I have just seen the Sarawak Report website claiming that together with London’s Sunday Times newspaper, it has completed an in-depth investigation into the trail of the missing billions at the heart of Malaysia’s 1MDB (One Malaysia Development Berhad) financial scandal.

It claimed to have obtained access to thousands of documents and emails relating to transactions by 1MDB, including its initial joint venture with the little known oil company PetroSaudi International from 2009.

It alleged that the documents establish that, in spite of copious official denials, the entire joint venture project was conceived, managed and driven through by the Prime Minister’s associate and family friend the party-loving billionaire tycoon, Jho Low and that the documents also prove that the USD$700 million so-called “loan” that was supposedly repaid to PetroSaudi as part of the joint venture agreement, was actually a “front” to channel the money to a company controlled by Jho Low.

It had previously been reported that all computers and servers at 1MDB had been called in and wiped clean just before the end of last year, and if it it is true that the combined investigation team of Sarawak Report and London Sunday Times have obtained access to “thousands of documents and emails” relating to transactions by 1MDB, then we have the makings of the biggest financial scandal in the nation’s history.
The RM42 billion 1MDB scandal is setting a record as the greatest of all the financial scandals in the country, eclipsing even the worst and biggest of Mahathir’s financial scandals.

Irony of ironies, even former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad has publicly taken a stand against Najib’s RM42 billion 1MDB scandal, declaring that he could not accept the explanations that have been offered so far about the 1MDB scandal.

Najib cannot continue to evade the issue and I call on him to set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal, and in particular at the Sarawak Report that it has obtained access to thousands of documents and email relating to the transactions of 1MDB.
If the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal is not handled in a responsible and satisfactory manner, we may have the the first resignation or removal of a Prime Minister in Malaysia because of a financial scandal.

The Cabinet, at its meeting of Wednesday, should have the 1MDB scandal as its sole agenda and a full and proper accounting should be made by the Cabinet as all Ministers cannot also continue to feign ignorance or irresponsibility for the 1MDB scandal.

(Speech at the DAP Chinese New Year Kopitiam Ceramah in Labis on Sunday, 1st March 2015 at 5 pm)