Najib: I have to borrow money for my expenses

Former Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak today said he had to borrow money in order to pay for his expenses and bail money.

Najib made the revelation after being asked in an interview whether he felt under pressure after being slapped with 39 criminal charges with bail amounting to around RM6 million.

"Of course, it is something that I could not have imagined. I felt pressure and had to borrow money from certain quarters in order to foot my expenses and bail which was a large sum.

"I've also had to expend a lot of time," he said in an online interview aired by Nothing to Hide Media. The interview was conducted by Mohd Puad Zarkashi, who headed the propaganda department under the previous government.

Najib is accused of looting billions of ringgit from state fund 1MDB when he was prime minister and is facing a mounting number of criminal charges in relation to the case, which the US Department of Justice has described as its biggest kleptocracy case.

Najib, who has denied wrongdoing, said his lawyers were confident that he will be acquitted.

However, he said this would depend on a fair trial and whether the judges who presided over his case faced pressure from the government.

Najib also addressed the alleged financial mismanagement in Lembaga Tabung Haji claiming that it was not a case of corruption.

"When the issue was first raised, people thought that its money had disappeared or had been stolen," he said.

However, Najib, citing auditors Ernst and Young's review of Tabung Haji's accounts, insisted that its assets surpassed liabilities.

"That means there was no breach of rules. The issue was just whether we should or should not have paid high dividends.

"But if we pay dividends, it is the depositors that benefit, the money didn't go anywhere," he said.

'Bigger than Bersih'

A review by PriceWaterhouseCoopers found that Tabung Haji had allegedly cooked its books to conceal its deficit so as to be able to justify dividend payments to depositors.

It added that Tabung Haji had essentially paid dividends using depositors' funds.

On another issue, Najib claimed that the rally against the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Icerd) was "bigger" than the Bersih rallies.

He claimed the anti-Icerd rally symbolised the people desire for Muslims to unite adding that while Umno and PAS could cooperate, they should always maintain their own "branding". - Mkini