Parliament Speaker Datuk Mohamad Ariff Md Yusof’s lifting of the ban on MPs from questioning and debating the international 1MDB corruption and money-laundering scandal is an important step to restore the doctrine of separation of powers and public respect for Parliament as the highest political chamber in the land.
It also cries out for the former Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak to answer the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) litigation suit with contained many grave charges of corruption and money-laundering against him, as he was identified as “MALAYSIAN OFFICIAL 1 (MO1)”.
Barisan Nasional Strategic Communications Director and former Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of Economic Planning Unit, Datuk Seri Abdul Rahman Dahlan, had admitted at the BBC interview in September 2016 that “MO1” is Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and that only an idiot does not know that “MO1” is Najib.
All who had served as Ministers in the Cabinet government in the past two years should declare whether they were “idiots” or they had known all along that Najib was “MO1” who was cited 26 times in the US DOJ 1MDB litigation suit and they were only putting up a great pretence of ignorance to the Malaysian people?
Many of these Ministers in the Najib government in the past two years are now in Parliament as Opposition MPs, and they should seek the Speaker’s permission to state their innocence or admit their guilt about whether they knew who was “MO1”.
Even more important, Ariff’s ruling as Speaker cries out for Najib to answer in Parliament the many serious charges of corruption and money-laundering in the US DOJ litigation suit in his capacity as “MO1”.
The DOJ complaint described four principal phases of 1MDB embezzlement and kleptocracy from 2009 to 2014, which went on to give over 250 pages of details where “multiple individuals, including public officials and their associates, conspired to fraudulently divert” US$4.5 billion from 1MDB through various means, including by defrauding foreign banks and by sending them foreign wire communications in furtherance of the scheme, and thereafter, to launder the proceeds of that criminal conduct, including in and through U.S. financial institutions; where the funds diverted from 1MDB were “used for the personal benefit of the co-conspirators and their relatives and associates” including to purchase luxury real estate in the United States and overseas, pay gambling expenses at Las Vegas casinos, acquire more than US$200 million in artwork, purchase of billion-ringgit Equanimity luxury yacht, acquire the RM120 million Bombardier jet, purchase lavish gifts for family members and associates, including the RM120 million pink diamond necklace, and invest in a major New York real estate development project, and fund the production of major Hollywood films.
The Malaysian people and Parliament expect a response, although belated by two years, from Najib and his Cabinet colleagues – to know whether the Najib Cabinet in the last two years was a Cabinet of Idiots or kleptocrats.
(Media Statement by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang in Parliament on Thursday, August 2, 2018)