Sacking 1MDB board may stifle probe, says Umno minister

Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan believes sacking the entire board of 1Malaysia Development Bhd may not help in the investigation of debt-ridden 1Malaysia Development Bhd. – The Malaysian Insider file pic, May 22, 2015. 

There is no point sacking the entire board of 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) to take responsibility for the firms' massive debts as it might slow the ongoing probe into the troubled firm's dealings, an Umno minister said today.

Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan said the call by Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin to have the 1MDB board sacked was understandable so as to calm public anxiety over the issue, but added that such a move would not help in uncovering the truth. 

"Naturally the first thing the new CEO and the new board members will be asking is more time to understand the issues at hand. How could they answer questions if they didn't know the head and tail of the issue.

"They might ask for a few months to go through all the details and the documents before they could understand what had happened and testify in the ongoing investigation by the Auditor-General and the PAC (Public Accounts Committee).

"That is time wasting and goes against the very call for urgency by the public to investigate 1MDB," Rahman, who is urban wellbeing, housing and local government minister, said in a statement today.

But the Umno Supreme Council member added that sacking the board members should be an option if the chief executive officer (CEO) and the chairman of 1MDB's board refused to testify.

"I don't know how his sacking can contribute in our quest to find the truth," Rahman said of 1MDB's CEO.

Arul Kanda Kandasamy is 1MDB's president and group executive director, while the chairman of the firm's board of directors is Tan Sri Lodin Wok Kamaruddin. There is no CEO listed among the senior leadership of 1MDB on its website.

In his statement, Rahman said the "current CEO", presumably referring to Arul Kanda who has been misreported as holding that post, was only appointed a few months ago.

"He is not involved in the much talked about controversial transactions of 1MDB which occurred way before he joined the organisation," Rahman said.

Rahman was responding to the "big fuss" created among political observers as a result of a leaked video showing Muhyiddin criticising 1MDB and calling for the heads of all its board members.

Muhyiddin made those remarks at a closed-door training session for some Umno members, but had publicly defended what he said, adding that it was only meant as advice to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

Najib is also finance minister and chairman of 1MDB's advisory board.

Rahman said the video had set off speculation in Umno about Muhyiddin being on a "major collision course" with Najib.

But he said that Najib's own position was not that different from his deputy's.

Short of calling for all board members to be sacked, the prime minister's position was that action would only be taken after exhaustive investigations by the Auditor-General and the PAC, said Rahman.

- TMI