1MDB: The Plot Thickens

Umar Mukhtar

In the light of an allegation that 1MDB relied on the contents of a bank document that did not tally with the truth, for Prime Minister Najib Razak to answer a public query, is a very serious turn of events. It implies simply that 1MDB either lied to the Prime Minister or was lied to themselves.

Najib had relied on this information which was provided by 1MDB to answer to a question in Parliament that the USD1 billion belonging to1MDB had been repatriated from the Cayman Islands to a branch of Swiss bank BSI in Singapore.

Now it seems that BSI has informed the Authorities in Singapore that there was never any money in the said account and that any document that purportedly said so, did not originate from BSI.

If this is true, then the Prime Minister has been made a fool of by 1MDB. Or was 1MDB’s management relying on a fake document to advise the PM. If is the latter, one cannot help but asks who runs 1MDB? Where did they get the said document? Who has been feeding them red herrings to buy more time?

If this allegation is true, then we can kiss the money good-bye. Somebody will pay for this.

Putting aside the issue of the missing money, there are more serious implications to this episode. This happened in early March 2015. By now the Ministry of Finance should have known that the PM was lied to and more importantly, Parliament has been given a wrong answer. Shouldn’t the Ministry as a responsible public body immediately inform the public of this crucial untruth?

Or do we need the Auditor General to verify that too? Just write to BSI! Isn’t the Ministry of Finance an interested shareholder who needs to know where the company’s money are? Or are they in cohort?

Wouldn’t any delay to this admission smack of attempts of a cover-up? Or worse still, that the originating untruth itself was a cover-up in which the government was participating in? On the other hand, there is this possibility that this is a made-up lie to make 1MDB look bad. Will somebody speak out to this effect and clear the air?

Have we to wait for the Auditor General for this bit of information too? And hasn’t the AG as a public agency that is investigating something of great public interest taking a bit of time to inform us of the progress of the investigations?

Have we to rely on other sources of information to be informed of whatever is going on?

Just tell us, did the CEO produce the purportedly fraudulent document himself? If true, the police should just move in. Elementary crime. Did he get it from someone? Who? Just follow the trail and you will find the mastermind. Don’t let me tell you how to do your job.

I pray that I am wrong. Because if things are emerging as it seems, this country is certainly run by irresponsible and stupid idiots, to be given such a runaround by whomever in a basic con scheme.

We are not interested in saving 1MDB, so don’t spend this time provided by the excuse of the AG’s work to raise money by other Agencies’ borrowings or raising electricity tariff, on our account to cover the apparent losses. We are interested to save our money. Period.