Shamim Adam
Bloomberg
April 13, 2016

It’s been more than a year since state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd., at the center of multiple probes into its finances, announced plans to sell assets and pare debt. Its borrowings then ballooned to over 50 billion ringgit ($12.9 billion) as of January.

1MDB has said it won’t make new investments or undertake projects once it clears some existing deals. Set up by the government in 2009 to build infrastructure with borrowed money, it has drawn political criticism and almost failed to repay loans.

Global investigators are looking into possible money laundering and embezzlement at the company, whose advisory board is chaired by Prime Minister Najib Razak. Here’s a snapshot of where 1MDB is at in getting its finances in order: Read the rest of this entry »

ABU DHABI/KUALA LUMPUR | BY STANLEY CARVALHO AND PRAVEEN MENON
Reuters
April 11, 2016

The mystery over who controlled a British Virgin Islands-registered company that received $3.5 billion from Malaysia’s scandal-tainted state fund 1MDB deepened on Monday when a company in the Middle East with an almost identical name said the BVI firm did not belong to it.

Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, International Petroleum Investment Co (IPIC), and its subsidiary Aabar Investments PJS said in a joint statement the BVI firm with an almost identical name, Aabar Investments PJS Ltd, “was not an entity within either corporate group.”

They had neither received any payments from the BVI company, which was wound up last June, nor assumed any liabilities on its behalf, the statement said.

A Malaysian parliamentary committee investigating 1MDB said in a report released on Thursday that the Malaysian sovereign fund sent a total of $3.5 billion to “Aabar BVI”.

What happened to the money after it went to the British Virgin Islands could not be determined, the report said. Read the rest of this entry »

By TOM WRIGHT and BRADLEY HOPE
Wall Street Journal
April 11, 2016

An Abu Dhabi state fund said publicly for the first time on Monday that it hadn’t received billions of dollars in payments that a controversial Malaysian fund set up by Prime Minister Najib Razak claims it sent.

The International Petroleum Investment Co., or IPIC, an Abu Dhabi government fund, said in a statement to the London Stock Exchange that it was aware of media reports that 1Malaysia Development Bhd., or 1MDB, had sent money to a company called “Aabar Investments PJS Ltd.”

IPIC said in the statement that it has a subsidiary called Aabar Investments PJS, but that the similarly named company “was not an entity within either corporate group.” Read the rest of this entry »

It was to be the media scam of the century – to create among Malaysians the myth that the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Report on the 1MDB marks the closure of Malaysia’s first global scandal in the nation’s history.

But it collapsed within five short days – the coup de grace delivered in London when the Abu Dhabi-state owned International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) sent a statement to the London Stock Exchange that neither itself nor its unit Aabar Investments PJS have any links to a British Virgin Islands-incorporated firm named in a report in the RM50 billion 1MDB scandal – Aabar Investments PJS Limited (Aabar BVI). Read the rest of this entry »

by Shamim Adam
Bloomberg
April 12, 2016

Transcripts from a Malaysian parliamentary hearing into a troubled state fund highlight Prime Minister Najib Razak’s involvement in decisions on questionable transactions that bypassed the board of directors and finance ministry.

The documents from the committee’s probe of 1Malaysia Development Bhd. are a blow to Najib’s efforts to halt months of political attacks and to draw a line under allegations of irregularities surrounding the fund.

Released by the Public Accounts Committee, the transcripts showed 1MDB and government officials when quizzed made multiple references to Article 117 of 1MDB’s constitution which states all matters need authorization from the premier. That’s even as the probe blamed financial and reporting lapses on a former chief executive.
The scandal has heightened political tensions and sparked worldwide graft probes, although Najib has retained the support of the bulk of senior officials in the ruling coalition.

The bipartisan committee in its separate 106-page report identified at least $4.2 billion of unauthorized or unverified transactions and recommended former CEO Shahrol Halmi and other managers be investigated. Shahrol, who said last week he hadn’t done anything wrong, told lawmakers in November that Najib had signed documents related to a joint venture with PetroSaudi International Ltd. that has been under a cloud, according to the transcripts. Read the rest of this entry »

The latest report that Abu Dhabi’s state-owned International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) had informed the London Stock Exchange that neither itself nor its unit Aabar Investments PJS have any links to British Virgin Islands-incorporated firm named in a report into the troubles of the RM50 billion 1MDB scandal should have blown to smithereens the mirage that the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Report on the 1MDB scandal is the be-all and end-all of the RM50 billion 1MDB global scandal.

The London development today is the latest proof that the PAC Report on the 1MDB scandal is only the “tip of an iceberg” and that the PAC Report on the 1MDB scandal is the first important step to open up the intricacies, complexities and enormities of the 1MDB scandal and not the final and definitive word to bring closure to the 1MDB scandal.

I had said earlier that I fully agree with the statement by human rights group Proham that allegations of criminal breach of trust surrounding state-owned fund 1MDB is not the sole responsibility of its former chief executive officer.

The PAC, in its 1MDB Governance Management Control Report said that former IMDB CEO Shahrol Azral must take responsibility for the government-owned strategic investment company’s weaknesses and shortcomings.

It is impossible that Shahrol was solely responsible for the RM50 billion 1MDB scandal although Shahrol was 1MDB director for the past seven year since the inception of 1MDB and even when it was Terengganu Investment Authority (TIA), apart from being the Chief Executive Officer of 1MDB for four years from 2009 to 2013. Read the rest of this entry »

I fully agree with the statement by human rights group Proham that allegations of criminal breach of trust surrounding state-owned fund 1MDB is not the sole responsibility of its former chief executive officer.

Responding to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report on 1MDB, Proham chairperson Kuthubul Zaman Bukhari and secretary-general Denison Jayasooria in a joint statement expressed shock over the disclosure of weak governance structure and monitoring instituted for such huge sums of public funds.

They said: “We express deep concern over the failure of the board of directors, the advisory council and the Finance Ministry to institute adequate checks and balances.

“We are not in agreement that the criminal breach of trust lies solely on the CEO of 1MDB and therefore the speedy release of the auditor-general’s report is imperative.”

The 106-page Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Report on 1MDB, released in the Dewan Rakyat on April 7 had, among others, urged authorities to probe 1MDB former chief executive officer Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi and others in the management.

Shahrol Azral, however, had stressed that there was no wrongdoing or illegal activity at the company under his watch.

The PAC, in its 1MDB Governance Management Control Report said Shahrol Azral must take responsibility for the government-owned strategic investment company’s weaknesses and shortcomings.

It is impossible that Shahrol was solely responsible for the RM50 billion 1MDB scandal as Shahrol was 1MDB director for the past seven year since the inception of 1MDB and even when it was Terengganu Investment Authority (TIA), apart from being the Chief Executive Officer for four years from 2009 to 2013.

On the Internet, Shahrol’s c.v. refers to him as “an expert in value creation in multiple sectors”, and although Shahrol has proved to be a great disaster in the RM50 billion 1MDB scandal, I am strongly convinced that he is unfairly blamed by the PAC Report as the worst culprit in the 1MDB scandal. Read the rest of this entry »

by Shamim Adam & Pooi Koon Chong
Bloomberg
April 7, 2016

Malaysian lawmakers sought to draw a line under the corruption allegations surrounding state investment company 1MDB, pinning the blame for financial lapses on its former chief executive and absolving his political bosses of responsibility for a scandal that’s roiled markets and sparked worldwide graft probes.

A bipartisan parliament committee identified at least $4.2 billion of unauthorized or unverified transactions at 1Malaysia Development Bhd., in a report published on Thursday. It recommended that former CEO Shahrol Halmi and other managers should be investigated, and a group of advisers headed by Prime Minister Najib Razak — who wasn’t otherwise mentioned in the 106-page document — be disbanded. The board of directors offered to resign.

Malaysia wants to shut down a scandal that has rocked the Southeast Asian country for more than a year, weakening its bonds and currency and threatening Najib’s grasp on power. Political instability came hand-in-hand with an economic squeeze, as the oil-price slump eroded revenue for the region’s only net crude exporter.

Silencing the speculation around 1MDB may no longer be entirely in Malaysia’s hands. Authorities from the U.S. to Switzerland are trying to piece together evidence to determine if some of the billions of dollars that the state company raised were siphoned out of its coffers and into the personal accounts of politically-connected individuals. Read the rest of this entry »

by Reuters
Fortune
APRIL 7, 2016

But it stopped short of implicating Prime Minister Najib Razak.

A Malaysian parliamentary inquiry on Thursday slammed the board of state fund 1MDB for being irresponsible and urged a probe into its former chief, but stopped short of implicating Prime Minister Najib Razak who was an advisor for the troubled firm.

Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said senior management at 1Malaysia Development Bhd withheld crucial information from the board and made transactions without its knowledge or approval.

The bipartisan PAC is the first Malaysian entity to level allegations against 1MDB, which is at the center of corruption and money-laundering investigations in the United States, Switzerland, Singapore and Luxembourg. Read the rest of this entry »

DAP MP for PJ Utara Tony Pua is over-generous to give 80 marks to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Report on 1MDB as I would give it at most 60 marks.

1MDB was so vexed by Tony’s remark that he was 80 per cent satisfied with the PAC Report that it lost it sense of rationality and propriety and hit out with a media statement entitled: ‘You can’t be 80% pregnant, Pua”.

Among the most incisive of the mountain of adverse comments to 1MDB’s “80% pregnant” statement was the one which said that the “rhetoric coming from a very ‘professional’ company shows its childishness and makes you wonder how such people can be entrusted to run multi-billion company”!
There are many reasons why I would give the PAC Report on 1MDB at most 60 marks.

Firstly, for giving the Prime Minister, Cabinet Ministers and UMNO/BN leaders and propagandists the opportunity to distort its findings by claiming that the PAC Report on 1MDB had exonerated the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak of wrongdoings and abuses of power in the first global scandal in the nation’s history.

The latest person to distort the finding of the PAC Report on 1MDB is none other than the UMNO Secretary-General and Federal Territories Minister, Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, who said yesterday that the PAC Report proved that Najib had been the victim of various slanders for the past two years.

He even said that the PAC Vice Chairman, Dr. Tan Seng Giaw, who is also DAP MP for Kepong, had “admitted” that the Prime Minister was not involved at all in what had transpired in the 1MDB.

Tengku Adnan is trying to put words into Seng Giaw’s mouth, for Seng Giaw told me that he never said that Najib was not involved in any wrongdoing in 1MDB. Read the rest of this entry »

By Editorial Board
Washington Post
April 7

BACK IN January, Malaysia’s autocratic-minded prime minister, Najib Razak, tried to decree the end to a scandal involving the appearance of $681 million in his personal bank accounts. After an attorney general he installed reported that the money was a donation from the Saudi royal family, and did not involve wrongdoing, Mr. Najib declared: “The matter has been comprehensively put to rest.” Malaysians who argued otherwise, officials suggested, risked prosecution under the country’s draconian sedition law.

Fortunately for the rule of law in Malaysia, the strongman’s gambit failed. Revelations about alleged misappropriation of funds from a Malaysian state investment fund set up by Mr. Najib continue to pour forth, and investigations in half a dozen nations appear to be gathering momentum. Malaysia’s scandal appears likely to implicate financiers in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and the United States as well as some big Western banks. Perhaps most important, the chances that Mr. Najib will himself face legal and political consequences are steadily growing. Read the rest of this entry »

Tom Wright
Wall Street Journal
April 7, 2016

Board offers to resign; some allege an attempt to shield leader from damage in corruption scandal at fund he set up

By TOM WRIGHT

A Malaysian state development fund’s board of directors offered to resign after a report that found billions of dollars went missing from the fund but which made no mention of Prime Minister Najib Razak, prompting critics to accuse officials of shielding him.

The findings of the parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, released Thursday, mark the first time a Malaysian investigating body has leveled allegations of fraud connected to 1Malaysia Development Bhd., or 1MDB, which is the focus of corruption probes in Malaysia and at least six other nations.

Still, the report appeared to take pressure off Mr. Najib, who founded 1MDB in 2009, heads its separate board of advisers and has been the target of criticism over the scandal. Critics suggested the committee’s findings against 1MDB management, the absence of Mr. Najib’s name, and the directors’ offer to resign were orchestrated moves designed to protect the prime minister.

“It’s all planned that way; so we could attribute blame on [the board] but exonerate the prime minister. It means nothing,” said Zaid Ibrahim, a former cabinet minister and leader in an alliance opposed to Mr. Najib. Read the rest of this entry »