Najib the most irresponsible finance minister, says Pua

KUALA LUMPUR: Tony Pua of DAP has labelled Prime Minister Najib Razak the “most irresponsible finance minister” for ignoring the “scores of misdeeds” outlined in the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report on 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

The DAP lawmaker said Najib was more interested in political rhetoric, evidenced by his preference to focus on the fact that 1MDB had not lost RM42 billion as alleged by former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

“Just because one man cited the wrong figure for the amounts of funds which were not accounted for, does not mean that there were no billions of dollars which had gone missing.

“We have already established that at least USD5.5 billion of 1MDB’s cash and assets could not be verified by the Auditor-General after a year of investigations,” said Pua in a press conference at the DAP headquarters here, today.

He was commenting on the PAC Report on 1MDB tabled in Parliament yesterday which found the management of 1MDB wanting.

Pua, who is a PAC member, said although the report did not implicate Najib in any wrongdoing in the management of the embattled state investment arm, Najib must still be held ministerially responsible.

Earlier in a statement, the Petaling Jaya Utara MP demanded 1MDB explain why it refused to hand over its foreign bank account statements and that of its subsidiaries to the Auditor-General and the PAC.

This after 1MDB rubbished allegations that RM42 billion had gone missing, explaining that the sum had been fully accounted for based on the firm’s financial statement it handed over to the PAC.

The PAC, Pua pointed out never specifically claimed that the billions had gone missing.

Pua however questioned why 1MDB did not explain where the money was if it was offended by the Wall Street Journal’s report about it.

“1MDB’s recalcitrance and utter contempt for the A-G despite countless reminders by the A-G and PAC only reinforces the global suspicion that the billions of dollars have indeed gone missing.”

1MDB, he added, should “stop trying to play victim of a non-existent global malicious conspiracy” against the company as it had every opportunity to clear its name over the past two years.

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