PAC chief denies Jho Low owns Good Star
(MMO) – The Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) denied today that flamboyant tycoon Low Taek Jho is the owner of Good Star Limited (GSL), the company that received US$1.03 billion (RM 4.2 billion) from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
In a statement issued today, its chairman Datuk Hasan Arifin denied a report by US-based financial daily Wall Street Journal (WSJ) citing a purported classified letter issued by Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) to PAC naming Low, or Jho Low, as the rightful owner of the controversial company.
“This is because BNM itself has stated that the information given is classified as confidential.
“PAC is not an intelligence unit and the information received therefore has to be authentic and true,” Hasan said.
He also justified the decision to initially omit two paragraphs explaining GSL’s ownership from the PAC report.
“As the information received by PAC is classified, PAC cannot insert that information as it violates our duty and responsibilities, and can create prejudice towards many parties,” he added.
DAP’s Tony Pua and other opposition members of the PAC had last month accused Hasan of editing the parliamentary panel’s report on 1MDB without the knowledge or approval of other members.
According to Pua, Hasan cut off a sentence from the report that said: “Bank Negara Malaysia was voluntarily informed by the country’s authorities that Good Star Limited is a company owned by an individual with no links to the PetroSaudi Group”.
In a statement later, Hasan responded by saying that “the deletion of two sentences in no way affects the final report by the PAC on 1MDB”, and that the sentences were deleted because of their unclear status, or because the matter was under investigation and not for public consumption.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Azalina Othman said in a recent parliamentary reply to DAP MP Lim Guan Eng that two paragraphs from PAC’s 1MDB report were removed because they contained confidential information.
