Is the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chairman, Datuk Hasan Arifin’s refusal to re-open investigations into the 1MDB scandal a signal that Malaysia is to become a nation in denial about the 1MDB global scandal on top of a new infamy of Malaysia becoming a global kleptocracy?

Yesterday, DAP National Publicity Secretary and MP for PJ Utara, Tony Pua, walked out of the PAC meeting after Hasan rejected his proposal to re-open PAC investigations to 1MDB and to summon the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak to testify at the PAC in the light of lawsuits filed by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ).

Are we going to have a situation where all the key national institutions, starting with the Prime Minister, the Cabinet, Parliament, the PAC, the Attorney-General’s Chambers, the Police, Bank Negara, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, the Auditor-General, the mainstream mass media, are going to act in concert as a nation in denial about the 1MDB scandal, virtually ignoring the largest US and global action in the DOJ forfeiture of over US$1 billion assets in the United States, United Kingdom and Switzerland as a result of an international conspiracy of embezzlement, money-laundering and misappropriation of 1MDB funds?

The Cabinet meeting tomorrow will be a litmus-test whether Malaysia is going to adopt the stance of a nation in denial about the 1MDB scandal, ignoring the 136-page DOJ lawsuits, coupled with a “wait-and-see” attitude for the US legal process to take its course, hoping that this will take years! Read the rest of this entry »