26 Apr 2024, 08:12 Kuching
26 Apr 2024, 01:12 London
The opposition is blowing out of proportion the plight facing state fund 1MDB as a means to topple the government, Najib Razak today told an audience of hundreds of local and foreign investors.
“Although 1MDB certainly has a problem, some politicians have blown it up in their attempt to sabotage the company,” the prime minister said in his keynote address at the Invest Malaysia 2017 conference.
He said efforts to redress the situation were being carried out.
“Instead of running from the problem, we ordered an investigation of the company on a scale unprecedented in the history of our nation. Instead of spending money to cover it up – the method employed by a former leader – I instructed a rationalisation of the company….
1MDB has been investigated in several countries for alleged money laundering and embezzlement involving billions of dollars.
Back in 2015, when CEO Arul Kanda announced that instead of floating 1MDB, he and boss Najib had decided to ‘wind it up’, he claimed this was because the fund had ‘already successfully achieved all its objectives’.
If its objectives are agreed as having been to channel billions of dollars of public money into Najib’s pocket and that of his cronies, then that summation is correct.
On every other count the fund had been a devastating, debt-ridden failure, owing to those staggering thefts. Instead of euphemistically referring to “problems” Najib should refer to criminal misappropriations, were he honest.
But, 1MDB has shown Najib to be anything but honest and therefore the last person anyone would trust with their invesments.
He should stop wingeing about the opposition pointing out this fact. He has only himself to blame.
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