KUALA LUMPUR - As Prime Minister Najib Razak's critics try to pin him down on what he did with the balance of the RM2.6 bil 'donation' he purportedly received in his private bank accounts, the latest shock expose from banned website Sarawak Report may have found some leads.
The UK-based whistle-blower website had on Saturday alleged that of the nearly US$700 million donation (RM2.6 bil) transferred into Najib's personal accounts, the PM had transferred back to Singapore the whopping sum of US$650 million (RM2 billion).
Sarawak Report further alleged the Singapore bank account to which Najib had purportedly sent the money has since been closed, triggering shocked questions as to what could have happened to money.
Indeed, some of Najib's critics suspect the sum may have been 'commission' from an Arab source for closing an RM18 billion strategic deal linked to the controversial 1MDB sovereign fund and its units.
Now based on the latest information divulged by the Sarawak Report, it looks like Najib may have 'partaken' of the 'missing' money.
According to the website, Najib splashed over US$1 million on his credit cards during the month of August in the year following Malaysia's 2013 general election.
The spending took place in Europe while he was on a summer holiday.
The bills were run up on two cards Najib was using in August 2014, a Visa and a MasterCard from CIMB & Maybank.
Over RM2.8 million was spent from the MasterCard and around RM500,000 was splashed on the Visa in just the one month.
Sarawak Report provided details of the spending spree.
Related Stories: DID YOU TRANSFER US$ 650 MIL BACK TO S'PORE - Tony asks 'dirtiest, most dishonest & tainted' PM Najib
So far, Najib has denied all allegations of wrong-doing but has never given any direct answers, a tactic that has infuriated his countrymen and plunging the country into political and economic crisis.
"The story gets richer and more colourful, the Sarawak Report once again threw a spanner into the Prime Minister’s best-laid plans by exposing the fact that US$650 million was actually transferred back to Tanore Finance, owned by Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Corporation (IPIC) in August 2013, when Dato’ Seri Najib Razak closed his bank account in Ambank Bhd," Opposition MP Tony Pua said in statement demanding Najib's clarification on the latest expose.
"So now, Malaysians are left stunned as to whether the US$681 million deposited into Dato’ Seri Najib Razak’s account was really a “donation”. If the money does indeed belong to UMNO, why did US$650 million get transferred to Singapore?
"Are UMNO leaders now going to claim that it is normal for UMNO to hide billions of ringgit of donations in an overseas account?
"Or is Dato’ Seri Najib Razak now going to cook up a new excuse to claim that the Middle East donors decided that they didn’t want to donate to him anymore and wanted their money back?
"Or perhaps the Prime Minister after being caught with his pants down, would now argue that 5 months after receiving the cash, he suffered from sudden pangs of guilt and decided to voluntarily return the money to the donor?"
Where does Malaysia’s ‘First Family’ get all their money?
For most people to run up such a huge bill on mere expenses while on holiday would seem astounding, but the Malaysian Prime Minister has always declined to explain how such conspicuous spending has been funded.
PM Najib and Rosmah
According to Sarawak Report, this is just the latest information about conspicuous spending by Najib and his wife, but it comes after Malaysia was left wondering why he had transferred US$650 million out of the country, from money which he had earlier explained a donation to UMNO.
The Prime Minister and his wife have attracted world-wide scrutiny caused by their ostentatiousness. In the United States news has seeped out of a jaw-dropping bill covering Rosmah’s stay at the Hotel Bel-Air, Beverly Hills, while spending Christmas with her son Riza in 2013.
Her bill for a week’s stay at the Hotel was over US$300,000, reliable sources have informed us.
There have been numerous other reports of eye-catching spending, including the millions spent this year on the couple’s extended wedding celebrations for Rosmah’s daughter and a series of expensive houses purchased for Riza Aziz in the United States.
Last month Sarawak Report detailed how Rosmah’s fabled addiction to buying hugely expensive jewellery is managed through the same businessman who has been identified as the Prime Minister’s proxy at 1MDB, Jho Low.
It would therefore be incumbent on any Prime Minister in a country governed by the rule of law to give an account with regard to the series of unsustainable claims that have recently been made about supposed anonymous and secret ‘donations’ to UMNO in his personal account and missing billions from 1MDB being held in ‘units’ in banks.
Najib Razak has noticeably failed to deny our statement last week that over US$650 million were transferred back from his personal account in KL, supposedly managing the secret ‘donation’ from an anonymous source on behalf of UMNO, to the account in Falcon Bank in Singapore from where US$681 had originally been paid.
Our information is that there was in fact over a billion dollars from various sources in this particular AmPrivate Bank account in KL, belonging to Najib, in the period preceding what has been widely recognised as a bought election.
The US$650 was what remained when he closed the account in August 2013.
The Prime Minister has now after weeks of implied denial admitted the payment into this account of US$681 million, but is remaining silent over our latest information about where the remainder of this and the other sums was transferred.
He has also provided no evidence of a shred of accountability over the expenditure of money that he says he was holding on behalf of the party and “not for personal use”.
Instead, his supporters have started to imply that a Malaysian Prime Minister (unlike for example a US President) should be considered to be above the law in and that any attempt to investigate this matter should be treated as a crime, rather than any crime itself.
The same supporters are now also claiming that the hallowed tradition of a vote of no confidence in a Prime Minister (used as the standard tool in parliaments across the world for getting rid of duds) should also be considered and illegal and unconstitutional device in Malaysia against Najib Razak.
The rest of Malaysia, however, will be forced in the absence of credible explanations to make inevitable deductions regarding the unexplained disappearances of public money and the coincidental but equally unexplained conspicuous spending of the person who was last handling it. - MAILBAG
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