It was announced today that 1MDB had spent RM56 million to sponsor 5,711 pilgrims to Mecca since 2011.

This seems to be a major allocation of charity, but is really a drop in the ocean of 1MDB debts.

Nobody knows what are the total debts which had been piled up by 1MDB, which eventually would have to be paid by generations of Malaysians.

This is because the last accounts of 1MDB to be audited and published was up to the end of March 2014, with three years of outstanding 1MDB accounts from 2014 to 2017 a mystery even to Cabinet Ministers!

The total debts of 1MDB could be in the region of RM50 – RM55 billion – which would put the RM56 million allocated by 1MDB to sponsor pilgrims to Mecca in the past six years since 2011 to represent only a paltry .01 per cent of the total 1MDB debts.

If 1MDB had allocated 1% of its total debts to sponsor pilgrims to perform haj in Mecca, then 57,110 Muslims and not just 5,711 persons would have benefitted, with the total allocation in the region of RM560 million and not just RM56 million.

If 1MDB could reveal that it had spent RM56 million in the last six years to sponsor 5,711 pilgrims to perform haj in Mecca, why can’t 1MDB fully disclose it financial statements in the past three years?

I call on the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who must bear full individual, government and Prime Ministerial responsibility for the 1MDB scandal to make public the full details of the 1MDB finances, the debts and allocations, and not just selective release of information such as RM56 million to sponsor pilgrims to perform haj in Mecca since 2011.

(Speech at the Pakatan Harapan ceramah at Kelantan Chinese Chamber of Commerce Hall in Kota Bharu on Thursday, June 29, 2017 at 10 pm)