Archive for May 4th, 2017

Malaysia and Abu Dhabi strike a deal over 1MDB

Posted by Kit in Corruption, Financial Scandals, Najib Razak on Thursday, 4 May 2017

Economist
Apr 27th 2017

A mammoth financial scandal is being brushed under the carpet

FOR the past year 1MDB — a Malaysian state investment firm at the heart of one of the world’s biggest financial scandals — has been locked in dispute with IPIC, a sovereign-wealth fund from the oil-rich emirate of Abu Dhabi, with which it was once chummy.

Terse statements released on April 24th suggest the pair are finally making up.

1MDB has agreed to pay IPIC $1.2bn, reportedly to settle a complaint that it reneged on the terms of a bail-out IPIC provided in 2015. The two companies have also agreed to enter into “good-faith discussions” about other disputed payments, which may total as much as $3.5bn. Read the rest of this entry »

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Key lesson of Bank Negara forex losses quarter of a century ago – failure of Ministers, top civil servants, MPs and the press to play their role to uphold the principles accountability and good governance

Posted by Kit in Financial Scandals, Good Governance on Thursday, 4 May 2017

I am here in response to an invitation by the 1992/3 Bank Negara forex losses special task force for an interview “dengan pihak yang pernah terlibat atau mempunyai sebarang maklumat mengenai urus niaga mata wang asing yang dilakukan oleh BNM sekitar tahun 1990-an”.

I was never terlibat in the Bank Negara forward forex trading and what I knew about the Bank Negara forward forex trading in the early 1990s are public information in my speeches in Parliament on the subject in 1993 and 1994.

Let me state that I stand by my speech in Parliament in April 1994 calling for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the colossal Bank Negara forex losses, with the following tasks:

• to ascertain Bank Negara’s forex losses since 1992, and whether they could exceed RM30 billion;

• to ascertain whether there had been any financial malpractices and abuses; and

• to establish as to how the Bank Negara could incur such colossal losses.

The Cabinet set up the special task force set up to probe the foreign exchange losses incurred by Bank Negara more than two decades ago but is it really concerned about accountability and good governance principles? Read the rest of this entry »

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1MDB-linked Bandar Malaysia property deal falls through

Posted by Kit in Corruption, Financial Scandals, Najib Razak on Thursday, 4 May 2017

Reme Ahmad
South-east Asia Editor
Straits Times
4th May 2017

Bandar Malaysia, the country’s biggest real estate project, is looking for a new master developer after the government made a surprise announcement last night to cancel a deal with a Malaysia-China consortium, saying the buyers failed to meet payment obligations.

In late 2015, Malaysia’s Iskandar Waterfront Holdings (IWH) and China Railway Engineering Corp (CREC) jointly secured rights as the master developer with a RM7.41 billion (S$2.4 billion) winning bid to buy a 60 per cent stake in the project.

The Malaysian government, through a unit of state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), was to hold the remaining 40 per cent stake, which has a projected sales value of RM150 billion. Read the rest of this entry »

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