Dato’ Seri Najib Razak must answer what happened to the US$3.51 billion 1MDB said it has paid to IPIC or its subsidiaries

Yesterday, Dato’ Seri Najib Razak told the Malaysian and international investment community that there were only “lapses in governance” in 1MDB but he has “ordered investigations into the company at a scale unprecedented in our nation's history”.

If it were indeed true that investigations were are an “unprecedented” scale, then the investigators must be the most incompetent ever seen in Malaysian history.  This is because to date, the key questions surrounding the various dodgy investments by 1MDB and the billions of ringgit misappropriated, often to entities owned by Jho Low have never been explained.

In one of the few questions with regards to 1MDB which was not rejected by the Parliament Speaker, I had asked Dato’ Seri Najib Razak who is also the Finance Minister, why did we assume the liabilities of IPIC’s guarantee for 1MDB’s US$3.5 billion worth of bonds when 1MDB claimed that we have already paid IPIC or its subsidiaries the sum of US$3.51 billion.

1MDB, via its President and CEO, Arul Kanda, testified to both the Auditor-General and the Public Accounts Committee that 1MDB had already paid US$1.367 billion in collateral deposits in 2012, US$993 million in options termination compensation in 2014 and an additional US$1.15 billion in “top-up security deposit” also in 2014 to the IPIC group.

In the Finance Minister’s reply, he stated that 1MDB “is responsible for all future interest payments and the repayment of the principal for the 2 bonds” while the Ministry of Finance Incorporated has provided IPIC with the relevant “undertaking” and “indemnity”.  This effectively means that the Malaysian government has taken over the guarantee from IPIC.

The problem is, despite the boast of “investigations… at a scale unprecendented in our nation’s history”, Malaysians are no nearer to finding out what happened to the US$3.51 billion we have already paid.

And it is very apparent that the Prime Minister is also hiding this information via a convenient “lapse of governance” because he failed to answer this question in his parliamentary reply.

It is as if the US$3.51 billion paid to the IPIC group previously was but a minor detail, or an insignificant “lapse in governance” which didn’t require any justification or concern on the part of the Government.

Hence Dato’ Seri Najib Razak is only showing the thickness of his skin by trivialising the unprecedented scale of the RM50 billion 1MDB scandal and dismissing the Opposition protests as blowing the issue “out of proportion”.

Instead, the continued secrecy of the Auditor-General’s Report on 1MDB and the refusal to entertain 1MDB questions in Parliament seriously only leads to the public believe that the US$3.51 billion above, and more other billions of ringgit have been misappropriated, or worse, stolen at “a scale unprecedented”.

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Yes, Dato’ Seri Najib Razak, the Opposition blew up 1MDB issues to topple the Government because we are now a world-renown kleptocracy

For the local and foreign investors listening to the Prime Minister’s speech when opening the InvestMalaysia 2017 conference, it must have been an utterly surreal experience.

While he acknowledged that there “were lapses in 1MDB's governance”, and he had “personally given instructions for a rationalisation of the company's operations”, he denied culpability and even blamed the Opposition for fanning the flames.

"But let's not forget that while there were issues in 1MDB, certain politicians blew them out of proportion, and tried to sabotage the company, in an attempt to topple the government in between election cycles,” he said. 

In a parallel development, the opening of the mid-year Parliamentary sitting this week saw more than 30 questions thrown out for utterly bizzare and frivolous reasons.

My question on the current value of the 1MDB “units” investment and who is the custodian bank was rejected because they apparently contained questionable assumptions (“sangkaan”) and were a figment of my imagination (“buah fikiran”).

My question on whether the Attorney-General had investigated the claims made in the latest United States Department of Justice (US DOJ) suit to seize up to US$1.7 billion worth of launder assets from 1MDB funds was similarly and incomprehensibly rejected because it was deemed a “sangkaan”. 

I had a total of 5 questions relating to 1MDB which were rejected.

The investors on the floor would have loved an opportunity to ask the the Prime Minister, if he had indeed done no wrong, why would he not just give simple answers to the simple questions above? 

In fact, Malaysians would also like to know why Dato’ Seri Najib Razak only has the courage to deliver his “defence” of 1MDB with a straight face to an audience without a opportunity to raise questions, and refused over the past 5 years to address the Parliament? 

In fact, the Prime Minister would have had the best opportunity to make the Opposition look like complete idiots if it were true that the latter was blowing the issue “out of proportion”.

What’s more, Malaysians would also like to know why Dato’ Seri Najib Razak has refused to comment on the origins of the US$731 million which was deposited into in personal bank account in Malaysia since the anti-kleptocracy action was filed in July last year by the US DOJ?

How about the latest expose last month where the US DOJ also discovered that a 22-carat pink diamond necklace cum ring was purchased by the Prime Minister’s wife for US$27.3 million with money traced back to the sums deposited in his personal bank account?  Why haven’t the Prime Minister or the wife refuted the above “discovery”?

What’s more, while the Prime Minister wants to take credit to initiating investigations into the 1MDB fiasco, he failed to highlight the fact that he replaced the Public Accounts Committee Chairman with Dato’ Hassan Ariffin who refused to summon the Prime Minister for questioning because he had to “cari makan”.  The Prime Minister also ‘retired’ an Attorney-General who was about to prosecute him and he refused to instruct 1MDB to comply fully with the Auditor-General after the company failed to provide any of its overseas bank records and statements for audit.

Let us make it clear that the Opposition did not sabotage 1MDB.  The Prime Minister and the 1MDB top management did the sabotaging by carrying out misappropriations exceeding US$5.7 billion (RM25 billion) resulting in the company failing to meet its debt obligations.

However, we are in agreement with the Prime Minister that we are indeed fanning the single largest financial scandal in the history of Malaysia.  This is in order to topple his disgraced administration, which has become a renown kleptocracy in the eyes of the world.

The investment community are not gullible fools who would believe the naked emperor.  Their confidence in the country will only be returned when a new clean and competent government gets elected by 2018.

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