Jeevan Vasagar in Singapore
Financial Times
SEPTEMBER 20, 2016

Honour for Rosmah Mansor on hold in sign of growing international impact of graft scandal

Unesco has postponed an award it planned to give to Rosmah Mansor, the Malaysian prime minister’s wife, at the last minute in a sign of the growing international fallout from a corruption scandal engulfing the country’s leaders.

Irina Bokova, the Unesco director-general, wrote to Ms Rosmah this month saying Malaysia’s first lady was to receive the award at an event in New York this Thursday, according to the Malaysian government.

The award was to recognise efforts to counter extremism through the education system and honour the work of Permata, a Malaysian organisation that works with children and teenagers. Permata was founded by Ms Rosmah.

However, Malaysia’s ambassador to the UN was told in an email that it would be deferred to 2017 because of questions about Permata’s funding, according to a Malaysian government statement on Tuesday.

Questions surrounding the Malaysian prime minister and his family have intensified after US prosecutors outlined detailed allegations this summer concerning Malaysian state investment fund 1MDB. Read the rest of this entry »