Najib-SRC Trial: Najib’s Minutes Were Not Instructions – KWAP ex-CEO
(nthqibord.com) – The Kuala Lumpur High Court today yet again heard that former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak didn’t exert any pressure to secure billion-ringgit loans for SRC International Sdn Bhd.
Retirement Fund Incorporated (KWAP) former chief executive officer (CEO) Datuk Azian Mohd Noh testified that she never considered Najib’s supporting note minuted on loan applications by SRC International as an “instruction”.
“I definitely did not take it as an instruction,” she testified at Najib’s trial in Kuala Lumpur High Court on Wednesday, May 29, 2019.
“When Najib as PM says he was agreeable to the proposal means that he was agreeable for KWAP to give the loans to SRC,” the prosecution’s 38th witness added.
She said all KWAP employees had a fiduciary duty to fulfill, hence strict compliance to internal rules and regulations shall be observed.
As with earlier three other witnesses from KWAP who had testified at the trial, Azian reiterated that the Investment Panel was not bound by any body or person in its decision-making process.
Under Section 14.3 of the Retirement Funds Act 2007, any Investment Panel member suspected to have been under outside influence in the decision-making process would be liable for a crime.
One can be fined up to a RM2 million fine or maximum 10 years imprisonment, or both, if found guilty by the court.
Given KWAP practises an open door policy, any staff could lodge a complaint to the agency’s top brass if they were unhappy with any decision made by its management.
In the case of SRC International’s loan approval, there was none.
SRC International had submitted its application on June 3, 2011 to then Prime Minister and Finance Minister 1, Najib, who had minuted his agreement on June 5, 2011, for the loan before forwarding it to KWAP for consideration.
Earlier Azian testified before presiding Judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali that she had met Najib’s principal private secretary, the late Datuk Azlin Alias, at a hotel in KL Sentral sometime in June 2011 regarding SRC’s loan application.
Azlin then had given her a letter, which was signed by SRC director Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil addressed to Najib, seeking for a loan of RM3.95 billion.
