I welcome MIC President SA Vigneswaran’s rejection of calls for Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to resign as Finance Minister over KWAP’s investment in eFishery.
However, I reject his attempt to compare Anwar’s position in the eFishery matter with Zahid Hamidi’s legal position when he was appointed Deputy Prime Minister. The two situations are fundamentally different.
When Zahid was appointed Deputy Prime Minister, he had been formally charged with 47 counts of criminal breach of trust, corruption and money laundering. More importantly, the High Court had already found that the prosecution had established a prima facie case on all 47 charges and ordered him to enter his defence. The trial was already at the defence stage.
A prima facie finding is not a conviction, and Zahid remained entitled to the presumption of innocence. The subsequent DNAA and the Attorney General’s later decision not to continue the case also mean that he was never convicted. However, these developments do not erase the fact that, at the time of his appointment, there was already a judicial finding that sufficient evidence existed for him to answer the charges.
The eFishery matter is entirely different. Anwar has not been charged, implicated or shown to have personally participated in approving the investment. No evidence has been presented that he benefited from the transaction, interfered with KWAP’s decision-making process or obstructed the investigation.
The preliminary facts indicate that KWAP was a minority investor deceived by deliberate financial manipulation and false financial reporting by eFishery’s management. Other major global institutional investors including Temasek and Softbank were similarly affected.
The principle of presumption of innocence applies to everyone, but it should not be used to create a false equivalence between a person who had been charged and ordered by a court to enter his defence, and another person against whom no evidence of personal wrongdoing has been produced.
This does not exempt KWAP’s management, Investment Panel or external advisers from accountability. The investigation must determine whether proper due diligence was conducted, whether red flags were ignored and whether negligence or misconduct occurred. If wrongdoing is established, firm action must be taken against those responsible.
However, there is no factual, legal or moral basis for demanding Anwar’s resignation. He has supported the MACC investigation and instructed KWAP and the Finance Ministry to cooperate fully.
Vigneswaran’s conclusion that Anwar should not resign is correct, but the comparison with Zahid is misplaced. Anwar should be defended based on the facts of the eFishery case, not through an inaccurate analogy with an entirely different court case.