Arul Kanda in 'lawyerly' mode when grilled on 1MDB

1MDB chief executive officer (CEO) Arul Kanda Kandasamy (above) was in a "lawyerly" mode when he was grilled about the state-owned company's investments, said Bangi MP Ong Kian Ming.

Ong, who is also a special officer to Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng, said Arul Kanda stuck to the script with legalese during the May 23 session when the 1MDB CEO briefed the ministry.

"I will only say that Arul Kanda was very lawyerly, everything he spoke on was as if he was a lawyer, which he is.

"(He used) very legal terms, sticking to the script and not giving the full picture," Ong said in an interview with radio station BFM.

An example, Ong said, was when the ministry grilled Arul Kanda on the RM9.8 billion "fund units" investment by 1MDB.

"We asked them, look, have you made any attempt to recover these units and the answer they gave was that these are currently being investigated by the US Department of Justice and all our files are with Bukit Aman, the Criminal Investigation Department.

"They basically washed their hands clean from trying to recover this money. That is a lot of money. RM9 billion could have been used to pay off some of 1MDB's debt.

"But apparently neither Arul Kanda nor the chief financial officer (CFO) was interested in pursuing this money which is owed to the Malaysian people," said Ong.

Ong said apart from Arul Kanda, also present were 1MDB's former CFO Azmi Tahir and former company secretary Ivan Chen.

After the briefing, Lim had branded Arul Kanda as "dishonest and untrustworthy".

Arul Kanda later rebutted Lim, stating that it was unfair of the finance minister to put him in bad light. - Mkini