Better for Najib to stay silent on 1MDB until probe concludes

(The Ant Daily) – Prime Minister Najib Razak should stop defending the debt-ridden 1Malaysia Development Berhad and allow all ongoing probes to proceed without his undue influence.

Even as the bi-partisan parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) commenced its hearing on the state-investment arm on May 19, Najib who spoke at the Finance Ministry’s monthly gathering in Putrajaya said he is “very confident” that the recovery plan to reduce 1MDB’s RM42 billion debt will bear fruit.

Online portal Malaysiakini quoted Najib, who is also Finance Minister, as telling the civil servants: “Recovery measures can be done to reduce 1MDB’s total debt and this is what the government is working on.”

“I am confident that the MoF (finance ministry) can help ensure this recovery plan is executed even though we are facing so much criticism.

“Sooner or later, we will prove that the objective of the rescue or recovery measures for 1MDB can be achieved,” he reportedly said at the gathering which was also attended by Finance Minister II Ahmad Husni Mohamad Hanadzlah, Deputy Finance Minister Ahmad Maslan and secretary-general of treasury Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah.

As pointed out by DAP national publicity secretary Tony Pua, Najib had been “touring the country” to defend 1MDB, of which he is the advisor.

Pua claimed that while Najib had pleaded with critics to wait for the investigation reports by the Auditor-General, he himself has no qualms to immediately ‘absolve’1MDB of alleged financial mismanagements.

On May 18, Najib had reportedly told a meeting of Umno veterans at the party headquarters that it would be ‘impossible’ for RM42 billion to be siphoned off unnoticed.

At the time, even before anyone involved was called to testify in front of the PAC panel, Najib had insisted that investigations by the Auditor-General and the Public Accounts Committee will reveal that the state-owned investment firm has not lost all its funds.

“I am sure there is no matter that cannot be resolved including 1MDB. There is a solution for it, the money has not disappeared.

“The audit for the 1MDB accounts was done by Deloitte; where can RM42 billion go missing?” he asked, echoing the stand which had been taken by the 1MDB board ofdirectors.

Pua, however, claimed the attempts to use Deloitte as a ‘shield’ against critics were misleading.

“Deloitte could very well have abetted or assisted 1MDB in producing their ‘unqualified’ accounts.

“Such complicity would not be the first as we have seen how the world’s largest auditing firm, Arthur Andersen collapsed overnight over their role in the multi-billion dollar Enron financial scandal in the United States,” claimed Pua.

And in his latest scathing attack against Najib, former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad in a blog posting described the former’s defence of 1MDB as being “akin to telling the rakyat to remain silent in the face of daylight robbery.”

Mahathir also expressed doubts that the Auditor-General’s report would shed any light on how 1MDB had amassed its staggering debt.

“Examining the accounts will reveal nothing. It will not explain the involvement of (Penang billionaire) Jho Low.

“It will not explain how (Najib’s stepson) Riza Aziz has so much money at the time when 1MDB money disappeared,” claimed Mahathir.

The PAC hearing, meanwhile, has a much wider scope of investigations than the Auditor-General but its chairman Nur Jazlan Mohamed was quoted by Malaysiakini as saying that the committee does not “see any necessity at the moment” to question Jho Low or Najib.

“We are just basically getting facts established. If there are issues like those (improprieties), we will go deeper into it …

“The objective is basically to get information to tell people what happened – This is wrong; this is right,” he reportedly said, describing the hearings as a “fact-finding mission”.

The A-G said a preliminary report on its audit of 1MDB will be ready next month, while no time frame has been set for PAC to conclude its investigations.

There are already too many allegations surrounding operations of 1MDB and it would not bode well for Najib to continue being seen as defending his pet project.

At the very least, Najib should lead by example and allow for all investigations to conclude before issuing anymore statements on the matter.

If indeed all is well with 1MDB, there should be no reason for Najib to worry and let sleeping dogs lie, rather then rile up more responses to his attempts at damage control.

His critics will duly be silenced, eventually – if 1MDB turns out to be as healthy or viable as he is making it to be.

The A-G said a preliminary report on its audit of 1MDB will be ready next month, while the PAC starts its investigation into the state investment firm on May 18.