Newly-appointed Pakatan Harapan Chairman and former Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, in his blog yesterday, wrote:
“On the other hand, no RCI is being set up to investigate the proven losses of tons of money by 1MDB and Najib despite the enormous evidence of wrongdoings which are available to the world and the Malaysian public.
“The RCI on currency trading by Bank Negara more than thirty years ago is not about seeking justice but is clearly a desperate effort by Najib to silence his detractors. It will not work.”
I fully agree with Mahathir.
In fact, I want to ask if there was not a single one from the 36 Ministers who did not realize that establishing a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into Bank Negara forex earnings losses a quarter of a century ago without a RCI into 1MDB is the dumbest thing the Cabinet can do and that the Malaysian Cabinet has become the laughing stock in the world in the past three weeks?
Where is the conscience of Barisan Nasional in the Cabinet? Gerakan had forsaken that self-appointed role as “conscience” of Barisan Nasional long time ago, and has the Barisan Nasional Cabinet and government become conscienceless all these years?
It was only three weeks ago on June 21 that the Cabinet took the decision to set up a RCI into the Bank Negara forex losses a quarter of a century ago.
I had told the Cabinet Special Task Force into Bank Negara forex losses in early nineties on Thursday, 4th May 2017 that I stood my speech in Parliament in April 1994 calling for a RCI into the Bank Negara forex losess.
But I told the Special Task Force that the key lesson of the Bank Negara forex losses a quarter of a century ago was the failure of Ministers, top civil servants, MPs and the press to play their respective roles to uphold the principles and accountability and good governance – and that the same expensive mistake was being repeated over the current bigger1MDB scandal.
This is what I told the Special Task Force when I appeared before it on May 4:
“The special task force has been described as ‘exhuming an elephant’s carcass from Dr. M’s era’.
“Why are we missing the ‘elephant’ in the room – the international 1MDB money-laundering scandal which has earned for Malaysia the ignominy and infamy of a global kleptocracy?
“Or are we to wait for a quarter of a century before we have a special task force to ‘exhume’ the ‘elephant carcass’ of the 1MDB kleptocratic scandal – some time in 2040?”
Three weeks have since passed, and the question which I posed to the Special Task Force has become even more relevant – with the latest guilty plea of the former Singapore banker, Yeo Jiawei, to charges including money-laundering of stolen 1MDB funds and the revelation that Jia Wei had agreed to help with Singapore’s 1MDB money-laundering probes, described as the largest in Singapore’s history.
The fact that at least 10 other countries are probing into 1MBD embezzlement or money laundering, and that in Singapore alone, a total of US$21 million in penalties had been imposed on eight banks as part of its 1MDB probes, while BSI and Falcon Private Bank Ltd. were also ordered to shut their local operations; and five people had been convicted in Singapore for 1MDB money-laundering offences have raised the international question whether Malaysia has got a rogue Prime Minister, a rogue Cabinet and a rogue Attorney-General.
I call on the 36 Ministers to clear themselves of being Ministers of the first rogue Cabinet in the nation’ history by ensuring two things:
• firstly, schedule a three-day parliamentary debate on 1MDB on 24- 26th July, with invitation to 1MDB mastermind, Jho Low, to end his secretive sojourns in recent years as fugitive from international justice so as to be in Parliament for the special debate; and
• secondly, establishing a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the 1MDB scandal.
Or are Malaysians to wait until the next 14th General Election for a new Pakatan Harapan federal government in Putrajaya as the Pakatan Harapan Presidential Council had decided last night (and announced at the post-midnight news conference) that the formation of a RCI into the 1MDB scandal will be one of the priorities of a PH Federal Government in its first 100 days in office, including to:
• Stabilise the price of petrol.
• Focus on efforts to alleviate the rakyat’s burdens.
• Start a thorough reform process of institution.
• Fight corruption to its roots.
• Rehabilitate the Federal Land Development Authority (Felda).
• “Cancel and correct” any breach of laws by the current government, which impact the people’s interest; and
• start within the first week of forming the Federal Government the process to obtain a royal pardon for Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to enable him to fully return to the national political scene as the eighth Prime Minister of Malaysia.