KUALA LUMPUR: Umno deputy president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin raised eyebrows with his absence in yesterday’s much-anticipated Umno meeting between party president Datuk Seri Najib Razak and division leaders.

However, an Umno leader brushed off any significance to the former’s absence, saying “no one should read too much into it”.

Umno supreme council member Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said Muhyiddin, who is also the deputy prime minister, had prior commitments he had to attend to.

“In the past, the deputy president also did not attend [such a meeting]. In this case, he told me that he wanted to attend but he had other commitments,” the agriculture and agro-based industry minister told reporters after the meeting.

Muhyiddin’s statement on the debt-ridden 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) last Friday sparked talk that there were differences of opinion within the Cabinet over how to deal with the company’s suspicious deals.

Muhyiddin had said efforts to handle 1MDB’s debts must not involve a bailout of the government-owned strategic investment firm using public funds.

The much-anticipated gathering of Umno division chiefs with the prime minister was declared off limits to the media.

The foyer area of Menara Tun Hussein Onn in the Putra World Trade Centre was restricted to Umno officials and their staff only.

A sign put up outside barricades to the area read “closed-door function” (no media coverage) while the only access point was guarded by an auxiliary policeman.

Meanwhile, at the meeting, Najib assured Umno grass roots leaders that the government will not protect anyone found to have committed fraud in the operations of 1MDB.

Ismail Sabri said this was expressed by Najib to the more-than-154 division chiefs who attended the meeting at the party’s headquarters in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

Najib told the division chiefs that 1MDB’s accounts had gone through a forensic audit by accounting firm Deloitte Malaysia, which cleared the company’s officials of fraud, cheating and misappropriation of funds.

“He also said that the auditor-general himself will look into 1MDB and the results will be given to the Public Accounts Committee and staunch critics of 1MDB such as [Petaling Jaya Utara member of parliament] Tony Pua Kiam Wee,” Ismail Sabri told reporters after the meeting.

“So, there is nothing to hide and no one [who has committed wrongdoing] will be protected,” Ismail Sabri added. — The Malaysian Insider

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on March 9, 2015.