'Rosmah's bags aren't from Petaling Street, IRB must probe'

The Inland Revenue Board must investigate Prime Minster Najib Abdul Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor for possible tax evasion, after Rosmah was reported to have gone on a multi-million ringgit shopping spree, said DAP MP Lim Lip Eng.

The Wall Street Journal yesterday reported Rosmah bought clothes, shoes and jewellery totalling about US$6 million from 2008 to 2015.

Lim said Communications and Multimedia Minister Salleh Said Keruak, in condemning WSJ as trying to "interfere in internal politics", did not deny the report on the shopping.

"How is a report on Rosmah's shopping spree political interference? Rosmah did not buy her hand bags from Petaling Street," he said, referring to the Kuala Lumpur street market where counterfeit goods are often sold.

The Segambut MP said Rosmah's shopping tab worked out to US$2,055 a day – enough to pay eight people minimum wages for a month, with change.

Yet, PM Najib only earns RM284,194.89 a year.

"Even if her husband Najib did not spend a sen of his annual salary, his income would only last a month and two days based on his wife's spending.

"So how could Rosmah spend so much in eight years? Even a mountain of gold would go flat," he said.

As such, the IRB must act swiftly and check Rosmah and Najib's tax records regardless of whether there is a denial from the couple, he said.

"Unless the IRB, too, decides not to investigate and to accuse the WSJ of lying," he said.

The WSJ cited "newly revealed documents" as showing Rosmah spent US$6 million in credit charges in recent years.

They included spending at London's Harrods department store to Saks Fifth Avenue in New York.

"She is the only child of schoolteachers, hasn’t had a regular paying job in years and her husband, Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, is a longtime bureaucrat with an annual salary of US$100,000," said the WSJ report.

In her biography, Rosmah had said that she bought clothes and jewellery using her own money.

Malaysiakini contacted Rosmah's aide Rizal Mansor on the WSJ report but has yet to receive a response. - Mkini