The truth finally revealed: Bank Negara lost about RM98 billion in 1993

For 20-30 years Kit Siang has been demanding the truth regarding the BMF and Bank Negara FOREX scandals. A few days ago the CIA declassified the documents related to BMF and yesterday Murad revealed the truth regarding the Bank Negara FOREX scandal. Suddenly Kit Siang has nothing to say. Is that the price Kit Siang has to pay to become the next Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia?

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

I have said this many times before. Justice can be delayed but it can never be denied. It may take years for the truth to finally be revealed. However, in the end it always gets revealed. For example, it took almost 200 years for the truth to emerge that Napoleon Bonaparte had actually been poisoned and did not die of natural causes.

Another example is regarding the truth about the Memali massacre in 1985. It took about 30 years for Malaysians to find out that Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was actually in his office directing the operations on the ground in Kedah and was not in China as everyone had believed all along. And it was Tun Musa Hitam himself, the then Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, who revealed this. And have you noticed that Mahathir has never denied this?

Graphic by Finance Twitter

In his Affidavit to the court, Tajudin Ramli said that back in 1993 Mahathir ordered him to buy over all the shares of Malaysia’s national airlines, MAS, at RM8.00 per share. The reason, explained Tajuddin, was so that the government can show a ‘paper profit’ from the sale of the MAS shares. The government needed this paper profit to cover the huge loss that Bank Negara had suffered gambling on the FOREX market over 1992-1993.

Tajudin did not actually have to pay cash for the MAS shares. All he needed to do was to exchange the shares of his company, that had been revalued at a far higher price, for the MAS shares that he acquired. In other words, he got the MAS share for free while MAS had to take over his debts.

This was the same modus operandi which they adopted when Yahya Ahmad took over HICOM. He exchanged his DRB shares for the HICOM share and while he took over HICOM’s very valuable assets HICOM ended up taking over all of DRB’s massive debts. It was almost like swapping his massive liabilities for valuable government assets, a brilliant exercise to get billions for nothing.

Yahya Ahmad got Hicom for nothing while Hicom absorbed DRB’s debts

Yahya’s death is still a mystery and an even bigger mystery is what happened to all his shares. Why was his daughter forced at gunpoint to transfer all those shares and who was she told to transfer them to? I heard years back that she was in exile in London because they were hounding her but I do not have the latest updates on her story.

Anyway, the government sold MAS (but not for cash) to show a paper profit. And this paper profit was to cover a huge loss that Bank Negara made gambling on the FOREX market in 1992-1993. Yesterday, the former Assistant Governor of Bank Negara, Abdul Murad Khalid, finally revealed the truth after more than 20 years of silence (READ HERE).

USD10 billion in 1992 is now worth RM98 billion

Murad revealed that the amount that was lost was about RM98 billion at today’s value and rate of exchange. So this explains why the government had to sell MAS and show a paper profit to cover this huge loss. In fact, back in 1993 Lim Kit Siang stood up in Parliament and said that he heard rumours that Bank Negara had gambled on the FOREX market and had lost billions. Kit Siang wanted the Prime Minister to respond.

Mahathir was absent from Parliament so his Finance Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, responded instead. And Anwar’s response was that the rumour was not true. All this is recorded in the Parliament Hansard.

The following year, in 1994, Kit Siang again stood up in Parliament and accused Anwar of lying. In 1993 Anwar had said that the rumour of Bank Negara losing a lot of money gambling on the FOREX market was not true. Now it has been revealed that it was true after all. Kit Siang demanded that Mahathir and Anwar take responsibility by resigning from office.

Anwar responded by saying that the losses Bank Negara made were only ‘paper losses’ and not actual losses. And the amount is not huge, Anwar said. Again all this is recorded in the Parliament Hansard. But it was not paper losses. The losses were real. So Anwar lied yet again.

Anwar lied to Parliament in 1993 and again in 1994 to cover Mahathir’s back

Anwar later told his inner circle that it was Mahathir who made the decision to try to beat George Soros. Soros was pushing down the Ringgit and Mahathir wanted to fight back. Mahathir could not accept that a Jew was hurting the Ringgit and he wanted to teach Soros a lesson. Instead Soros taught Mahathir a lesson and he went berserk. Of course, Anwar could not reveal this is Parliament so he tried to cover Mahathir’s back.

Anyway, yesterday, the truth finally came out. So Mahathir and Anwar had lied to us all along these last 20 years. And Kit Siang has been telling us since 1993 that Bank Negara lost a lot of money and that Mahathir and Anwar were lying (he even demanded Mahathir’s and Anwar’s resignations).

On 3rd April 1994, Kit Siang gave a speech titled ‘The Bank Negara forex losses in the past two years are equal to about eight Bumiputra Malaysia Finance scandal losses’, which you can read below. Coincidentally, just a few days ago the CIA declassified documents related to the Bumiputra Malaysia Finance (BMF) scandal and they implicated Mahathir in this scandal as well.

Mahathir gambled against Soros and lost and it cost Malaysia billions in losses, not including the MAS disaster that was supposed to cover the Bank Negara losses

Anyway, Kit Siang was outraged back in 1994 and he wanted Mahathir and Anwar sent to jail. The BMF and Bank Negara FOREX scandals were at the top of Kit Siang’s agenda. A few days ago the CIA revealed the truth regarding the BMF scandal and yesterday Murad revealed the truth regarding the Bank Negara FOREX scandal. But today we have heard nothing so far from Kit Siang.

For more than 30 years Kit Siang had been harping on the BMF issue and for more than 20 years he had been harping on the Bank Negara FOREX issue. Now the truth about these two issues are known. Why is Kit Siang tongue-tied and keeping very quiet?

This proves beyond any shadow of doubt that all this talk about Kit Siang berjuang untuk rakyat is bullshit. For 20-30 years Kit Siang has been screaming and has been demanding that a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) be held to get to the bottom of the BMF and Bank Negara FOREX scandals. Now the CIA and Murad have revealed the truth. And suddenly Kit Siang (who boasts that he has spoken and written 10 million words in his 50 years political career) does not have a single word to say.

I suppose that is the price you have to pay to become the Deputy Prime Minister. You need to sell your principles and pretend that Mahathir is God-send to Malaysia. Kit Siang is just one more apek politician after all. And to think that the Chinese look upon Kit Siang as a god. Bodohnya Cina Malaysia!

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The Bank Negara forex losses in the past two years are equal to about eight Bumiputra Malaysia Finance scandal losses

Speech by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, at the DAP Seremban Ceramah held at CRC Hall, Seremban on Sunday, 3rd April 1994 at 8pm

The government and country must take a very serious view of the Bank Negara forex losses ranging from RM16 billion to RM20 billion (the final score came to RM30 billion in the end) in the past two years, as they amount to about eight Bumiputra Malaysia Finance (BMF) scandal losses.

The Bank Negara Governor, Tan Sri Jaffar Hussein, has taken the proper and honourable step to resign to accept full responsibility for the Bank Negara forex losses, but no ‘lesson’ would be learnt from the colossal Bank Negara forex losses unless there is a full investigation into the causes and circumstances of the losses as well as the full chain of accountability of all those who must bear responsibility- including the Finance Minister, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim himself.

Parliament and the nation have the right to know what actually went wrong with the management of Bank Negara and the overall supervision by the Finance Minister to allow the Bank Negara to commit colossal foreign exchange losses ranging from RM16 billion to RM20 billion in the past two years.

UMNO Youth leader and Malacca Chief Minister, TanSri Abdul Rahim Thamby Chik, said that Bank Negara’s RM5.7 billion forex losses last year was caused by managerial errors of judgment and has nothing to do with the Finance Minister, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Call on Anwar Ibrahim to declare whether he agrees with Rahim Thamby Chik that as Finance Minister, he should not be held responsible for the Bank Negara forex losses.

I call on Anwar Ibrahim to publicly state whether he agrees with Rahim Thamby Chik, that as Finance Minister, he should not be held responsible for the Bank Negara forex losses.

I am not very sure that I can agree with this position as after the public uproar over the 1992 Bank Negara forex losses, which ranged from RM10.1 billion to RM14 billion, Anwar Ibrahim gave an undertaking in Parliament during the emergency DAP debate last April that he would be calling up weekly reports from Bank Negara on its forex dealings.

In his reply on my motion on the Bank Negara forex losses last year, Anwar declared that the RM2.7 billion contingent liability for 1993 provided in the 1992 Bank Negara Report did not mean that the bank would lose this amount in forward foreign exchange commitments, and that Bank Negara might end with a gain or a neutral position.

It is now clear that this RM2.7 billion contingent liability for 1993 has not only been confirmed, but that even bigger forex losses had been suffered in 1993, amounting to RM5.7 billion. Furthermore, there is in another contingent liability of RM 1.4 billion for next year- which means Bank Negara can suffer another RM1.4 billion forex losses apart from the forex losses in 1992 and 1993.

If for the past year, Anwar Ibrahim had been calling up weekly reports from Bank Negara with regard to its foreign exchange dealings, can Rahim Thamby Chik claim that the Finance Minister need bear no responsibility for the RM5.7 billion forex losses for 1993 and another RM1.4 billion forex losses for nest year?

The Bank Negara forex losses will also be a test case of the meaning of accountability, in particularly Ministerial accountability and responsibility, and this is why the Government should agree to a full parliamentary debate on the Bank Negara forex losses nest week.

If there is any Chief Minister of Menteri Besar who should be subject to an adult of his integrity, Rahim Thamby Chik should take the lead

Rahim Thamby Chik is not the greatest champion of accountability in Malaysia.

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr, Mahathir Mohamad, announced in Sabah yesterday that an audit would be carried out on the past Parti Bersatu Sabah government and directed all Ministers and Assistant Ministers of the new Sabah Barisan Nasional Government to declare their assets to him.

There should not only be an audit of the PBS Sabah Government, but also an audit to all Barisan Nasional State Governments as well.

Rahim, for instance, has still to explain his enormous wealth and assets which are disproportionate to his known sources of income.

If there is any Chief Minister or Menteri Besar who should be subject to an audit of integrity, Rahim should take the lead.

Mr. Lim Kit Siang released this statement on April 3, 1994 and is filed under Bank Negara Scandal, BMF Loans Scandal.