Has Saudi Arabia trampled on Malaysia’s sovereign status?

The U-turn by Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir on the 1MDB debacle opens up more cans of wriggling questions.

Now stating that the billions of ringgit given to Malaysia’s prime minister was a “donation” and that it indeed came from Saudi Arabia puts Najib Abdul Razak and the nation he leads into an extremely vulnerable spot - let alone the fact that it is indeed insulting, too.

Adel’s affirmation that the RM2.6 billion was a “donation and it is a genuine donation with nothing expected in return” not only insults and hurts the dignity of Malaysians but raises several suspicious questions.

One, why would a country give another nation such huge and unprecedented billions of ringgit so discreetly and remain tight-lipped when the beans began to spill into the open?

What was the Saudi Arabian government’s motive or motivation? Was it a mere act of pure charity and not knowing what to do with their surplus wealth?

What have the citizens of Saudi Arabia who belong to the deprived and poorer margins of society got to say about their country giving away such disproportionately huge sums of hard cash to another nation and expecting “nothing in return”?

What is so special a cause that deserved the prime minister of Malaysia to be considered out of the millions of fellow humans dotting Mother Earth, dying for want of better healthcare or food for survival?

Who went begging for that charity?

Second, if the Saudi government chose to give Malaysia all that monstrous sum of money, then who went begging for that charity? Who in Malaysia went asking for help, without the citizens of Malaysia knowing anything in the first place? And, why?

The Saudi Arabian minister can say, “So, as far as we are concerned, the matter is closed.” But Malaysians have not got the answers to their grave and painful concerns. And as long as the answers are not wholly complete and convincing, this case is not closed.

There are several reasons why we cannot dismiss this case so simply with the Saudi government’s about-turn explanation. And Najib better be told, too.

Firstly, this same foreign minister, Adel Al-Jubeir, did say that he did not think the RM2.6 billion deposited into Prime Minister Najib’s personal bank accounts was a political donation or that it originated from the Saudi government.

Adel held that the money was from an unspecified “investment”.

PM duty-bound and answerable

So why this sudden U-turn, claiming now that it was a “donation” from his government? And if it is indeed a donation, why was it deposited into a personal (and therefore private) bank account of one man who is also the leader of 30 million people?

In conclusion, it is logical to ask: is this not a case of abusing the sovereign status of Malaysia? What right has any nation to secretly dump billions of unprecedented sums of money on another nation and not want the world to smell a whiff of it all?

And therefore, the Malaysian prime minister is duty bound and answerable to all Malaysian citizens on why he accepted so much of money so discreetly, without even telling the country that he leads?

If Najib’s supporters counter by saying that it is his own right, then the answer is, better not hold the mantle of nation as prime minister and finance minister.

In so far as you are the public servant, you are duty bound to inform the citizens when such monstrously huge sums of money are given your nation by another government. There is no room for hush-hushing.

Whether the money was returned to the donor or not is irrelevant. -Mkini