KUALA LUMPUR (March 21): 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) did not submit any bank or financial statements of its foreign subsidiaries to the Auditor-General (AG) during an investigation by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), an opposition lawmaker said today.

Tony Pua (DAP-Petaling Jaya Utara) said this in refuting 1MDB president Arul Kanda Kandasamy's claim on Monday that the state-owned strategic investment fund had already submitted all related documents to the National Audit Department during the PAC investigation process.

"It has already been stated and repeated many times that 1MDB had failed to submit any bank or financial statements of its foreign subsidiaries which raised billions of dollars in borrowings to the AG and the PAC," said Pua at a press conference in the Parliament building.

"This was despite the repeated requests for the relevant documents by both the AG and the PAC over the period of nearly a year," he said.

Pua, who is also a member of the PAC, said it wasn't just the opposition that had protested the transfer of more than US$1 billion to Good Star Ltd, a company owned by businessman Low Taek Jho (Jho Low).

"The then chairman of 1MDB, Tan Sri Mohd Bakke Salleh has quit his position in utter disgust after discovering that the US$700 million was secretly transferred to Good Star Ltd without the knowledge or approval from the board of directors," claimed Pua.

"Is Arul Kanda now claiming that Tan Sri Bakke Salleh, who is currently the CEO of Sime Darby (Bhd), the largest GLC in Malaysia, (was) lying to the PAC?" asked the lawmaker.

Arul Kanda had said that as a buyer of shares sold by PetroSaudi International Ltd, 1MDB had made the payment as instructed by the seller (PetroSaudi). 1MDB, he said, had also received shares in the company as a result of the payment.

According to Pua, Bakke, in his testimony to the PAC on Feb 11, 2016, confirmed that in the draft agreement with PetroSaudi to form the joint venture in 2009, "there was no mention of (a) US$700 million" which was to be paid separately to Good Star as a loan repayment to PetroSaudi.

"Most damagingly, Tan Sri Bakke Salleh testified that in a meeting to discuss the PetroSaudi joint venture on Aug 26, 2009, two days before the signing of the joint venture agreement, Low attended as 'an invitee of management'," said Pua.

This, he claimed, showed that 1MDB was allegedly in cahoots with Low "to scam the company of billions of ringgit which were siphoned to Good Star Ltd, under the guise of a pretend joint venture with PetroSaudi International".