As Chairman of Barisan Nasional, will Datuk Najib Razak assume full responsibility for the fake news by the Barisan Nasional strategic communications team that he, Najib, had returned most, if not all, of the RM2.6 billion donation he received in 2013?

This false claim was made by the BN strategic communications team today in response to the FaceBook posting by former Cabinet Minister, Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz, asking the Inland Revenue Board (IRB) to clarify if it had known about caretaker prime minister Najib Razak’s infamous RM2.6 billion donation, and how the department had dealt with it at the time.

In an open letter to IRB today on her Facebook, Rafidah said she had once been asked about the alleged donation from the Arabs, and if the prime minister had ever been taxed on the amount that had been deposited into his private bank accounts.

She said: “I have no idea… My friends and I became very curious. We would like to ask, and can IRB please clarify and explain to the people at large, is the donation given to the prime minister, and transferred into his personal account, taxable?”

In her posting, Rafidah also questioned if Najib is a registered tax exempt charitable entity, and if he operated the account himself.

She further asked:

“Are donations not regarded as income and therefore taxable on the recipient?

“If the donation received by the prime minister was ‘tax exempt’, how was this allowed by IRB?”

It is most extraordinary that there was no reply from Inland Revenue Board but a response from the BN strategic communications team.

Has the BN strategic communications team taken over the Inland Revenue Board’s powers and responsibilities after Parliament’s dissolution during the interregnum of the Caretaker Government in the run-up to the 13th General Election on May 9 2018, and under what law and authority the BN strategic communications team can take over the powers and responsibilities of the Inland Revenue Board?

While we await a statement from the Inland Revenue Board, the clarification by the BN Strategic Communications Team is most intriguing.

This is because it is a big lie, fake news and false information for anyone to claim that Najib had returned most, if not all, of the RM2.6 billion donation he received in 2013?

The reason Malaysia has overnight become a global kleptocracy is because of the international multi-billion dollar 1MDB money-laundering scandal, which involved Najib himself as he was at all relevant time the “top dog” in the 1MDB as Chairman of 1MDB Board of Advisors who exercised all the real and strategic powers in the company.

The three most important questions on 1MDB scandal are:

1. Whether Najib received RM2.6 billion donation from Saudi royalty;

2. Whether Najib returned RM2.1 billion to Saudi royalty; and

3. Whether the RM1 billion Equanimity luxury superyacht owned by Jho Low and seized by the Indonesian authorities in Bali in February and the RM144 million pink diamond necklace for the “wife of MO1” came from stolen 1MDB funds.

The answers to all these three questions about the 1MDB scandal are given, in great detail, in the US Department of Jusrice (DOJ)’s largest kleptocratic litigation to forfeit US$1.7 billion 1MDB-linked assets in the United States, United Kingdom and Switzerland.

They are all to be found in the 10 killer paragraphs in the US DOJ kleptocratic litigation – Paragraph 339 to 348 under the section “$681 MILLION WAS TRANSFERRED FROM THE TANORE ACCOUNT TO AN ACCOUNT BELONGING TO MALAYSIAN OFFICIAL 1”.

None other than the head of the BN strategic communications team had admitted that “MO1” was Najib Razak, saying that only an “idiot” would not know that “MO1” was Najib.

The Anti-Fake News Act which was bull-dozed through Parliament before it was dissolved on April 7 has become law.

Will the Attorney-General prosecute Najib and the BN Strategic Communications Team for the offence of “fake news”, which carries the penalty of RM500,000 fine, six years’ jail or both?

(Speech Lim Kit Siang at the Pakatan Harapan ceramah in Batu Pahat, Johor on Saturday, 14th April 2018 at 10 pm)