Minister sceptical Bank Negara not aware of multi-billion donation

Urban Well-being, Housing and Local Government Minister Abdul Rahman Dahlan has expressed scepticism at Bank Negara's assertion that it cannot know about the inflow of funds into residents' accounts unless the relevant banks file a Suspicious Transaction Report (STR).

Bank Negara had made the clarification amid claims by BN leaders that the central bank was aware of the RM2.6 billion that went into the Ambank Islamic accounts of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, who claimed the money was a political donation.

However, Rahman, who is also BN strategic communications director, is unconvinced.

"I can understand if the amount is small. But billions?

"Hard to believe Bank Negara didn't have any knowledge or curious about any huge amount of inward transfer.

"Must they wait for the bank's STR to check?" he said in a series of Twitter posts.

Bank Negara in an e-mail to The Star said that only inflow of loan or financing from non-residents above the permissible threshold required approval.

Apart from this, Bank Negara said it would not monitor other transfer of funds unless the local bank suspected something amiss and files a report which would allow the central bank to investigate.

The report said that Section 132(1) of the Financial Services Act 2013 and Section 144(1) of the Islamic Financial Services Act 2013 contained strict client confidentiality provisions that prohibit Bank Negara from enquiring into a bank accounts without a STR.

Rahman questioned how did Bank Negara finally decided to investigate the RM2.6 billion donation, almost three years after the transactions occurred in 2013.

"Why did Bank Negara decide to investigate the donation?

"Did they finally get the STR from the bank? If yes, why did Bank Negara wait three years to act?" he asked.

Bank Negara's explanation on its monitoring of funds was made in general and did not specifically refer to Najib's RM2.6 billion.

Notably, the central bank had fined AmBank Group a whopping RM53.7 million on Nov 24 last year.

Najib's accounts which received the RM2.6 billion was with Ambank Islamic but it is unclear if it was linked to the fines as AmBank Group did not immediately disclose the reasons.

A report by The Sun a week later quoted AmBank Group as saying that the fine was due to weaknesses in its "reporting system and processes in place" at that time. -Mkini