COMMENT Far from exonerating Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, I think the recent Public Accounts Committee’s (PAC) report has brought to light more salient points that we need to know about the mother of scandals.
Without the PAC report, a lot of information would have remained buried. Even the Barisan Nasional members of the PAC cannot deny a number of these facts that have become public knowledge after the PAC report was tabled in Parliament.
Along with the latest press release issued by the Swiss Attorney-General’s Office and another press release by the International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC), the noose appears to be tightening slowly but slowly on the scandal-plagued prime minister.
Unless he steps down, his plan to remain in office will only backfire on the party that he represents and Barisan Nasional as a whole, but what concerns me as a citizen of this country is that it will also be to the detriment of the country’s international image.
My gut feelings are that Najib’s premiership will be short-lived, given that foreign investigators are unlikely to back off from their call to duty.
Latest damning reports
The Swiss authorities, for example, have stated that it has “elements in hand” to suspect that part of the money from 1MDB had gone to a “company related to the motion picture industry”.
Although the language used here is vague, elsewhere, we are told by the Wall Street Journal that US$155 million of 1MDB’s money which was paid to a shady firm from British Virgin Island, had found its way to a Hollywood firm, Red Granite.
The money was used to produce ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’, a movie which, surprisingly, never made it to our shores, despite Red Granite’s owner, Riza Aziz, being Najib’s stepson.
We are expecting another form of denial that no one knew who instructed the money to be transferred to Red Granite, but foreign investigators are not going to accept such explanations. More truths will be forthcoming in the coming months. It is not only one country, but at least six countries have initiated their investigations into 1MDB money trail.
After the International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) released its official press release (see enclosed), it is even clearer now that the BVI incorporated Aabar Investments Ltd, which shares the same name as IPIC’s subsidiary Aabar Investment Ltd incorporated in Abu Dhabi, was never a part of IPIC.
In short, the huge amount of our tax money that went to Aabar Investment incorporated in BVI, which the PAC report had highlighted, had gone into a black hole. There would never be a return on investment. As prime minister, how could Najib therefore sit still, and not order an investigation into the case, when it involves a huge sum of public funds?
Why has Malaysia not applied for mutual legal assistance (MLA) to have the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Agency (MACC) investigating further into two former senior staff, Khadem Al Qubaisi (IPIC managing director) and Mohamed Badawy Al Husseiny (Aabar chairperson) who have already been arrested recently?
Within the next two months or so, I believe these two former senior staffers will be shedding more light into the 1MDB scandal. The UAE has done the right thing to arrest the two persons for further investigations.
Najib has to explain
Article 17 of the company’s Memorandum and Articles of Association (MAA) clearly implicates Najib in the 1MDB scandal. It reads: “For the avoidance of doubt and notwithstanding, anything in the Articles, none of the following shall take effect without the prior written approval of the prime minister (emphasis mine).”
When KPMG was sacked, I understand that the letter, too, was signed by Najib; therefore, how is it that Najib could pretend that he was not involved in the company’s operations? This is something that I find it hard to understand myself after I read the clause ‘without the prior written approval of the prime minister.”
There are also a number of other issues raised in the PAC report that would have raised an alarm to Najib being both prime minister and finance minister. If he wants to exonerate himself, Najib has to immediately order an investigation into the findings in the PAC.
For example, why was US$700 million paid to Good Star Limited, an unrelated firm owned by flamboyant Malaysian tycoon Jho Low. Why was Low appearing on behalf of the Saudi royal family? What did he say that had misled the board? Why did one of the directors resign immediately and did not want to have anything to do with 1MDB?
I want to know why Low not been instructed by Najib to appear before the PAC to clarify his role? In fact, it is never too late since Low’s name has been mentioned in the PAC report as having received US$700 million. We want to know what exactly is Low’s role in this entire scandal, or should I say, business operation?
Unless Najib takes all the right steps now, it would be hard for ordinary citizens like me (and I believe the majority of the learned people who are following the news) to believe that the PAC report exonerates him of any wrongdoing in the 1MDB scandal.
STEPHEN NG is an ordinary citizen with an avid interest in following political developments in the country since 2008. -Mkini
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