How did billions end up in Jho Low’s account, Sarawak Report asks Najib

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is the one who calls the shots in 1MDB and must explain how billions of ringgit from the fund had gone to a company controlled by businessman Low Taek Jho. – The Malaysian Insider file pic, May 27, 2015. 

With revelations that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is the one who ultimately calls the shots in 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), Sarawak Report said he should explain why billions of ringgit from the fund had gone to businessman Low Taek Jho.

The whistle-blower site said someone must explain the US$1.16 billion (RM4.2 billion) which went into an account controlled by Low, who is better known as Jho Low.

The site said in a posting today that since Najib was the only person authorised to sign off investments by the fund, he would have known about the investments and had approved them personally.

"It was the prime minister who signed off payments of first US$700 million (2009) then US$160 million (2010) and finally US$300 million (2011) all to Good Star Limited, which is a company controlled by Jho Low.

"It was Jho Low who originally drew attention to this state of affairs, well before the details of the fund’s Memorandum and Articles of Association (M&A) became public yesterday, showing that as of September 2, 2009, which was days before the first meeting with the first joint venture partner PetroSaudi, the PM was in the driving seat," it said.

Sarawak Report also cited remarks made by Low in an interview with magazine Euromoney shortly after it exposed the secret payments totalling US$1.16 billion in March.

Low had reportedly said: "Guys, it’s very simple, there’s a board, who’s the shareholder?… Are you telling me the prime minister doesn’t make his own decisions? No one seems to ask the question who is the ultimate decision-maker on 1MDB? No one asks that. No one ever asks about the shareholder’s role.”

So far, Sarawak Report said everyone had been asking the question, including the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that was now looking into the 1MDB multibillion ringgit debt scandal.

The committee had called 1MDB's former chief executive officer Datuk Shahrol Halmi and current group executive director Arul Kanda Kandasamy  to attend a hearing yesterday but both could not turn up.

"It seems that this simple question is proving too tough for these gentlemen to answer and they at the last moment absented themselves and begged for a further 30 days to work out what they are going to say.

"There is only one conclusion to be made from all this, which is that they cannot think of a single way to justify what happened. To say they had other more pressing business this week is simply not good enough, as the prime minister’s own brother today (yesterday) made plain.

"What can be more important than settling this issue, which has put Malaysia’s entire economy at risk, thanks to the debts of RM43 billion run up by 1MDB and now this dreadful uncertainty over the management of the fund?"

Sarawak Report said the duo were just "running away" from answering questions.

It said even Najib could not answer the question because if he could, he would have done so many weeks ago instead of implying things that were later found to be wrong – like the now retracted claim that the money which went to Low has somehow reappeared in a 1MDB bank account in Singapore.

Sarawak Report said the question now should be why the money went to Good Star.

"Or maybe they should be leaving such questions to the police instead?"

Before it was incorporated as a federal agency in 2009, 1MDB was founded as the Terengganu Investment Authority (TIA).

It was reported, according to the leaked TIA M&A agreement that was inked on February 27, 2009, the prime minister must give his written approval for any of TIA’s deals, including the firm’s investments or any bid for restructuring.

Clause 117 in the agreement stated that for any avoidance of doubt, none of three things can be executed “without the written prior approval of the prime minister”, and this included “any financial commitment (including investment), restructuring or any other matter which is likely to affect the guarantee given by the federal government of Malaysia for the benefit of the company, national interest, national security or any policy of the Federal Government of Malaysia”.

The clause also stipulated that the government shall have the “final and conclusive” right to determine what constitutes national interest and national security, and matters requiring the prime minister's nod also included amendments to the company’s M&A and appointments and removal of directors and senior management team of TIA.

If Clause 117 remained unchanged until today, it would mean that the prime minister had given his consent to many of 1MDB's controversial deals, including the decision to move US$1.1 billion from the Cayman Islands to a bank in Singapore, the deal with Mongolia-based company Gobi Coal & Energy Limited (GCE) and the sale of Tun Razak Exchange land to Lembaga Tabung Haji, among others.

These have raised questions in the media whether Najib had complete control of 1MDB as all the 1MDB’s controversial deals had to be authorised and consented by him.

- TMI