IN the wake of the Batu Puteh Royal Commission of Inquiry having unveiled major treachery committed by Malaysians against their motherland, political activist Thaqib Shaker has gone one step further to lambast two Malay leaders who were instrumental “in giving away land plots belonging to KTM Bhd free-of-charge” to Singapore.
He did not specify the identity of those two leaders but people familiar with modern day history would be able to easily pinpoint that the DAP-slant social media influencer was referring to twice former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and incarcerated former premier Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
“It’s very damning indeed that our Malay leaders … not only thrice that I thoughrtthey gave away all kinds of things to Singapore for free,” he fumed in a recent TikTok video clip.
“Four times apparently with twice having happened during our lifetime and both leaders are still alive, of which one has been imprisoned while the other is still being worshipped and praised.”
According to Thaqib, both leaders had reasoned that the handing over of the lands belonging to the main railway operator in Peninsular Malaysia to Singapore would pave way for them to be developed and that Malaysia would eventually profit from the land deal.
“One arising question is whether it was necessary to transfer national assets to a foreign country just to develop those lands when the 999-year lease period has yet to lapse?” countered the media officer to Bukit Bendera MP Syerleena Abdul Rashid.
“How about the incurrence of high development cost that Singapore imposes on those replacement lands accorded to Malaysia? Don’t you don’t feel like kena kencing (tricked) by Singapore?
Delving further, Thaqib contended that there are many other pending questions regarding the losses to Malaysia from giving away those KTMB lands to Singapore “which stemmed from the stupidity of our songkok-donning leaders”.
‘But how strange that no ultra-Malays care about this issue. You know why? Because they themselves are unaware,” he teased.
“What they know is to blame it on the Chinese for everything … everything is the fault of Lim Kuan Yew (slang for Lim Kit Siang’ mocking PAS Kepala Batas MP Siti Mastura Muhammad), everything is DAP’s fault.”
For the record, Najib who is now behind bars in the Kajang Prison had in December 2018 refuted allegations that he had sold the KTM land in Tanjung Pagar to Singapore.
Claiming that many did not seem to understand the issue, he justified that the original agreement to stop the train station at Tanjung Pagar and convert the land was not decided by him but was instead negotiated by the finance minister in 1990.
Then during the Dr Mahathir’s administration, the finance minister was the late Tun Daim Zainuddin.
Under the 1990 agreement, Malaysia agreed to shift the station in Tanjung Pagar to a new station in Kranji, according to Najib.
“As compensation, Malaysia was to develop three packages of land belonging to KTM in Tanjung Pagar, Kranji and Woodlands in a joint venture with the Singapore government at a ratio of 60% for Malaysia and 40% for Singapore.
“After the government, under the fourth prime minister, inked the agreement, they also didn’t want to honour this agreement and asked for the three land packages in Bukit Timah, also belonging to KTM, to be included,” Najib had penned in a Facebook post.
According to him, Singapore subsequently agreed to include the Bukit Timah land in the joint development plan but Malaysia still refused to honour the agreement due to a feud with the city state on several issues at the time. – Dec 8, 2024
