Be professional about politics (part II)

Earlier, we discussed about how the Opposition is all about manipulation, lies and theatrics. Nothing else. No plans. No implementation programs. No accountability. Just good old pretenders who can’t deliver.

Barisan Nasional, the ruling party is neither free from almost the same sort of personalities. Many are genuine leaders, wanting to serve. However, in the zest to serve politicians must be truthful with themselves.

Tabung Haji is a government agency formed as a savings co-operative for ordinary Malaysian Muslims to afford to do Hajj, the fifth pillar of Islam. In the past, many lesser fortunate Malaysians had so save almost a lifetime for them to afford the trip. Tabung Haji enabled them to save and their savings are invested in syariah compliant business ventures like oil plan plantations and property development, to ensure returns for the capital.

This expedited the process of growing the savings and  this plus the unsurpassed organizational management of Tabung Haji provided more opportunites for many Malaysian Muslim to perform Hajj. Currently, over 28,000 Malaysian pilgrims are being organized in over 80 different flights and maktab during in any Hajj season.

Seven million depositors Tabung Haji now own an aggregated asset worth RM 35 billion.

The Tabung Haji page of Azeez Rahim as a BOD member, dated 14 Jan 2013

In the official Tabung Haji website, Datuk Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim is listed as a board member. His curriculum vitae synopsis is featured on his page as member of the BOD.

One thing interesting about what is stated in the page is that Azeez has a ‘Masters Degree in Business Administration, Preston University, USA’. Azeez left school with SPM. What is more interesting is when we googled ‘Preston University, USA‘, there is no information.

Then again according to Wikipedia, there was once a bogus Preston University which was based in Wyoming. It is described as an ‘uncredited institution’. A blog discussed about this back in 2005, after blogger Jeff Ooi and Aisehman raised on the same subject matter.

In an interview with The Sun in 2005, Azeez claimed:

“The university I studied in was not some fly-by-night university.. it is among the oldest universities in the US – Preston University in Wyoming …”

Azeez should come out and be truthful about this. Not only as an elected MT UMNO member, he is a political aspirant to contest in Baling in the upcoming 13GE under BN banner. He has the fiduciary duty as a member of the board of directors for Tabung Haji to be truthful in his disclosure. If any information offered was erred whether with the intention to mislead or negligently, then it was his duty to correct them.

Fake disclosure is really far off from gimmicks and stunts to gain attention.

For the record, Azeez was featured as a BN candidate for P16 Baling Parliamentary constituency during the 12GE. Then Prime Minister PM ‘Flip-Flop’ Dato’ Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi  placed Azeez instead of then Deputy Minister in Prime Minister Department Dato’ Mashitah Ibrahim. He lost miserably by  7,613 majority to PAS candidate former Masjid Negara Imam Taib Azamuddin.

Azeez cannot be seen as a fraud, either as an aspiring BN ‘winnable candidate’ or a steward in a public trustee organization. He has to be professional as a politician, even though he might not have any qualification to be a professional.