The Cabinet meeting and outcome on 1MDB yesterday seemed to have been scripted and choreographed by Najib’s “master publicist” Paul Stadlen with one objective in mind – to avoid accountability for the RM42 billion MDB scandal in the whole month of Parliament beginning on Monday


The Cabinet meeting and outcome on 1MDB yesterday seemed to have been scripted and choreographed by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s “master publicist” Paul Stadlen with one objective in mind, to avoid accountability for the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal in the whole month of Parliament beginning on Monday.

If true, this must be the first time a Cabinet anywhere in the world is led by the nose like a flock of sheep by a “master publicist” to play out the script choreographed even before the Cabinet meeting, which does not redound to the credit of Malaysia’s Ministers, whether their intelligence or integrity.

The cabinet decided, after 1MDB and its auditors provided a briefing on the company’s current situation and responded to a series of questions posed by Cabinet Ministers, including the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, that the debt-laden state investment firm 1MDB has done nothing wrong.

Did all the 35 Cabinet Ministers yesterday know what they were doing and fully understood the going-ons in 1MBD in the past six years when they issued a clean bill of health and integrity to 1MDB?

Were they presented with any Cabinet papers on the 1MDB to read and study before the Cabinet meeting?

Were they given access to the “thousands” of 1MDB transactions and email which London Sunday Times and Sarawak Report have said they have obtained access to, despite abrupt attempts by 1MDB at the end of last year to call in all of its computers, employee laptops and servers to wipe them clean of such transactions and emails?

Be that as it may, after yesterday’s Cabinet meeting which issued the 1MDB a clean bill of health and integrity, all the 35 Ministers in the Najib Cabinet are now individually and collectively implicated in all the going-ons in 1MDB and cannot plead ignorance as an excuse.

Let all the 35 Ministers, henceforth, go up and down the country and answer the thousand-and-one questions about the shenanigans in 1MDB in the past six years, since they have arrogated to themselves the role as the stout defenders of 1MDB.

If the Cabinet has issued a clean bill of health and integrity to 1MDB, the Prime Minister and all the Cabinet Ministers must be prepared to stand up in Parliament during the entire month of meeting from March 9 to April 9 to answer and defend all the going-ons in 1MDB in the past six years, which clearly they are not prepared to do.

This is the only rationale for the Prime Minister’s instruction to the Auditor-General to independently verify 1MDB accounts and that “If any wrongdoing is proven, the law will be enforced without exception”.

Surely, it is premature for the Cabinet to declare that 1MDB has done nothing wrong when the Auditor-General has yet to verify the 1MDB accounts.

But this is the whole object of the devious plot in the Cabinet choreography yesterday – for the Cabinet to declare a clean bill of health and integrity for 1MDB and to stymie and forestall any parliamentary questioning in the month-long Parliament meeting beginning on March 9 by declaring that any questions about 1MDB should be put in abeyance until the Auditor-General has completed and reported on his investigations into the 1MDB accounts.

I am prepared to be proven wrong.

Let Najib clarify that he and his Ministers will not run away or stonewall parliamentary queries about the 1MDB scandal in the forthcoming Parliamentary meeting, by claiming that all questions on the 1MDB scandal should await the outcome of the Auditor-General’s investigations and the PAC follow-up.

Let Najib and his Ministers make a commitment that they will not avoid or evade parliamentary questions as to how the Cabinet can issue a clean bill of health and integrity for 1MDB when the Auditor-General had not even started his investigations into the 1MDB accounts!

  1. #1 by Bigjoe on Thursday, 5 March 2015 - 8:44 am

    THIS is the Auditor General that said that there was no need to audit it in the first place. How far will it go?

    The issue is not simply just what the accounts are like now. What they have done, it has caused rating risks as well as a falling exchange rate. They have already caused damage.
    The issue is the entire history of the transactions involved and conflict of interest. The accounts is only the first step, it needs to be dug all the way towards all the parties involved..

  2. #2 by good coolie on Thursday, 5 March 2015 - 11:48 am

    Remember the UEM scandal and the deluge of opposition politicians into Hotel Kamunting? Well this UEM scandal is a pin-prick to the Rakyat nation compared to the 1MDB thing. If the Hotel never gets re-opened (under the old name or a new one), then kudos to the government for bringing Malaysia forward.

    Meanwhile, let us hound the slippery fellows involved.

  3. #3 by good coolie on Thursday, 5 March 2015 - 11:49 am

    Rakyat/nation

  4. #4 by boh-liao on Thursday, 5 March 2015 - 1:14 pm

    “I am prepared to be proven wrong.”
    Of cos, U will b proven wrong lah, admit U hv been barking at d wrong tree lor
    Oredi UmnoB/BN so happy “1MDB’s relevant investment have been returned in full with significant audited profit”
    Furthermore, d Auditor General instructed 2 independently verify 1MDB’s accounts
    Where got corruption 1 lah
    http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/auditor-general-directed-to-vet-1mdbs-accounts-says-pm

  5. #5 by boh-liao on Thursday, 5 March 2015 - 1:14 pm

    Sometimes it’s OK 2 EAT humble pie 1

  6. #6 by waterfrontcoolie on Thursday, 5 March 2015 - 4:10 pm

    First we have MSC-Gate, PKFZ Gate; Then Cow-Gate; now 1MDB-Gate; each time the figures become larger and larger. It all boils down to a syndrome that we keep creating in an ever growing monster that will swallow this nation like the python! With nothing left for us to find out who the real culprit/s are! Well Malaysian folks you have all contributed to the creation of this PYTHON!

  7. #7 by Noble House on Friday, 6 March 2015 - 1:47 am

    Here is the man who costs the taxpayers millions of ringgits and his litany of PR disasters:

    http://www.sarawakreport.org/2015/02/too-much-partying-by-najibs-pr-guru-paul-stadlen/

  8. #8 by boh-liao on Friday, 6 March 2015 - 7:26 am

    阿末扎希表示,“任何对一马发展公司的攻击,也等于在攻击国家。”
    http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/291088
    Wow, UmnoB kaki really veri CREATIF in killing off criticism
    Salute n respect

  9. #9 by boh-liao on Friday, 6 March 2015 - 7:27 am

    D above action by 阿末扎希 is an example WHY UmnoB will continue 2 rule dis nation FOREVER

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