UMNO Batu Kawan Deputy Division Chief Dato’ Seri Khairuddin Abu Hassan had lodged a police report against 1MDB on 12 December 2014, calling for a “detailed and comprehensive” investigation, and urged authorities to interrogate 1MDB’s directors and representatives of any company that might be implicated in the scandal.
He said he had lodged the report against the company and its board of directors after studying various reports in national and international print media as well as online media which “clearly proved” there were weaknesses in 1MDB’s management of taxpayers’ funds.
Despite having met the Chairman of 1MDB Board of Advisors, Dato’ Seri Najib Razak himself, Dato’ Seri Khairuddin remain unconvinced and has filed another report with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) yesterday.
Given the seriousness of the alleged improprieties and the impact of the RM42 billion debt accumulated in just 5 years on the country’s economy, it is important to find out from the Royal Malaysian Police if investigations on the company have actually started.
After all, it has been exactly five weeks since the police report was filed, hence surely, the Police must be able to report that statements have been taken from the management and/or directors of 1MDB?
Despite size of the issue which has capture the imagination of the media and Malaysians at large over the past few months, the Royal Malaysian Police has been remarkably silent on this issue, as opposed to others like Eric Paulsen’s one tweet which was given very special attention by the Inspector-General Police (IGP) Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar himself over Twitter.
The rakyat wishes that the IGP will dedicate his best resources to leave no stones unturned when investigating the 1MDB scandal. We certainly hope that it will not become like many other cases where the Government or Barisan Nasional-related personalities are involved where they will be bestowed the “No Further Action (NFA)” privilege treatment.
Similarly, the MACC must conduct a thorough investigation on the report made by Dato’ Seri Khairuddin, particularly over the significantly higher than normal interest rates paid for the 1MDB bonds as well as the excess of 10% “commissions, fees and charges” paid to Goldman Sachs International to raise some US$6.5 billion of borrowings.
At the same time, we certainly expect the new 1MDB CEO, Arul Kandasamy to provide his full cooperation to the investigation authorities such that the culprits behind the 1MDB scandal can be found and charged. This way, Arul will get to start his term with a clean slate, without being tainted or compromised by any dodgy 1MDB activities of the past.