I am constantly amazed at how pitiful some of the next generation of opposition leaders are. Husam Musa has openly and in writing claimed that ECM Libra, a publicly-traded company, assisted in the disposal of a Malaysian entity to a Singaporean one.
Husam did this with the full knowledge that it would be populist to be anti-Singaporean and that this attack would in the same stroke take down the man that went head-to-head with him at a recent by-election. I hope for his sake that he has the facts to back this up in court.
ECM has since clearly stated that it had no part to play in the disposal of Malaysian assets to Parkway of Singapore and according to malaysiakini, ECM issued a warning to Husam not to baselessly slander them. This is what any corporate entity would do if they subject to populist bashing and unsubstantiated claims of which they had no part to play. So what does Husam now do? He now shifts his focus and says that he has no problem with ECM and that his only target is Khairy.Jamaluddin.
Husam says Khairy is a justifiable target because he bought shares in a company that he works for, ECM. So for Husam, this week it's Khairy, next week it's another personality? Aren't there enough more relevant and important things to fight for and discuss? PAS seems to better of with the older generation rather than with this irresponsible rabble rouser.
Anyway, it's public knowledge that Khairy's purchase was funded fully by a loan from the people he bought the shares from. This relatively small deal isn't even part of a government project or handout. Everyone can see that volumes traded on Bursa Malaysia are really low and also margins for brokers are down. Even without considering the five giant foreign brokers who now have licences, ECM is still quite a lot smaller than the top Malaysian broking firms like CIMB etc. and has to therefore fight really strong competition.
All this makes his purchase look inconsequential at best and poor judgment at worst. I suppose like anyone else, he's put his money where he thinks the prospects for growth are good, and in any event, if anyone's going to suffer from this deal, it's him.
Anyway, whatever the deal is with Khairy and ECM, I hope he makes money from his chosen field of investment banking before he becomes a minister. At least if he's made his pile, he'll be less likely to grab government projects like some politicians. Realistically speaking, if he goes in penniless, then he'll have a field day abusing all the power at a politicians disposal in distributing projects and contracts.
Hopefully, people like him who are reasonably financially sound can then just get on with doing the job of serving the people and not be preoccupied with making money from their position.
Let's stop wasting time with bothering about which famous individual did what especially when what they do has no meaningful bearing on national interest.