Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR: There is no need at the moment to call up Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and businessman Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low, to assist in the investigation into 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), said the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday after a three-hour enquiry into the controversial state-owned strategic investment fund.

“I do not see a need at the moment,” said PAC chairman Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed when asked if the PAC is looking to call up Najib and Low, the two personalities who have been linked to 1MDB, which has a whopping RM42 billion in debt.

But when asked if it makes more sense to call up Najib, the finance minister with the authority to approve any transactions including any mergers and acquisitions for 1MDB in the past and present, Nur Jazlan opined that it is “too early to tell ... [because] it is just one meeting” and the committee cannot make any conclusions based on one meeting.

Najib is also the chairman of the advisory board of 1MDB, which in the past five years has been on the asset acquisition trail with borrowed funds.

Nur Jazlan was speaking to reporters yesterday after the PAC conducted its first round of investigations into 1MDB. The committee interviewed treasury secretary-general Tan Sri Irwan Serigar Abdullah, who sits on 1MDB’s board of advisers, and Economic Planning Unit (EPU) director-general Datuk Seri Dr Rahmat Bivi Abdullah.

The bipartisan PAC started its own inquiry into the governance of the debt-laden 1MDB yesterday by calling board members and relevant government officials.

Initially the PAC wanted to wait for the preliminary results of the auditor-general’s probe, which ends in June, but it decided to start its own investigations into 1MDB.

Former chief executive officer (CEO) Datuk Shahrul Ibrahim Halmi, who held the top post when 1MDB was first set up in 2009 until March 2013, as well as current CEO Arul Kanda Kandasamy are also expected to appear before the PAC to give their statements in parliament next Tuesday.

Nur Jazlan gave assurance that there will be no limitations on its scope when the committee is doing its investigations. “We are just going on basically getting facts established, if there are issues like those (financial mismanagement) we will then go deeper into it,” he said.

Nur Jazlan stressed that the PAC will not hesitate to make the necessary recommendations if at all during the course of the investigation it finds any “improprieties”.

The PAC will also call up all the audit firms that were involved in the auditing of the financial accounts of 1MDB — Ernst & Young, KPMG and Deloitte, he said.

Nur Jazlan noted that the meeting went well and that all the parties were cooperative. They briefed the PAC on their roles and functions concerning 1MDB.

Meanwhile, he noted that the PAC does not need help from external parties on the questions to be posed to the individuals.

He said the outcome of the investigation will be provided in a report, which will be “good, objective and professionally done”.

“We are going to provide a report that is good, objective and professionally done that can provide people with the history of 1MDB and what has happened in it,” he said.

 

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on May 20, 2015.

 

 

 

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