Rafizi warns of another 1MDB bailout

A RM3.6 billion debt is due for settlement this September, says the PKR man.

PETALING JAYA: 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) is expected to receive another fund injection from the government to enable it to settle a RM3.6 billion loan this September, PKR Secretary-General Rafizi Ramli said today.

Rafizi told a press conference at PKR’s headquarters that the loan was taken last October from a consortium of six international banks headed by Deutsche Bank, for which 1MDB used BSI Bank Singapore as collateral.

He also said that since it has been revealed that the BSI Bank account had now no actual cash but “paper assets” whose value was undetermined, he expected a fund injection as “another bailout to be shouldered by the public”.

“A loan as big as this would definitely come with collateral. The information I received is that the collateral for this loan is the funds in the BSI Singapore account, which was reported as being non-existent (as alleged by Sarawak Report),” he said.

“The one-year loan must be settled in September 2015,” he said, adding that the issue had attracted the attention of the international money market because 1MDB had experienced problems in settling the loans it had taken from local banks.

He recalled that last March, the government had to inject RM950 million into 1MDB a few weeks before the company had to settle a loan.

Referring to Tabung Haji’s recent purchase of land from 1MDB, he alleged that this also came a few weeks before a loan settlement.

Rafizi expressed a fear that the government might draw on funds from such agencies as the Employees Provident Fund and the Armed Forces Fund Board for future settlements of debts incurred by 1MDB.

He called on Prime Minister Najib Razak to explain how 1MDB planned to settle the loan by September since it was already wallowing in so much debt.