Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak pointed to the cash reserves of Petronas in firing back at critics who call him a thief.
"If I am a thief, what kind of thief leaves RM174 billion in Petronas' cash reserves?" he said at a Rantau by-election ceramah in Sendayan, Negeri Sembilan, last night.
Najib is currently facing 42 criminal charges that include money laundering, abuse of power and criminal breach of trust.
His trial on seven charges related to SRC International began at the High Court in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday.
Najib did not speak about this trial at the ceramah last night, which was attended by some 250 people.
His talk, part of BN's campaign for the Rantau by-election, focused on criticising the Pakatan Harapan government, including for taking RM82 billion from Petronas.
Petronas will fork out RM30 billion in special dividends in 2019, in addition to the annual dividend paid to the government. This sum is to ease the government's burden of repaying RM37 billion in GST refunds.
Najib said last year that he only took "RM17 billion" in dividends (actually RM19 billion) from Petronas.
He said this was done because he wanted the national oil film to invest its money in finding new oil wells.
'Jack Ma has lost his confidence in Malaysia'
Najib also claimed that Alibaba boss Jack Ma has lost his confidence in Malaysia.
"Jack Ma has run off into the night... he said the Malaysian government can't be trusted," Najib said.
This appeared to be based on a posting by fugitive blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin, who claimed Ma was unhappy that the Harapan government did not keep its promises.
Raja Petra retracted the article after Alibaba sent him a legal letter accusing him of lying and defaming Ma.
On the Rantau by-election, Najib said the people should vote for BN's Mohamad Hasan instead of PKR's Dr S Streram.
"Steram is just a doctor who puts people to sleep, so everyone will fall asleep," he said.
He said the voters would be "stupid" not to vote for Mohamad.
Najib then quickly apologised for saying this, explaining that he only meant it as a "figure of speech", that people should not reject a good leader like the acting Umno president.
Mohamad was not present at Najib's ceramah.
However, the two met and performed isya' (night) prayers at a surau in Sendayan earlier (photo, above), before the ceramah. - Mkini
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