Deep State Rot. 1MDB to GLC, Textbook Publishing, UEC to Horse Riding Schools.

We should have continuously upgraded our schools. Yeah. Teaching in the teaching staff in the school facilities because we have enough money. Correct. We have enough billions.

But we misallocate the money. So the few steal the money. The few got the bulk of the money. And so now today you have complaints like the schools, you know, some schools the roof is leaking, the chairs and tables are broken, you know, things are not functioning, the toilets are broken.

Yeah. Uh but then they also built horse tables last time. So the there is a misallocation of uh funds because remember we're talking about deep state or or vested interest or whatever. These these people exist. They populate different sectors of the economy throughout. Remember we discussing the

welcome to the guy short podcast. I'm Shamsho Sam I'm with S Akbar Ali today t how are you my friend? Good good okay u today our conversation is going to center around this coin terms called the deep state. I mean there's a lot of talk in the international community especially uh in Europe and in America about the existence of deep state that seems to be entrenched in government no matter which government come into power. Um but you'll be very surprised if you are not already that Malaysia itself has its own deep state. So I think um to start off this conversation I think this is this

this this is going to be a very fascinating one. Um say give us a definition of how we would be describing uh the deep state.

Okay thank you. Yeah well uh let's we'll talk a little bit about the deep state. It is it is already here in Malaysia. It's been around for a for a while. uh but today I think I want to focus my remarks on what has been the outcome of the presence of the deep state. The outcome has been that is that since 208 the political parties are getting kicked out of office they're getting voted out of power because of the deep state. So my my uh contention is that it is a deep state. The presence of the deep state now in Malaysia has like it has ruptured masa ruptured and it's toxic and it is

causing the political parties to lose power. So that's why since 208 when the L ruling coalition at the time BN they lost a two-thirds majority. Ever since then politics in the country has been very uh it's in its topsyturvy upheaval because of the overbearing influence of the deep state. We will we will talk about the definition of a deep state but the a bit of the conclusion what has happened is that the deep state it has been so influential or has got it's got a network throughout the the country uh which is has results in a lot of unhappiness in the country. The deep state is not a legal

definition. You cannot open a dictionary and and read what is a deep state. But but say okay fair enough. Fair enough. I mean you are talking about basically uh a network or uh infrastructure of uh civil service GLC uh statutory bodies.

Yeah you can call it by other names. For example the famous one is a vested interest. Correct. Okay. All these are actually part and parcel. But wouldn't those deep state were the creation of political party entrench in power for a long time.

Exly. Exactly. So uh but you know everything takes time to reach a maximum and you know like the rise and fall of empires or whatever even mafia families they prosper for a while and then they collapse because they can the people get too fed up with them. So that's what's happening now in this country. The so-called deep state has been around for so long but the bottom line of uh okay let's bottom line is their impact on the society. So the to define itself a deep seat as you mentioned just now it is like you have a system the legal formal system like we are we are a electoral

democracy parliamentary democracy we go to the elections and we vote for our uh our government for our leaders and this and that right and then you have this deep state which is able to sidestep and overcome whatever changes in political power and they are still able to exert their influence on on the government on the situation on the economy on things in the country for their benefit. So this is uh there are some definitions here unelected in individuals or institutions within a state that are believed to exercise significant influence over government policy regardless

regardless of which elected politicians are in power. That means they are outside the system. No matter who is in power, they they are outside. They are able to dominate elected political system.

So, so they are everywhere in different countries. They are everywhere. Usually the deep state in you know if they are deep state if there is a deep state in a country they are in in the in the government in the military in the intelligence services uh in the bureaucracy they are in the economy powerful economic interest. These are all you know people who can uh override they can override and or they can constrain the government the elected government that means like you know the phrase they above the law that kind of thing they are able to exert their influence. Okay. So so there are many

definitions. Uh deep state is a is a is a easy phrase. Somebody coined this word deep state. uh as I said you can call also call it by vested interest. Another name is the status quo.

Well actually I think I think but but the bottom line the bottom line is regardless of what you call them or how you define them the to me the easier the definition is the people get screwed.

Yeah that's it. Well let's think about the people getting screwed. Okay. And and and money is involved. Wherever there's deep state there's money or another way of saying it is if there is no money there's no deep state. Huh?

Let's call and and the money is usually taxpayers fun. Okay. Uh let's take some specificity in our particular discussion. Mhm.

Um the most famous one being the one IMDb scandal that will be a classic deep state situation. Definitely. Please elaborate.

Can can you see uh because uh a deep state you know in Malaysia the the the famous phrase that was coined uh some years ago regarding a corruption case involving some agency. Okay. The customs there was this thing called the closed one eye case. I don't know whether you remember or not where you know some customs people were I think they were charged in court and there was a case about corruption and uh it became the the famous close one eye case that's how the media portray it portrayed it in Malayto

where they said that uh they they just close one eye to let some you know unsavory things happen so that is a classic classical classic situation of what a deep state would try to do they able to uh uh you know go around rules and regulations. So 1MDB uh which I think everyone has heard of 1MDB no need to elaborate too much but it was another classic case of this deep state kind of uh of behavior

okay it's quite it's quite a huge thing but I I'd like to focus on just a couple of easy points remember in the 1MDB case uh huge amounts of money were found in our great leader at that time his uh bank account over 2 billion ringit, isn't it? Uh was found in his account and this account is in a bank here in Malaysia in KL. He opened a bank account and all these illegal funds went inside. Now, uh how was he able to to do that? Huh? Because let me tell you recently there was a case recently very recently there was a case. There was a scam case involved where somebody scammed this this person

and got this person to share the bank account number right and the scammer guy he actually put in money into this person's account you know like a few thousand ringit at a time and then he asked this person to forward that money to other people. He gave their account numbers. So it's money laundering and then he paid the person this this person the account owner something some commission

right now it lasted less than a week the bank shut down the account the bank say this is unusual activity it was not millions or hundreds of thousands is it's like a few hundred at a time or one or two thousand at a time it didn't last more than a week the bank suspended shut it down and and bang nara I think was also also gave them warning and the bank advised is the the account owner to go make a police report which they did right okay that's how sensitive the system is I mean they able to detect and I think the system has been around for some time unusual activity so how did

2.6 six billion get into this account in the banking system and nobody shut down the account or raise any red flags because it was tout close one eye. That was deep state behavior,

right? Deep state behavior allowed uh uh you know the people involved to open a bank account and then uh to put so much money in the account and no action was taken. No red flags were raised

if I'm not mistaken 53 million plus you know that was the later later after the BN lost the election 2018 right then Dr. Mahade 2.0 took over and Dr. went after this 1MDB case. So then this people were arrested, charged in court and so on. And in 20 uh was it later after they lost power?

Yeah. Uh the central bank fined that bank 53 over million. Now it was never it was never mentioned publicly that the fine was related to the 1MDB case. It was never but it was everybody assumed. So then Bank Nara find this bank 53 million ring and then in 2021 which is uh uh years after the 1MDB scandal uh this bank it was reported the bank agreed to a 2.83 billion ringit settlement you know uh with the Malaysian government. So because the government changed then they took action. If the government had not changed, maybe would not even know that these things took place. So this

tells you the the influence or the presence of the deep state. And making it worse in uh 2015 2016 uh other amounts of money related to the 1NBB scandal were deposited by certain people in bank accounts in Singapore, right? And the Singaporeans got wind of it and they raised a red red flags and they had advised the authorities here that you know we have this account in Singapore and they receiving funds and you know we are investigating it's uh you know they suspected money laundering. So the Singaporeans advised this issue in 2015 2016 no action was taken until the government changed and

finally there was some investigation done in uh 2021 and so on. I I I don't know what was the final conclusion. What I'm trying to point out is that 6 years before the Singaporeans had already flagged this issue to our authorities. No action was taken. So it shows the the prevalence of deep state actors. This is deep state.

Say it. If they had not lost the elections in 2018, we would never know about all this and still continue. So all transactions of a certain amount is uh is is flagged to bank nagara

whether it is investigated or not that's the issue whether action is taken or not that's the thing yeah yeah so I think before we I mean let's go into into another issues with respect to how deep our deep state has man has uh has manipulated both government and actually government I mean elected government and also So government policy I think it's probably one of my favorite subject which is actually the UEC certification.

Yeah. It it not always be a crime uh you know but it is use of undue influence. Yeah. To the to the advantage of some people and the disadvantage of many others.

All right. Yeah. Um let's excuse I have a message for our audience. Um if you guys like to continue this conversation, enjoy the conversation that we have, uh please subscribe so we can keep getting this uh podcast for free for you guys and keep liking so that we can uh we can u we can spread uh our intelligent conversation to all the thinkers in Malaysia. We have a country to save. Ladies and gentlemen, continuing on this um the recent UEC certification fiasco, it seems to us that the politicians say one thing, another politician say another thing and then we have also

civil servants saying different things. Okay, I've already stated it. I think uh in our previous podcast that I for one believe that the interlocking of UEC certification and the toughest certification to enter uh our public university whether via SPM or otherwise is actually um is actually to to put it to put it mildly um quite uh unward if not particularly racist in uh in in nature uh because the UEC is an A-level certification accepted everywhere else. The toughest certification is not even an SPM certification and yet you expect the UEC to take SPM. It is an A-level

certification. All right. But this conflicting conflicting um uh comments from civil service from politicians. It very much to me shows the deep state within elected elected representative the deep state within um the uh the the civil service itself. what we just described just now that the definition of deep state.

Yeah. Uh a state that uh individuals or institutions you referred to civil service individuals or institutions within a state that are believed to exercise significant influence over government policy

regardless of what elected politicians uh of which elected politicians are in power. That means they can even sabotage uh elected officials. Resistance the resistance on their own they resist. You see so again this is deep state behavior

you know where you can overcome the official policy or the you know the the rasm the official and the declared policies because you don't agree or a group of people don't agree and they think they know better and so they can contradict the what the government has decided or the leaders have decidedh so uh whether you agree with either side you you it doesn't matter which side you agree with maybe you agree with the politician, maybe you agreed with the civil service. That's not the point. The point is they're able to decide what they want to do.

Yeah. So what's the point of having a political democratic system when we elect our leaders and elect our government if they can be overruled by let's say civil servant or civil service has a resistance to what the government the elected leaders are doing. Whether you agree or disagree is besides the point. I don't agree with the government but nevertheless they are elected. you you know you know that reminds me of that old uh British uh comedy series Yes Minister. So, so this is deep state behavior. Yeah.

But u frequently in the country the deep state behavior as I said earlier you can argue about the definition but regardless of what definition you come up with the losing end the losing side are the people

and usually there is a financial cause. We become poorer and nine out of 10 times public funds are involved. Taxpayers money is involved. That's what they're fighting over. You know, one of the things that I believe uh was caused by the uh deep state is actually the resistance to math and science in English. I think that has a lot to do with the entrenched interests of businesses in the publishing sector with the uh administration uh in the education ministry. This is this is a old this is a old story.

Yeah. Know why why is there so much resistance to maths and science in English? Of course you have this language warriors the the puang pajang bahasa who will get up and say we have to defend our our national language and there yeah this is this is a very old story they claim to defend the national language but the fact is

uh book textbook school textbook publication and printing printing uh school is big money. Yeah, you know our education budget is what 80 billion 100 billions and a huge chunk goes towards printing school textbooks because in Malaysia school textbooks are free.

So whoever gets his textbook printing contracts you know it's money and uh the infrastructure for school textbook printing is in Malay Basa Bahasa Malaysia. Yeah. So there significant resistance by this group of people or I would call them the lobbyist to change for example maths and science into English. Uh it's not just an issue of national language. I think it's like they are familiar with uh you know writing editing printing publishing and printing Malay uh language textbooksh. So they're not as familiar with English or there may be extra cost involved and this and that.

So there is a monetary value to it. So cost to it. So many people are some of these people are opposed to maths and science in English. And I think uh this is they also have a this is the also part of the lobby that has always been against maths and science in English. It is the people who publish and print these uh school textbooks. So uh they will have their influence and uh that is also uh an issue that uh we have to deal with and uh so far they have been uh quite successful uh because uh book publishing school textbook publishing and printing is is is big business.

You want to know what's the number like say I just check it up. How much the madi book voucher to secondary uh uh pony to uh the the the textbook loan scheme annually issues a uh 100 man book voucher to secondary and tertiary student to subsidize additional

this is additional additional reference. Mhm. The wider Ministry of Education Education cover these resources as parts of their massive annual budget which reach a historic 66 billion ringit.

The entire budget. Mhm. Education. Yeah. So if you look at it right, there's money to be made. There's a lot of money. Yeah. So with so much money at stake, you know, these uh there are significant lobby groups and uh significant pressure groups who want to maintain the status quo. So they don't want their their pot of honey to be affected.

Yeah. Yeah. The other thing is the other to hell our our children cannot have access to STEM in English. Let me let me give you another example. You know this boarding schools. I I know you went to boarding school but uh the things have evolved a lot since then. Now a lot of resources, money is spent on boarding schools. I know of one boarding school. This is during the time of Abdullahi as prime minister. They actually got a budget to buy horses because they wanted to introduce horse riding for their students. So the money was paid and the horses were bought. And

then when you buy horses, they had to build a stable, a horse stable somewhere on the school campus. And you had to be airond conditioned uh horse table and then the horse needed veterary services and the horse food all that it cost millions but but they they spend that money. It is in a boarding school. So now in the boarding school there there are things like this going on. You have superior facilities like you know you got sporting facilities, you got horses, they have swimming pools, whatever. The amount of money that the government spends in the boarding schools is way

above on a per student basis is way above what they would spend let's say in a skolakan there's no horse riding stable horse riding in skolabangan with air conditioned horse tables huh so the amount of money spent in boarding schools is very high my question is I mean it's like I mean how much does it cost to let's say set up a hockey team in a scholabanga versus a whole fighting team in a boarding school. I'm sure it's tens and 20 30 times more than than sporting activities in school. But that's the kind of money that we spend. Did we get the equivalent of return on

the investment? No, we don't. Uh I I you cannot say that the the boarding schools are always you know generate X times more higher return than say graduates of a scholar Kabangan. I don't think so. scholarangan students do just as well in life as anybody else. But we spend so much money in the boarding schools. I'm not against the idea of the boarding schools. I'm I'm I'm against exorbitant spending. Now the thing is this money that was spent was it really necessary or was the supply chain that exists in the boarding school system for decades

are they the ones who are pushing this kind of spending activity because they will benefit. So this this is the another example of vested interest aka deep state whatever

uh which basically thrives on public funds being uh spent and they make they make the money whether it benefits us or not whether it benefits the public whether it benefits Malaysians whether it benefits our students in the scholang our scholangsan are deprived of so many things I mean they can do better and yet we are spending so much on this uh buying we we did at one time but I I don't think it's the horses are still there but we did spend money at one time on this uh this kind of expenditures horses horse riding which cost so much more but we do not get the the the uh adequate return on

all that investment but the people who are in this involved in this supply chain they make money you he said. Um what what what saddens me the most and I think it is a very practical uh a very practical economic situation is that all this loss of uh money through corruption through misallocation of resources

wastage wastage um actually the last episode we talked about um we talk about hospitals and lack of uh teacher Because I just want to add that before I go back to education. You know, I went to uh I sent my my my parents to um uh Damsara Hospital. It is not that great a hospital to be honest with you. I I'm going to say that. Okay. But it's good. It's not great. It's good. It's good facilities. It has uh it's comfortable. All right. It is not luxurious. Okay. And in my opinion, our public hospital should be at that level. Okay. That is a very good hospital.

All right. The specialists are good, the facilities are good, it's comfortable. That is what our hospital should be. Now I greeted back to our school. You mentioned I went to the I went to boarding school. Uh I went to scholar Abdulhaleim on in my uh at my form four and form five. Um humbly speaking because you know I was one of the top three students at uh uh college. So I transferred to a fully boarding school and you know the facilities again it's not absolutely fabulous. It is not luxurious. It's functional and it is good and our teachers were actually very good. I still remember my

chemistry teacher. I can still remember my physics teacher, Lima, uh my chemistry teacher, why so long, my my atmath teacher, uh you know, uh Chiguam, you know, they were great teachers. We had a fully staffed and fully equipped science and laboratory facilities, good libraries. We had u uh we had football, we had basketball, we had volleyball and actually it was very productive for the students that were there. That is all that we need for the country, you know. No horse riding. No horse riding.

No need horse riding. No need trying to learn how to shoot uh uh arrows and riding like you know Arabs on the streets of Sugapatani, you know. Um and all of us I would say all of us went on to great things you know. But today we have a very reverse requirement. The STEM is not focused. The facilities are not there. Can you imagine if the last four decades all of these schools went to the same type of facilities that was provided at Sultan Abdul Haleim in Jitra in 1970s to every corner of Malaysia including in Sabah, Sarawa and Clantan. We should have continuously upgraded our schools.

Yeah. Teaching in the teaching staff in the school facilities because we have enough money. Correct. We have enough billions. But we misallocate the money.

So the few steal the money. The few got the bulk of the money. And so now today you have complaints like the schools, you know, some schools the roof is leaking, the chairs and tables are broken, you know, things are not functioning, the toilets are broken.

Yeah. Uh but then they also build horse tables last time. So the there is a misallocation of uh funds because remember we're talking about deep state or or vested interest or whatever these these people exist. They populate different sectors of the economy throughout. Remember we were discussing the BYD uh pricing a few podcasts back. Yeah. How the you know they've imposed very high taxes and regulations on import of EVs. This benefits the status quo of the car electric car manufacturers in the country. It is protectionism. Again this is a vested interest. The same thing

bottom line is who ends up with a short end of the stick the consumer the public or the children in the school. You have some schools like your your school in Kada which had all the good teachers you know for God's sake but what about the school in other parts of the country now we we hear all kinds of stories the one in Sabasa all very sad you know so why because some people are able to take out more than others

yes so this is what has been happening in the country and uh I think the people the good thing is I think we're coming to an and discussion. I think the good thing is that we are still a functioning democracy. Every 5 years we go and vote for we vote and to pick our new leaders and since 20008 the the democracy is working very well in this country where none of the political parties seem to be able to win decisive majorities. In fact, they have been losing the elections. The last election 2022, everybody lost. It was a hung parliament because the people are

now fed up. You see what happens is that uh like we are discussing in this podcast we well we we have like a helicopter view from above. We can see what is happening and we can connect the dots in our disc for the purpose of our discussion. We can connect the dots. We can see how things are being done, how funds are being wasted, how vested interests are uh they are happy and laughing all the way to the bank. Regardless of which coalition is in powerh, no matter who is the government, these people continuously make money and they're happy. But the people continuously feel short changed.

uh but we are able to see all this you know in this podcast we can discuss the ordinary person on the street the ordinary Malaysian may not be able to connect the dots as how we are discussing they are they have no time they are too busy

you know with their lives and all that but the people realize that life is difficult uh life is difficult so so what they do is when the election time comes that's the only time where they can express their unhappiness. The result is the political parties lose the elections. Somehow they don't the politicians have not grasped this idea yet. Some people have not realized that 2018 uh the ruling coalition lost power. Maybe they don't realize that. They're thinking that well maybe it was a bad day. You know the wind was blowing the wrong direction, you know. So they don't

realize that there are things that they are doing which other people don't like. It doesn't work. It deprivives the people of our rights. uh it takes our money taxpayers money away from us and gives it to other people for for their own benefit. So as a result of which now these politicians get kicked out and they're going to get kicked out in the next round and whoever replaces them who doesn't change the habit doesn't change the policies will get kicked out again.

I hope so. There is is a certainty because the people are now tired for how many more years we're going to tolerate this kind of foolish behavior at our expense. How many more grab drivers who are working second jobs and third jobs and trying to actually make their family better. I think we need to actually make a change for this country. We have a country to save. Ladies and gentlemen, let's do it together. Thank you so much. Thank you.