Pua: Arul Kanda’s denials about audit miss the point

The 1MDB chief should ensure the audit will be completed within the stipulated time as required by law instead of offering excuses.

KUALA LUMPUR: Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua, while commending Arul Kanda Kandasamy for his quick response, pointed out that the 1MDB Chief has completely missed the point that he was making on Deloitte Malaysia not being able to commence audit work on the company for the last financial year.

“His denial does not explain anything,” said Pua who is also DAP National Publicity Secretary. “Arul Kanda’s commendably immediate denial misses the point and was an attempted misdirection.”

“He should stop giving excuses and give his assurance to Malaysians that the statutory financial audit for the scandal-ridden 1MDB for the 31 March 2015 financial year-end will be completed by 30 September 2015 as required by law.”

Arul Kanda in his denial, he lamented, said “the board and management of 1MDB met Deloitte as early as February 2015 to discuss commencement of an audit after the financial year-end of 31 March 2015.”

“We want to know about the controversial assets held in various overseas banks. We want to know what was the true debt situation in 1MDB and the extent of the company’s cash flow problems.”

Unfortunately, he said, “what we didn’t get from Arul Kanda was when the audit will actually commence. More worryingly, we would like to ask the President of 1MDB, why is it that since the discussion more than three months ago, the audit for 1MDB has not commenced.”

Arul Kanda claimed that “the audit of a major 1MDB subsidiary, Edra Global Energy Bhd, has already commenced and was well under way”, noted Pua.

“I asked about ‘the holding company, 1MDB, where all the controversy over its funds, cash flow problems and alleged misappropriations lie, but Arul Kanda tells us that the audit has commenced on its subsidiary.”

The commencement of audit work on Edra isn’t at all surprising, he added. “It was expected because the company was preparing for their initial public offering.”

Arul Kanda, Pua further noted, separately highlighted the fact that “1MDB is currently undergoing a thorough review and investigation of its accounts by the National Audit Department.”

“Let me state that the fact that the Auditor-General (A-G) was reviewing the past financial statements of 1MDB does not in any way justify the fact that the statutory audit for 1MDB has not commenced,” said Pua. “These are two different and independent processes which surely a multi-billion ringgit public-interest company cannot afford to neglect.”

In fact, he said, given that there was a parallel on-going A-G review, Deloitte should be invited to commence their audit earlier so as to provide the auditors with a longer lead-time to complete the report.