Give due credit for 1MDB recoveries

Honesty, integrity and the desire to give credit where due decree that the right people are recognised for good things that happen to the country. The Muhyiddin government could have earned some precious public goodwill if it did that for recoveries of money stolen from 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB).

Instead they took credit for something they should not have – the return by the United States of US$300 million or some RM1.3 billion in monies from the sale of assets in the US bought with money stolen from 1MDB.

This brings the total recovered and repatriated to US$620 million or RM2.7 billion – a sizeable amount of money but still just a fraction of the US$4.5 billion (RM19.6 billion) the US Department of Justice or DOJ said was embezzled from 1MDB by Jho Low between 2009 and 2015, implicating also then prime minister Najib Abdul Razak.

In a 2015 report, then classified secret under the Official Secrets Act, Malaysia’s auditor-general said that some US$7 billion or RM30.5 billion could not be accounted for. The RM2.7 billion so far recovered represents under 10% of the 1MDB money which went missing.

The public unhappiness is over who is credited with getting this money back. Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin expressed gratitude to the US government, in particular to its embassy here. But he added more.

“I would also like to commend Malaysia’s minister of finance and the attorney-general for their role in the negotiation process. 1MDB asset recovery efforts are ongoing, and the government will continue to work with the US, the DOJ and other governments to recover and repatriate more 1MDB monies in the future,” Muhyiddin said.

The question is which finance minister and which AG. Sources tell me that a meeting and announcement had been scheduled for the same purpose on Feb 19 with finance minister then, Lim Guan Eng, his political secretary Tony Pua, the US ambassador Kamala Lakhdhir and then AG Tommy Thomas to announce the return of monies.

But for various reasons, including waiting for a larger amount of money, the meeting was postponed. In the meantime, the backdoor government move started, Thomas resigned and Lim and Pua were out of government.

The point is, this return of monies from the sale of assets bought with money stolen from 1MDB was a process that was started by the Pakatan Harapan government after it gained power in May 2018, with the main role played by Thomas as AG. He was instrumental in the return of the luxury yacht Equanimity in August 2018 which was seized in Indonesia and directly returned to Malaysia.

Obfuscating the truth

The current return of monies from the sale of assets in the US bought by Jho Low and associates with money stolen from 1MDB comes from a settlement made between Jho Low and the DOJ for the forfeiture of US$700 million of assets as outlined in this US DOJ statement.

Together with these assets and earlier ones, the total recovered by the US of assets in the US, UK and Switzerland amounted to some US$1 billion. Pointedly, the US, in its statement dated Oct 30, 2019, specifically thanked Malaysian authorities.

“The Department also appreciates the significant assistance provided by the Attorney General’s Chambers of Malaysia, the Royal Malaysian Police, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, the Attorney General’s Chambers of Singapore, the Singapore Police Force-Commercial Affairs Division, the Office of the Attorney General and the Federal Office of Justice of Switzerland, the judicial investigating authority of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the Criminal Investigation Department of the Grand-Ducal Police of Luxembourg,” the statement said.

Clearly this is a process that was started during the previous government and the ones who should rightfully take credit for the ongoing recoveries are the Attorney-General’s Chambers, police and MACC – and the officials in charge at that time. Not to attribute this to them is to obfuscate the truth.

The irony of this entire process is that many of the MPs – all the Umno and BN MPs in the current administration, including a number of ministers – are complicit in this stealing of money, refusing to so much as admit that 1MDB money had been stolen and used to buy assets in the US.

Many of them personally disputed the detailed DOJ report of 2015 which had traced international money flows and assets bought with money stolen from 1MDB which it had put at over US$4.5 billion.

Ironically, if governments wanted to return money stolen from 1MDB at that time, they could not, because prior to May 2018, the Malaysian government, and all the Umno MPs, refused to acknowledge that billions had been stolen from 1MDB.

The least that Muhyiddin – who engineered the collapse of the Harapan government by creating an alliance with Umno and PAS and enticing Bersatu and PKR MPs over with promise of position and power – could have done was to thank the right people for the return of the monies.

By refusing to do so, he actually smirches his own reputation and legacy because he was one of those who had early on fingered Najib as the architect of 1MDB and its losses.

P GUNASEGARAM is editor of Focus Malaysia. - Mkini