All’s well, says 1MDB PM Najib’s BN govt … but 150 M’sian students face expulsion cos’ …

All’s well, says 1MDB PM Najib’s BN govt … but 150 M’sian students face expulsion cos’ …

1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) Prime Minister Najib Razak’s incompetent federal government continues to assure Malaysians that the country’s economy and financial position are OK.

Najib’s Umno-led Barisan Nasional (BN) lackey sycophants continue to insult the intelligence of Malaysians with their ridiculous defence of 1MDB, the world’s biggest ever multi-billion-dollar/ringgit money-laundering network.

With an abundance of evidence unearthed and exposed with financial documents and statements in probes by some 10 countries led by the United States Department of Justice (DoJ), they continue to “see no evil, hear no evil and say no evil” about 1MDB.
Amazingly, they show little interest in wanting to investigate and determine whether billions of dollars/ringgit were really stolen from 1MDB, a so called sovereign wealth fund wholly owned by Malaysia’s Finance Ministry.

And as the scandal is further prolonged without any conclusion or action against the culprit/s responsible for stealing the rakyat (people)’s money, Malaysians and Malaysia continue to suffer and be stressed socio-economically and politically.

Read these earlier No News Is Bad News posting for context: http://victorlim2016.blogspot.my/2016/09/with-1mdb-in-financial-coma-its-time-to.html, http://victorlim2016.blogspot.my/2016/09/oil-woes-haunt-1mdb-pm-najib-malaysias.html, http://victorlim2016.blogspot.my/2016/09/is-there-worse-than-bankruptcy-for.html, http://victorlim2016.blogspot.my/2016/09/30-million-malaysians-and-every-new.html and http://victorlim2016.blogspot.my/2016/08/has-malaysias-federal-debt-surpassed.html.

And online news portal Free Malaysia Today (FMT) today reported that 150 Malaysian students in Egypt face expulsion because they owe RM4.5 million in tuition fees after the Ringgit’s free fall in value. (Read this for context: http://victorlim2016.blogspot.my/2016/09/as-ringgit-weakens-further-will-anz.html and http://victorlim2016.blogspot.my/2016/09/1mdb-pm-najibs-worst-fears-begin.html.

No News Is Bad News believes that is only the “tip of the iceberg”, so to speak, as Malaysian students the world over are also facing the same financial predicament.

This is the FMT report:

"150 Malaysian students in Egypt face expulsion

FMT Reporters

| September 15, 2016

Malaysian student association says the students in medical, pharmacy and dentistry courses owe a total of RM4.5m in tuition fees after ringgit collapse.
PETALING JAYA: About 150 Malaysian students are suffering the effects of the massive decline in the value of the ringgit and may lose their place in Egyptian universities as a result.

The students, all in the field of medical science – medicine, dentistry and pharmacy – are from eight universities and are said to have racked up a total of RM4.5 million in unpaid tuition fees, Berita Harian reported.

They are finding it difficult to continue paying their annual tuition fees because the value of the ringgit has dropped from RM3.20 to US$1 in September 2014, to RM4.13 as of yesterday. The value of the ringgit reached a low of RM4.47 in September last year.

The president of the Malaysia-Egypt Medical Science Students Association (Perubatan) said Malaysian students are struggling to pay their tuitions fees which could be as high as US$8,000 per annum, according to the local Bahasa Malaysia daily.

“The issue of backdated fees is getting more serious since the fall of the ringgit towards the end of last year. It has affected the exchange rates of the ringgit to US dollar and Egyptian Pounds. This has in turn, increased the cost to pay our school fees.

“Also, the living expenses in Egypt increased by nearly 50 per cent since two years ago. This situation has given us students tremendous pressure, especially those who don’t have sponsors or any student loans,” Perubatan President Ikraam Abdul Latif was quoted as saying by Berita Harian.

Many of the 150 students had initially chose to further their studies in Egypt, in the hopes of obtaining scholarships from the Public Service Department (JPA) and Majlis Amanah Rakyat (Mara) if they managed to get good results in their first year.

However, since the 2013 Egyptian military coup, and the ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood-led government, JPA and Mara had pulled the plug on their sponsorship and financing programme.

Ikraam, who’s a sixth year medical student at the Cairo University, said that many affected students are now dependent on public funds to get by.

He said that Perubatan had attempted to work together with Education Malaysia Egypt to resolve existing student debts, however, the efforts were short-lived.

“The cooperation was for a short-term basis, such as releasing confirmation letters stating that the students have no sponsorship and loans, and also permission for indebted students to be allowed to sit for their examinations,” he told Berita Harian.

The 150 affected Malaysia students were studying medicine, dentistry and pharmacy at Al-Azhar University, Cairo University, Ain Shams University, Zagazig University, Alexandria University, Tanya University, Mansoura University and Assiut University."