The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) should review its decision not to investigate the serious allegation of 1MDB’s indirect funding of Barisan Nasional’s (BN) 13th General Election campaign with public funds.
It is surprising that the PAC chairman Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed has decided that the PAC would not investigate into the 1MDB’s indirect funding of BN’s 13th General Election campaign, telling Malay Mail Online that it was premature to claim wrongdoing in Genting Plantations’ US$10 million donation to a Barisan Nasional-linked charity, Yayasan Rakyat 1 Malaysia (YR1M) which used the funds for the 13GE campaigning.
After the Wall Street Journal expose, “Fund Controversy Threatens Malaysia’s Leader” last Friday that Genting Plantations contributed US$10 million to YR1M after its parent sold a power plant to 1MDB five times its actual value for RM23 billion when the plant was only worth RM400 million, it was naïve for Jazlan to say that Genting Plantations could have made the donation for a variety of reasons, including CSR (corporate social responsibility).
Although Jazlan said there is nothing wrong with corporates making CSR contributions, the PAC will be seriously remiss and negligent of its parliamentary duties to uphold probity and integrity in the handling public funds if it ignores the prima facie case that grave impropriety in expenditure of public funds had been committed in 1MDB’s indirect funding of BN’s 13th General Election campaign.
PAC must get to the bottom of the Wall Street Journal report that 1MDB paid inflated prices for energy assets from Genting Group whose subsidiary later contributed to YR1M that is linked to BN and which featured during the campaign for the 13GE.
It is most intriguing that the Prime Minister, who is responsible in law and in fact for the 1MDB transactions, has maintained a deafening silence in the past six days when Najib Razak should have no qualms about instituting legal proceedings against Wall Street Journal as Najib had already sued both DAP MP for PJ Utara Tony Pua and PKR MP for Pandan Rafizi Ramli over their statedments on the 1MDB scandal.
Has Najib a soft spot for Wall Street Journal that he is prepared to be defamed without wishing to clear his reputation?
The PAC should investigate as to what has happened to the fourth-fifth of the overpriced total paid by 1MDB to Genting for the power plant?
What other charities had benefited from Genting’s largesse and were they similarly used to bankroll Najib’s 13GE campaign?
1MDB paid US$740 million or five times the worth of the Genting power plant i.e. US$592 million above the plant’s actual worth. Genting donated US10 million to YRIM purportedly for charity work but were used to bankroll Najib’s 13GE campaign.
What happened to the balance of fourth-fifth of the “overprice” paid by 1MDB i.e. US$592 million – UD$10 million or US$582 million or RM1.8 billion?
Where did this RM1.8 billion “overprice” for the Genting power station go to?
It has been estimated that of the RM18 billion paid by 1MDB for 15 power stations, there was an overpayment of at least RM3 billion.
Where have these RM3 billion of 1MDB ringgit disappear to?
These are answers the public would expect the PAC to find and ferret.
