APANDI’S HEAD MUST ROLL IF HE FAILS TO GO AFTER 1MDB CULPRITS NOW THAT LONDON ARBITRATION IS OVER

Granted, Malaysia has finally to eat humble pie and admitted that 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) has ‘wrongly paid’ the bogus Aabar, under an arbitration settlement agreement yesterday.

The amount to be received by end of December 2017, as revealed by Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum lnvestment Company (lPIC) to the London Stock Exchange, is US$1.205 billion (RM5.32 billion) by the end of the year.

IPIC at the same time, discharges itself entirely as a guarantor for 1MDB’s US$3.5 billion worth of bonds. 1MDB now assumes responsibility for all future interest and principal payments for the two bonds issued by 1MDB due in 2022. The bonds are issued by 1MDB Energy (Langat) Ltd (for US1.75 billion at 5.75 percent) and 1MDB Energy Ltd (US1.75 billion at 5.99 percent).

DOUBLE WHAMMY

1MDB has said that these obligations will be mainly met by the monetisation of 1MDB investment fund units. That is really is a double-whammy! Why? Now Malaysians have to fork out a total of US$7.01 billion – firstly paying the bogus Aabar of US$3.5 and now another US$3.5 billion for the two bonds? Incredulous and despicable!

We could vividly recall that 1MDB and its CEO, Arul Kanda Kandasamy, had informed the auditor-general (AG) and the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that they were correct in making such a payment. Who could Arul and the entire 1MDB with his adviser the alleged Malaysian Official 1 (MO1), have been trying to fool now? In simple terms, the verdict has exposed their many lies and deceits.

The United States Department of Justice (US DOJ) has outrightly decided that Aabar (BVI) is a fraudulent imposter company. 1MDB’s management and Arul Kanda, however doggedly and unashamedly insisted that it is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the IPIC group.

AG MUST GO AFTER CULPRITS

With the arbitration concluded, the winner and loser announced, the Malaysian attorney-general (AG) must now act to get the real culprits. Heads must roll. There are no two ways about it.

Crimes have been undoubtedly committed and it is only a matter of determining the culpability of the 1MDB board; the CEO, Shahrul Azral Azmi Ibrahim; Jho Low, his many associates and by extension arguably MO1. Under the current pressure, to opine that PM Najib Abdul Razak is frantic to have Parliament dissolved is surely an understatement.

While Khadem Al-Qubaisi and Mohamed Badawy Al-Husseiny were both criminalised by the Abu Dhabi authorities and several banks and banking officials in Singapore and Switzerland similarly met the long arm the law, will Malaysia’s AG finally final take the bull by its horns?

Will he finally be consistent with the law and his constitutional mandate and act similarly as the Swiss AG, Abu Dhabi and Singapore authorities?

Act now, AG, and show us you truly care, by either determining the existence of an incompetent management team or the existence of criminal negligence.
Without being overly presumptuous, you need not be rudely reminded that most likely, it would be at least a case of breach of trust or at it worst, a case of an international conspiracy to perpetrate fraud in an unprecedented scale on the misadventure that is the 1MDB fiasco.

So AG, if you still have the nation in your interests, justice must be done and heads must undoubtedly roll or the rakyat will be more than willing to take you on, at the appropriate time.

WRITER: DZULKEFLY AHMAD is strategy director of Parti Amanah Negara and former Kuala Selangor MP

– M’kini