a staggering
RM 27,000. Will there be so many coincidences that whenever I purchase things
from you, they will always be overvalued? Will it still be a coincidence, or a mistake, or in reality,
I actually do it on purpose with the intention of buying everything from you
with at an overpriced value?
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Then may be, you
will come to a conclusion that I actually do it on purpose -- and what is the
ultimate intention of me doing so? That alone should give you a cogent reply
as to why Pakatan is so fishy about this whole Talam Scandal.
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I mean, who -- in
the right frame of mind -- would buy anything at double or triple than its
actual worth? Would you?
3. How did Selangor's Pakatan
Rakyat gain anything if the purchases are being overvalued?
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Imagine the one
buying your house just now is actually a company, and the one buying from you
is one of the company director. He buys it using the company money, not his
own money. I repeat, it is the company money. If not, you would think that who will be so stupid to buy
things at such an extreme overvalued rate?
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I am just
pointing out a possibility here.
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Do you think it
is possible for the company director to spend RM181,000 of his company money
to buy your house to strike a deal with you since the property is only valued
at RM139,000? For instance, let 's say I use my company money to buy from you
the house at RM 181,000 and in return, you to have to reimburse me back
RM21,000 and keep the remaining RM21,000 for yourself. If that's the deal,
don't you think that you will actually agree to it since you can earn
RM21,000 for doing nothing? Is a win-win situation, is it not?
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Don't you think
it is also possible for the same scenario to happen in Talam's overvaluation
issue?The company here is
Selangor Pakatan Rakyat, meanwhile the directors are also Pakatan Rakyat's
politicians. That also gives
the answer why they purchased properties at an overvalued price.
4. What is the White Paper?
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When Datuk Chua
Tee Yeong (MCA) found out about the whole overvalued purchases's fiasco --
where the company money is actually Selangor's tax-payer money which is being
abused -- he started questioning why this company never revealed its
financial report during the company's meeting as promised two years ago?
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The metaphor of a
company's financial report is actually the equivalent of the White Paper for
a government. When you run a company you will then have to provide your
company financial report during the company's meeting; similarly when you are
running a state government, you will be required to present your White Paper
during the State Assembly's meeting.
5. The overvalued properties are
proven to be of low commercial value?
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Datuk Chua Tee Yeong (MCA) has proven to us that all the
overvalued purchases of Talam have low commercial value. That is why they mainly sell it only to their brothers
and sisters, you can't sell it to outsiders who will not get higher price --
or any ROI -- after two years.
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As to date, they
have bought an empty hill slope land, a mining pond, few vacant office lots
(which can’t be let out on tenancy basis) and underwater land in bad
location.
6. Valuation Issue?
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Let's say today
you want to buy a house.
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Will you buy the
house based on your own research and market valuation or based on what your
vendor told you?
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If the house you
are interested in buying is worth RM81,000, and yet the vendor told you it is
RM181 000, what would you do? Would you blindly pay the downpayment or would
you instead start asking around to verify your vendor's information?
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That is why, in
Talam fiasco - one of the main questions is: WHO ARE THE VALUER?
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They are supposed
to engage JPPH (a neutral valuer) to value any particular house, land or
property that they are interested to purchase. A department specializing in
doing just the valuation.
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Now, as a state
government, who do you trust most? The JPPH department or the seller's
personal valuation?
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2 Bukit Beruntung piece of land were valued by JPPH at RM113
million, but you decided to buy the land at RM345million. Why?
7. Talam fiasco, despite being
proven to be fishy, why the company directors still threaten to sue anyone
who continues exposing and accusing them of wrongdoing?
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This is called a
psychological attack. They take calculated risk to threaten you, and hopefully
you will stop raising the scandal in the company.
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But then at the
end of the day, even after he has threatened you, but you still march ahead
to expose his fishy wrong doings -- he won't sue you.
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Why? The answer
is simple, he already knew he has no case against you. Another reason will
be, he does not want you to further expose his wrongdoings in the court of
law, because if any issue were to be brought up in court, there'll bound to
cause an extreme, detailed, investigation. What that they do not want you to find out is why and where
the overvalued money goes to. The person I am talking about here will be
none other than the Selangor Chief Minister Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim.
8. If they are innocent as claimed,
what did they send one of the company worker to debate with Chua?
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When they know
they can't sue you, they will then seek another approach to spin the
wrongdoings in Talam. They are just trying to 'create' the perception that
they are 'innocent'. So when they challenged you for a debate, automatically
people will think that there are really innocent otherwise they wouldn't dare
challenged you. Moreover the one challenging you is not the company director
himself. He might as well just send one of his company's toilet cleaner to
provoke you for a debate.
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You just imagine
yourself in this situation now. You go all out to expose the wrongdoings
of the company directors, but he ended up asking his office cleaner to
challenge you for a debate. Will you accept it? I am sure you won't, because
even if you accepted and won the debate, you will never get anything out of
it.
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The company
director was very sneaky since he already preempted all these, and that is
why he sent his least-qualified people to debate with you.
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And when you
ignore this debate, he will score on the opportunity to tell people that he is
innocent and you are indeed scared to debate with him.
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You do not want
to fall into his trap, therefore you end up challenge the company director
for a debate. Subsequently, you make your stand very clear that you will
never debate with anybody other than him because he is the one that should be
responsible and answerable to all the problems that is happening is his
company.
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This company
director ended up during the day of your scheduled debate to travel to
Bangkok and he openly told people that he got no time to debate with you (but he got time to travel
to Bangkok?).
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Therefore he
appointed another 4 people from his company to debate with you. Those 4
people he appointed are not even the company managers . There are so many
company managers in Talam, yet none of them were taskedto debate with you.
The manager I am talking about now is Selangor State Exco. Selangor State
Exco are the 2nd line in hierarchy of the State after the Chief Minister. He
is like after our Prime Minister, then our Minister will be the biggest in
the country administration .
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You already told
the company director clearly, you will only debate with him and none others.
He already knew this fact.Yet he was adamant that the 4 people he appointed
were never be accepted for the debate, that is just a show to create the
perception that he is innocent .
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During the debate
day, 4 of them came just to walk away when you finally shocked them by
allowing them to take part in Q and A session. They knew that they do not
have the expertise to be involved in the Q and A session to defend the
directors in this whole scandal. Therefore they quickly walked away and told
the press that you did not allow them for a debate.
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1 of the low
class company workers even claimed that you got no rights to debate with his
director ( Chief Minister). In reality you are a CFO of your company (
Federal Deputy Minister ). Even if you are not qualified to debate with their
director ( just an excuse) then they are even smaller than their own company
manager( state exco ) to debate with you.
9. Why did KPMG claim that there
was no wrongdoing in Talam?
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Every company do
have their own auditors and accountants to make the company's account
seemingly right. Therefore, as a corporate person, the director knew that he
coulnd't just present his own financial statement and documents to seek for
an advisory review.
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He again
predicted the outcome of the review when the audit firm came out and claim
that there nothing wrong with this account. When you present something that
you have already adjusted and seek for another person's opinion on it -- will
they tell you that anything is wrong with it?
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Those who are in
auditing business will know that there's a huge difference between Forensic Auditing and Advisory
Review.
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They are actually
seeking for advisory review to clear out the allegations in their game plan
of creating the perception of they are not guilty. And in Advisory review
opinion will be given base on whatever document or financial statements that
is being presented to them. As I said earlier , if I were to just present
everything that I have already fixed and adjusted, and asked you to find
mistake wit it, will you be able to find any? That is the reason why KPMG
came out and say there nothing wrong with the Company (State Government).
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That is why they dare not seek for Forensic Auditing where their
entire transactions and account will be investigated in way much more complex and detail and the
investigation will not only based on the documents that is given to you.
10. Why the KPMG Director, when asked is there anything
wrong, she said 'no'. But when asked again if there's anything that being
overvalued, she claimed 'yes'?
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There is nothing
wrong with her answer. This whole issue in certain point of view in auditing
and accounting is not technically wrong.
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So, if your house
is worth RM139, 000 but I want to buy it at RM181, 000 what we often termed
as'willing buyer and willing seller'. Technically, there is nothing wrong with it.
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Just like when 2
unmarried couple is having a consensus sex. Since it is consensus, then
technically it's not wrong in law. But in terms of morality, is it right to
have sex before marriage?
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So in this case
of hundreds of millions of Selangor's tax payer money are being abused, can
we claim there is nothing wrong with it, just because it is not technically
wrong?
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The question remains: Why is it being overvalued?
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Where did the
extra money goes to? Who benefited the most from all the dealings? That is
why it is a politician's job is to stand up and voice up what's right for the
people. So politically speaking, Datuk Chua Tee Yong is right to question the
company and its director.
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Transmile and
silverbird company have audit yearly and the report did not show any problem
in their company, but then when finally there is a special investigation
going on in the company, then they start to find out a lot of problems with
the accounts -- even fraud sales.
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Therefore
Selangor Pakatan Rakyat government should prove their innocence by seeking
for a special auditing service and just limited scope of work.
11. Why did Tony Pua claim that the state government is
earning money from their purchased?
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The seller told
the Selangor state government is RM685 000, and Tony proudly told the whole
world that they earned RM9000 out of it because they purchased it at RM676
000. Problem is, based on
JPPH report, it should only be RM300,000 only.
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