Right now, everyone is still in shock at the RM1.1 billion worth of items seized from Najib’s residences that took forever to be counted, but let’s go back in time to the 14th General Elections for a bit.
On the eve of polling day (May 8), the two rivals, then prime minister Najib Razak and Pakatan Harapan chairman Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, were set to give their final speeches before the people voted for their government of choice.
On the same night, a mega-concert was held at Dataran Lang in Langkawi to allegedly deter crowds away from Dr Mahathir’s ceramah.
Source: The Star
But where did the money to stage this concert come from?
As reported by The Sun Daily, RM4 million was pumped into the concert with part of the money coming from the Human Resource Development Fund (HRDF).
RM4 million just so that people won’t attend Dr Mahathir’s ceramah?
According to veteran journalist R. Nadeswaran, the HDRF contribution was part of a huge war chest for BN’s GE14 campaign.
Nadeswaran said this and other abuses of employers’ funds are emerging on the eve of its annual general meeting, which will be held tomorrow, June 28. This will be preceded by a meeting of the HRDF board of directors.
Source: BFM
Just before the final election speeches, Najib was afraid that Dr Mahathir’s speech would reach a larger audience, so he booked all the television channels including TV3, TV2, Astro Awani, HyppTV and Bernama TV, where his own speech was aired live.
This left social media as the only platform for Dr Mahathir’s speech at Dewan Ho Peng in Langkawi to be live-streamed on.
Source: Yahoo News Singapore
Even with so little coverage for Dr Mahathir’s ceramah, there were still attempts by Barisan Nasional (BN) to pull crowds away from it, and they did so by staging the RM4 million concert which featured Malaysian artists like Datuk Ramli Sarip, Datuk DJ Dave, Dayang Nurfaizah, Joe Flizzow, Ruffedge, Ayda Jebat, Syamel, Ernie Zakri, Zahirah Macwilson and Achey Bocey.
BN was already giving out so much money to get people to vote for them, why did they still need to use money from the HRDF fund?
Also read: RM1.1 Billion Worth of Valuables Seized From Najib’s Residences, Here’s What They Include
