During the last parliamentary sitting, I had asked the Minister of Finance where 1MDB’s US$1.1 billion (RM4 billion) of funds “redeemed” from the Cayman Islands investment was held, and whether it was in the form of cash or assets.
The Minister of Finance provided the official parliamentary reply on 10 March 2015. He said
Baki dana pelaburan 1 MOB yang telah diuruskan oleh Cayman Monetary Authority sebanyak USD1.103 bilion telah ditebus (redeemed) dalam bentuk wang tunai dan masih disimpan dalam mata wang US Dolar di BSI Bank Limited Singapore (BSI Singapore).
Keputusan untuk menggunakan Bank di Singapura bertujuan untuk memudahkan urusan pengeluaran wang memandangkan peraturan yang ditetapkan oleh Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) memerlukan kelulusan BNM diperoleh bagi setiap transaksi wang melebihi RM50 juta.
During my press conference held on the 11 March, I had expressed my bewilderment to the reason given by the Minister for not repatriating the money back to Malaysia to repay its debts which were due. The Minister said that 1MDB is maintaining its cash holdings outside of Malaysia in order to specifically avoid the hassle of requiring BNM approval every time it needs to transmit money exceeding RM50 million overseas. It is bewildering because we have a wholly-owned Ministry of Finance subsidiary claiming that it is evading scrutiny from the Malaysian Central Bank.
However, in another shocking expose by The Sarawak Report, it claimed that 1MDB President and Executive Director, Arul Kanda Kandasamy had distributed falsified financial statements to various parties on the company’s cash and/or assets held in BSI Singapore. These cash and/or assets were held under 1MDB’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Brazen Sky Limited.
The report further claimed that Swiss bank branch in Singapore has told the Singapore authorities that the document did not originate from them and does not represent a true account of the assets of the 1MDB subsidiary. On 13 March 2015, this information has been relayed to the Malaysian authorities.
Based on this latest expose, I now have doubts on the Minister of Finance’s reply to me in Parliament, which claimed that the US$1.1 billion redeemed in January 2015 from the Cayman Islands investment fund has been deposited as “cash” in BSI Bank in Singapore. This could also have been the reason why the Minister was forced to give an incredulous excuse as to why 1MDB wouldn’t repatriate the cash back to Malaysia to repay its debts.
Is our Minister of Finance aware that there are falsified bank statements distributed by 1MDB Directors who gave the wrong financial position of the outrageously indebted 1MDB? Were the independent auditors, Deloitte Malaysia who signed of the March 2014 financial report on 5 November 2014, also duped by the fraudulent statement?
More importantly, Dato’ Seri Najib Razak, as both the Finance and Prime Minister, must confirm if the reply given in parliament on 10 March is indeed true – that the US$1.1 billion are held in “cash” in BSI Bank in Singapore.
Given the shocking state of financial affairs in 1MDB where billions of US Dollars were siphoned from the company, and now evidence of falsified bank statements, Dato’ Seri Najib Razak cannot expect Malaysians not to be seriously worried that at least US$1.1 billon or RM4 billion has vanished from 1MDB’s books.