1MDB has failed to meet its own self-imposed deadline to repay its debts to Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Corporation (IPIC). The first instalment of US$602,725,000 was due on 31 July as part of the settlement arrived at the London Arbitration Court between IPIC, 1MDB and the Ministry of Finance in April 2017.
Then, 1MDB had disclosed that “these obligations will be met by 1MDB, primarily via monetization of 1MDB-owned investment fund units”.
Now with the payment in default, 1MDB said that it “is awaiting funds that were due to be received in July. Due to the need for additional regulatory approvals, the receipt of those funds has been delayed to August.”
The Prime Minister, Dato’ Seri Najib Razak repeated the same when questioned in Parliament by the Opposition Leader, Dato’ Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, claiming that the delay in payment is merely a “technical issue” without elaborating any further.
All of the above responses are cryptic and opaque as no one after reading or listening to the above responses have any clue as to why exactly is there apparent difficulty in processing the above transactions, or what regulatory approvals are involved, in making the above payment to IPIC.
The reason for the opacity and secrecy is simple. There is no Bank in the world today who is willing to process the ‘sale’ of the 1MDB-owned investment fund ‘units’. This is because the United States Department of Justice have stated that these ‘units’ were fraudulent. They were created to cover-up the more than US$1 billion which were misappropriated by 1MDB to Good Star Limited when the intent was to have invested with Petrosaudi International Limited.
In fact, the Singapore Courts also confirmed that the financial analyst from NRA Capital in Singapore was bribed to produce the false valuation report on these investment ‘units’.
Any Bank, Malaysian or international which facilitates the transaction involving the sale of these fraudulent investment ‘units’ by 1MDB to whoever or whichever party would hence be guilty of facilitating money laundering.
BSI Bank, the Singapore branch of the 132-year-old Swiss private bank which was the ‘custodian bank’ for the above 1MDB investment had already been punished. It’s merchant banking licence was terminated by Singapore and subsequently, the Switzerland’s financial regulator, FINMA has demanded that the Bank be dissolved.
No bank worth its salt would want to experience and endure the same fate as BSI Bank or many other Banks which have been fined and punished as a result of their entanglement with 1MDB.
The only way for 1MDB to repay IPIC would be a direct payment by the Government of Malaysia to IPIC. However, if that were to happen, it would be a direct admission by the Government that 1MDB is carrying the fraudulent investment and billions of dollars have been lost and stolen from the company, which requires a further mega-bailout from the country’s coffers.
Therefore, the decision by the Speaker to deny the Member of Parliament for Segambut’s motion to debate the default by 1MDB is a clear decision to save Dato’ Seri Najib Razak the embarrassment of having the truth revealed in Parliament or worse, incriminating the Prime Minister in the largest ever financial scandal to be inflicted on Malaysia.
We call upon Dato’ Seri Najib Razak to explain himself and tell the full truth to the millions of Malaysians who are gravely concerned with the RM50 billion 1MDB scandal. If there is ‘nothing to hide’ and what we have stated above is in anyway without basis as the BN leaders often claim, then come to Parliament, answer questions and debate openly.
Showing posts with label Good Star Limited. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Good Star Limited. Show all posts
Thursday, August 03, 2017
Saturday, March 18, 2017
Dato’ Seri Johari Abdul Ghani must think that Malaysians are born yesterday to buy his excuse that the Government “can't press charges on 1MDB without a full picture”.
I was stunned by the Second Finance Minister, Dato’ Seri Johari Abdul Ghani’s remarks to the media that the Government “can’t press charges on 1MDB without a full picture”. I had certainly expected better of him, as he was a known critic of 1MDB before his appointment as a Minister.
"The transfer of the money to the accounts and so on, it’s not that. That’s only half the story. If you want to charge people, you need the complete story," Johari said at a luncheon talk organised by Malaysian Industrial Development Finance Bhd which was reported by the Edge Financial Daily yesterday.
Of course, we need the complete story in order to charge any person for a crime. However, the question is there must be a concerted effort to investigate the crime.
From what we can see happening in Malaysia at this point of time, there is no attempt at all to investigate the crimes everyone can see which have taken place in Malaysia.
The United States Department of Justice (US DOJ) has clearly presented all documentary evidence of how funds amounting to more than US$5.6 billion have been siphoned from 1MDB and laundered overseas. This included more than US$1 billion which have been siphoned to Good Star Limited which was owned by Jho Low, whose whereabouts are a mystery today. The 1MDB management had persistently tried to hide this fact by lying that Good Star Limited was owned by 1MDB’s joint venture partner, Petrosaudi International Limited.
In Singapore, bankers have been sent to jail and bank licences have been withdrawn for facilitating the above same transactions. This has included funds which has passed through to and from a Tanore Finance Corporation via its bank account with Falcon Private Bank to the personal bank account of Dato’ Seri Najib Razak.
And yet, despite the obvious and ease of accessing all the relevant evidence of grand corruption, the Second Finance Minister has the cheek to tell Malaysians that the Government “can’t press charges without the full picture”.
Dato’ Seri Johari even had the gall to dismiss the case in Singapore as not having involved Malaysians. "The governance issue happened in Singapore, not in Malaysia. And those characters are actually Singaporeans,” he said.
The Minister is obviously pretending very hard to be ignorant and stupid because the Singapore cases clearly named the parties who laundered the funds included Jho Low, his father Tan Sri Larry Low and other associates who were Malaysians. Evidence including banking transactions were presented to the Court demonstrating how these funds stolen from 1MDB were misappropriated, including the amounts ending up in the Prime Minister’s bank account.
If the Minister is really clueless about the evidence and what took place in the US DOJ and Singapore Courts, I will be most happy to share the information and documents with the Minister.
However, please don’t tell half-truths to the Malaysian public that "even the PAC (Public Accounts Committee) and AG (auditor-general) were unable to specifically tell what went wrong.
The AG has discovered many wrongs which were cited in the AG’s Report on 1MDB which the Cabinet has decided to classify under the Official Secrets Act (OSA). This was despite the fact that 1MDB had refused full cooperation with the AG by denying the AG access to crucial banking documents of its overseas subsidiaries.
But even what little revealed in the PAC Report was sufficient for the PAC to conclude massive wrong-doing on the part of the management. The PAC has specifically demanded that Datuk Shahrol Halmi be investigated for his role in causing the billions of ringgit of losses to 1MDB and the Malaysian Government.
It has been nearly a year since the report has been tabled in Parliament. Why hasn’t any action at all be taken against Datuk Shahrol Halmi? In fact, why is Datuk Shahrol Halmi still a Director at the PEMANDU agency in the Prime Minister’s Department?
The reality is, not only has the Government made no effort into investigating the scandal, it is blocking all attempts to investigate the crime. For example, the Attorney-General abused his power by instructing the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) from further investigating the US$681 million or more which were discovered in the Prime Minister’s bank account. Subsequently, he rejected a request for cooperation by the Swiss Attorney-General to investigate the case.
Dato’ Seri Johari Abdul Ghani may not have been involved in the attempts to stall or stop the investigations, as he was only appointed a Minister in July last year. However, he should not try to belittle the intelligence of ordinary Malaysians or take us for fools by claiming that the Government can’t press charges because it doesn’t have a “full picture”.
Sunday, May 29, 2016
Who is Datuk Hasan Arifin trying to protect when he works so hard to hide the fact that Good Star Limited belongs to Jho Low?
The Malaysian public can now see for themselves the types of challenges the opposition members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) faced when dealing with a Chairman the likes of Datuk Hasan Arifin.
Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Datuk Hasan Arifin made the outright denial that Good Star Limited belonged to Low Taek Jho, or better known as Jho Low. Good Star Limited has received US$1.03 billion of direct payments from 1MDB from 2009 to 2011.
“Selaku Pengerusi PAC saya ingin menafikan bahawa pemilik Good Star Limited adalah Low Taek Jho seperti yang dinyatakan oleh akhbar Wall Street Journal dengan mengaitkan surat Bank Negara terhadap Jawatankuasa ini,” he said.
This outrageous denial was made despite the Bank Negara disclosed that 2 foreign regulatory authorities confirmed to Bank Negara that the sole beneficiary of Good Star Limited was Jho Low and the ownership status never changed since its inception in June 2009.
Instead, he chose to dismiss Bank Negara’s letter claiming that the information provided is of “intelligence grade” (bertaraf risikan). Hence, since the PAC is not an “intelligence agency”, we are unable to verify the authenticity and truth of the information.
This must be the most gravity-defying acrobatic twist of logic from the Chairman who was only appointed to lead the committee in October last year. An “intelligence grade” piece of information does not require an intelligence agency to make use of the intelligence reports.
On the contrary, the “intelligence grade” information should be taken as the likely truth unless otherwise proven because it was intelligence received from Bank Negara’s counterparts in foreign countries.
Furthermore, if “intelligence grade” information from Bank Negara cannot be believed, then why should the PAC Chairman accept at face value the letter from Petrosaudi acknowledging Good Star Limited as its subsidiary by mere assertion, unsupported by any documentary evidence? We don’t even know if the letter provided by 1MDB is genuine! Is he claiming that Bank Negara far less trustworthy than 1MDB, the very company the PAC is tasked to investigate?
Datuk Hasan Arifin then argued that because the letter was of “intelligence grade”, information contained in the letter cannot be included in any reports produced by the PAC.
However, he neglected to mention that Bank Negara specifically provided that the PAC can be allowed to use the information contained in its letter for PAC’s publications on the condition that “approval from the foreign regulatory authorities be obtained via Bank Negara in advance”. (Sekiranya PAC bercadang untuk menggunakan maklumat di dalam dokumen awam, kebenaran dari negara-negara terlibat melalui Bank perlu dipohon terlebih dahulu.)
What’s more, the letter would provide the necessary leads for the PAC to investigate further into the multi-billion dollar embezzlement which took place. For example, the PAC would then have the strong basis to summon Jho Low to testify to the Committee.
In addition, Datuk Hasan Arifin did not respond to the question as to why he refused to share the “intelligence grade” letter to the PAC members? He claimed that the letter was addressed to him confidentially, but the contents of the Bank Negara letter repeatedly made reference to the information which was “provided to the PAC”. (pendedahan maklumat pendaftaran GSL adalah terhad kepada PAC…)
Therefore Datuk Hasan Arifin’s media response yesterday did not absolve him from his role in covering up the 1MDB scandal. Instead it only confirmed that he is either a complete illiterate who could not read and understand basic Bahasa Malaysia, or more likely, he is abusing his position as the PAC Chairman to obstruct the investigations into the single largest financial scandal in the history of the country.
As such, Datuk Hasan Arifin’s response reinforced our calls for him to resign as the PAC Chairman because Malaysians can no longer trust him to carry out his role honestly, professionally and with integrity.
The top most question now which he must answer is, why is he going all out to hide Jho Low’s connections to Good Star and 1MDB, even at the cost of making him look like a complete idiot? Is it because Jho Low will be the key to unlock the mystery of how billions of ringgit might have found its way to Dato’ Seri Najib Razak and his family’s personal wealth?
Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Datuk Hasan Arifin made the outright denial that Good Star Limited belonged to Low Taek Jho, or better known as Jho Low. Good Star Limited has received US$1.03 billion of direct payments from 1MDB from 2009 to 2011.
“Selaku Pengerusi PAC saya ingin menafikan bahawa pemilik Good Star Limited adalah Low Taek Jho seperti yang dinyatakan oleh akhbar Wall Street Journal dengan mengaitkan surat Bank Negara terhadap Jawatankuasa ini,” he said.
This outrageous denial was made despite the Bank Negara disclosed that 2 foreign regulatory authorities confirmed to Bank Negara that the sole beneficiary of Good Star Limited was Jho Low and the ownership status never changed since its inception in June 2009.
Instead, he chose to dismiss Bank Negara’s letter claiming that the information provided is of “intelligence grade” (bertaraf risikan). Hence, since the PAC is not an “intelligence agency”, we are unable to verify the authenticity and truth of the information.
This must be the most gravity-defying acrobatic twist of logic from the Chairman who was only appointed to lead the committee in October last year. An “intelligence grade” piece of information does not require an intelligence agency to make use of the intelligence reports.
On the contrary, the “intelligence grade” information should be taken as the likely truth unless otherwise proven because it was intelligence received from Bank Negara’s counterparts in foreign countries.
Furthermore, if “intelligence grade” information from Bank Negara cannot be believed, then why should the PAC Chairman accept at face value the letter from Petrosaudi acknowledging Good Star Limited as its subsidiary by mere assertion, unsupported by any documentary evidence? We don’t even know if the letter provided by 1MDB is genuine! Is he claiming that Bank Negara far less trustworthy than 1MDB, the very company the PAC is tasked to investigate?
Datuk Hasan Arifin then argued that because the letter was of “intelligence grade”, information contained in the letter cannot be included in any reports produced by the PAC.
However, he neglected to mention that Bank Negara specifically provided that the PAC can be allowed to use the information contained in its letter for PAC’s publications on the condition that “approval from the foreign regulatory authorities be obtained via Bank Negara in advance”. (Sekiranya PAC bercadang untuk menggunakan maklumat di dalam dokumen awam, kebenaran dari negara-negara terlibat melalui Bank perlu dipohon terlebih dahulu.)
What’s more, the letter would provide the necessary leads for the PAC to investigate further into the multi-billion dollar embezzlement which took place. For example, the PAC would then have the strong basis to summon Jho Low to testify to the Committee.
In addition, Datuk Hasan Arifin did not respond to the question as to why he refused to share the “intelligence grade” letter to the PAC members? He claimed that the letter was addressed to him confidentially, but the contents of the Bank Negara letter repeatedly made reference to the information which was “provided to the PAC”. (pendedahan maklumat pendaftaran GSL adalah terhad kepada PAC…)
Therefore Datuk Hasan Arifin’s media response yesterday did not absolve him from his role in covering up the 1MDB scandal. Instead it only confirmed that he is either a complete illiterate who could not read and understand basic Bahasa Malaysia, or more likely, he is abusing his position as the PAC Chairman to obstruct the investigations into the single largest financial scandal in the history of the country.
As such, Datuk Hasan Arifin’s response reinforced our calls for him to resign as the PAC Chairman because Malaysians can no longer trust him to carry out his role honestly, professionally and with integrity.
The top most question now which he must answer is, why is he going all out to hide Jho Low’s connections to Good Star and 1MDB, even at the cost of making him look like a complete idiot? Is it because Jho Low will be the key to unlock the mystery of how billions of ringgit might have found its way to Dato’ Seri Najib Razak and his family’s personal wealth?
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