'PAC not given bank statements to check if funds went to Najib'

The Auditor-General’s Department was not provided with the documents it required to check if any of 1MDB’s funds went into the bank accounts of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee members revealed.

As such, it is unreasonable for PAC chairperson Hasan Ariffin to claim the PAC report released last week showed Najib did not benefit from 1MDB, the opposition MPs on the PAC said.

“Unfortunately, the PAC could not verify if any payments were made by 1MDB into the private bank account of the prime minister because the documents needed, like bank statements, were not provided to the auditor-general.

“We also never made a finding that the PM is not guilty. Therefore we urge Hasan to show evidence, through the Hansard, that we had come to this decision through consensus,” five PAC members said in a statement.

The statement was issued by DAP MPs Tony Pua and Tan Seng Giaw, PKR MPs William Leong and Kamarul Baharin Abas and Takiyuddin Hassan of PAS.

Instead, the PAC members said, documents obtained by the auditor-general showed that Najib had signed off on major decisions made by 1MDB.

These included:

• Investment with PetroSaudi International;
• Issuance of bonds totalling US$6.5 billion; and
• Purchasing independent power plants and sacking auditors who did not agree with 1MDB’s position.

“As such, we urge the PAC chairperson to retract his statements because they are baseless, misrepresent PAC’s views and are lies.

“We hope the PAC chairperson is not abusing his position as the head of a parliamentary committee for BN’s and Najib’s political interests,” the MPs said.

The statement comes after cabinet minister Abdul Rahman Dahlan questioned why the opposition members on the PAC did not issue a minority report if they disagreed with the PAC report.

The PAC report, among others called for police investigations into former 1MDB chief executive officer Shahrol Azral Halmi (photo) and other management members.

It found the management to have acted against the 1MBD board’s advice and failed to do due diligence on major investment deals.

The report noted 1MDB rushed into the deal with PetroSaudi International, plowing in US$1 billion into a venture without verifying the value of the oil fields pledged by the little-known Saudi firm.

It also revealed that 1MDB, among others, obtained a letter from PetroSaudi verifying that Good Star Ltd is its subsidiary, six years after it transferred US$700 million to Good Star.

The report also states that the auditor-general did not find sufficient evidence that more than RM4 billion that 1MDB paid to British Virgin Island (BVI) entity Aabar PJS Ltd was to the right Aabar.

The payments were for security deposits and cancellation of an option given to Aabar parent company, International Petroleum Investment Corporation (IPIC), for a stake in a power plant.

IPIC yesterday told the London Stock Exchange that the BVI firm does not belong to IPIC. -Mkini