Best part about the whole NS debacle and how it wrapped up is that the Prime Minister didn't even dignify Balaji's threat and demands with a response. The response ultimately came from a Majlis Bandaraya lol.
KENYATAAN MEDIA
PEMBATALAN LESEN PERNIAGAAN DAN ARAHAN PENGHENTIAN OPERASI NS0 MALAYSIA SDN. BHD. (NETWORK SCHOOL) DI FOREST CITY
1. Kerajaan Negeri Johor mengambil maklum dan menyokong sepenuhnya keputusan Mesyuarat Penuh Khas Majlis Bandaraya Iskandar Puteri (MBIP) untuk membatalkan lesen perniagaan serta mengarahkan semua aktiviti NS0 Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. (Network School) di Forest City dihentikan, berkuat kuasa pada 22 Julai 2026.
2. Keputusan tersebut dibuat berdasarkan proses dan peruntukan undang-undang yang berkuat kuasa, selepas penelitian terhadap laporan pemeriksaan, dapatan penguatkuasaan serta representasi yang dikemukakan oleh pihak syarikat.
3. Untuk makluman, tindakan penguatkuasaan hanya boleh diambil selepas aduan serta maklumat disahkan, pemeriksaan dijalankan, ketidakpatuhan dikenal pasti dan proses undang-undang disempurnakan. Tempoh sesuatu premis beroperasi tidak bermakna semua aktivitinya sentiasa mematuhi syarat lesen. Apabila ketidakpatuhan dikenal pasti, tindakan mesti diambil tanpa kompromi. Kerajaan Negeri akan terus memperketat penyelarasan antara agensi agar sebarang ketidakpatuhan dapat dikesan dan ditangani segera.
4. Kerajaan Negeri ingin menegaskan bahawa Johor sentiasa mengalu-alukan pelaburan berkualiti tinggi yang memberi manfaat kepada ekonomi, mewujudkan peluang pekerjaan dan memacu pembangunan negeri. Namun begitu, tiada mana-mana pelabur, syarikat atau organisasi boleh diletakkan mengatasi kedaulatan undang-undang negara.
5. Dalam ruang lingkup bidang kuasa yang diperuntukkan, Kerajaan Negeri dan Pihak Berkuasa Tempatan tidak akan berkompromi terhadap sebarang pelanggaran undang-undang atau perkara yang boleh menjejaskan keselamatan, kedaulatan dan kepentingan negara.
6. Sehubungan itu, Kerajaan Negeri menggesa Kementerian Dalam Negeri (KDN), Jabatan Imigresen Malaysia (JIM), Polis Diraja Malaysia (PDRM) serta agensi keselamatan berkaitan meneruskan siasatan dan mengambil tindakan tegas sekiranya terdapat penyalahgunaan pasport kedua, salah nyata identiti, pelanggaran syarat kemasukan atau apa-apa kesalahan di bawah undang-undang Malaysia.
7. Perkara ini tidak boleh dipandang ringan, lebih-lebih lagi apabila Johor merupakan pintu masuk strategik negara yang bersempadan dengan Singapura. Sebarang kelemahan atau penyalahgunaan sistem imigresen mesti ditangani segera, tegas dan tanpa kompromi.
8. Pada masa yang sama, Kerajaan Negeri menggesa Kementerian Digital dan Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) mengambil tindakan sewajarnya terhadap status Malaysia Digital atau sebarang pengiktirafan yang telah diberikan kepada organisasi berkenaan sekiranya terdapat ketidakpatuhan terhadap syarat atau prinsip yang ditetapkan.
9. Kerajaan Negeri turut menggesa semua agensi berkaitan memperketat proses “due diligence”, termasuk semakan latar belakang, pemilikan, sumber pembiayaan, bentuk operasi serta naratif yang dibawa oleh mana-mana syarikat atau organisasi.
10. Penyelarasan antara agensi juga perlu diperkukuh agar setiap pelaburan atau inisiatif antarabangsa diteliti secara menyeluruh dari aspek pelesenan, imigresen, keselamatan, penggunaan premis dan pematuhan undang-undang. Kerajaan Negeri akan terus bekerjasama dengan semua pihak bagi memastikan Johor kekal sebagai destinasi pelaburan yang diyakini, tanpa berkompromi terhadap keselamatan, kedaulatan dan undang-undang negara.
11. Semua perkara diatas telah disembah maklum serta perkenan kepada Kebawah Duli Yang Maha Mulia Seri Paduka Baginda Yang di-Pertuan Agong serta Duli Yang Amat Mulia Tunku Mahkota Ismail, Pemangku Sultan Johor.
Sekian.
ONN HAFIZ GHAZI
Menteri Besar Johor
21 Julai 2026
Start supporting Malaysian apps lah
• Touch ’n Go eWallet instead of PayPal
• MyCar instead of Uber
• AirAsia MOVE instead of https://t.co/I5VBtGIdCZ
• MAE by Maybank instead of Revolut
• Beep! instead of Uber Eats
• JomQR instead of Linktree
What other Malaysian alternatives can you recommend? 🇲🇾
Aku pernah ke Bali dan Phuket. Same shit. Charge orang depa sendiri beribu, exploit local workers by paying them cheap. Jual market “healing”, mandi air bunga, jual buku healing soul konon.
Semua duduk villa.
The only job probably orang Malaysia dapat ialah jadi driver je kot.
Many Malaysians believe that Malaysia will be colonized by someone with possible links to Zionists just because they started a school at Johor, per the comment section.
That just shows how insecure Malaysians are of the competence and capability of the national defense.
Network School’s problem is not that Malaysia is hostile to innovation. Malaysia already has a much stronger example of privately built innovation, education, housing and commerce working together. It is called Bandar Sunway.
The difference is that Sunway was built to become part of Malaysia. Network School appears to be built to use Malaysia as a backdrop, while selling access to a transnational social circle whose loyalty is to the network rather than the place hosting it.
Bandar Sunway created a durable urban ecosystem: universities, hospitals, offices, housing, retail, hospitality, transport links and thousands of jobs. Even Malaysians who never study at Sunway University, enter its theme park or use its medical facilities still benefit from the surrounding employment, training, supply chains, property demand and institutional capacity it creates. Its success enlarges Malaysia’s own capabilities instead of merely importing consumers with money.
Bandar Sunway also shows that a private development can pursue profit without becoming socially detached from its host country. Its commercial success depends on attracting students, patients, workers, residents and businesses into institutions that Malaysians can actually use. The project gains value as the surrounding society becomes stronger. That is very different from a model where exclusivity itself is the product and where local participation is secondary to access granted by a foreign network.
That is what serious place-making looks like. The developer does not merely attract affluent outsiders and call their proximity a community. It builds institutions that remain useful when the original founders leave.
Its legitimacy comes from value embedded in the country, not from the prestige, wealth or social connections of people temporarily occupying rooms. The host society is not scenery; it is the main stakeholder whose long-term interests justify the project.
Network School, by contrast, seems to treat networking itself as the product. Its central promise is access to other selected members, while Malaysia supplies the land, infrastructure, labour, legal jurisdiction and low operating costs. If the network relocates, most of the supposed intellectual value leaves with it. Malaysia is left with rooms, publicity and an argument about special treatment. That is closer to an exclusive membership club than a genuine development institution.
Chinese AI companies offer another useful comparison. Their strongest projects do not define innovation as placing ambitious people in an expensive enclave and hoping that useful ideas emerge. They build models, platforms and infrastructure that are then pushed into manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, robotics, vehicles, energy systems, education and enterprise operations. Innovation is expected to enter production, lower costs and increase national capability, not remain a lifestyle experience for a self-selected elite.
The important point is that ordinary people can benefit without ever opening the AI product themselves. A worker may benefit because a factory becomes more productive. A patient may benefit because medical imaging improves. A consumer may benefit because logistics become cheaper. A local developer may benefit because powerful open-weight models can be adapted without paying a foreign company for every use. The technology becomes part of the economy rather than a gated social identity.
DeepSeek, Qwen and other Chinese systems are not valuable only because they answer prompts. They strengthen domestic research, reduce dependence on foreign platforms, lower costs for local firms and create tools that can diffuse across the entire economy. Their public value is not limited to direct users. Even where companies remain commercial and competitive, the underlying expectation is that technological capacity should circulate through society and industry.
That is the standard Network School should be judged against. Does it train Malaysians, build institutions, create transferable technology, employ local talent, solve Malaysian problems or leave behind infrastructure that still matters after its members depart?
If the answer is mostly no, then Malaysia is not rejecting innovation. It is being asked to subsidise exclusivity, branding and a mobile foreign network. Malaysia should welcome builders, but builders must leave behind more than expensive rooms and flattering stories about themselves. Otherwise, the country provides the platform while outsiders capture the prestige, relationships and upside for themselves, then move on.
Bagus post ni. Patut kena lebih diviralkan.
Beberapa pihak dah mula bergendang konon Malaysia akan rugi besar kalau Balaji & NS ni blah dari sini.
Tapi kalau kita tengok respons Balaji, itu merupakan satu ugutan kepada negara kita.
Danial ni telah cerakinkan dengan lebih baik.
Kuat betul Balaji ni cuba putar belit dan kencing rakyat Malaysia. Macamlah kita semua tak cerdik
(1) company yg run Network school tu berdaftar di Singapore dan bayar tax di Singapura bukan Malaysia
(2) Forest City is tax free..celah mana dia bayar tax?
(3) lesen yg dia dapat dari PBT hanya lesen untuk pejabat urus niaga, bukan bina sekolah
(4) cer google success story dia dalam bisnes, hampeh semua rugi. perkataan “flops” merata-rata
(5) tiada start-up Malaysia diambil dalam Network School, celah mana sumbangan dia kepada rakyat Malaysia?
(6) konsep dia ni pun dia ciplak dari Pospera di Honduras. cer google apa jadi pada Kerajaan dan Negara Honduras sekarang bila Prospera dah jadi “state within a state” dan kuat dan ancam kedaulatan Honduras
Anwar ibrahim tak rugi apa apa pun bila forest city mati, yg rugi adalah hehehehhehehehehehehehehehhehe
Kalau cakap nanti makan roti bubur kacang seminggu dua
@akkinior I can't fathom how some people tried to defend this program in the name of 'progressiveness'. There's no such thing as 'progressiveness' when it involves corruption and closed-doors meetings that operates at gray legal areas. Not to mention israelis are not even allowed here...