This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on January 10, 2018

KUALA LUMPUR: Opposition lawmaker Tony Pua has demanded to know as to how embattled state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) was able to make its final US$602.7 million or RM2.4 billion settlement payment to Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Co (IPIC) on Dec 27 last year, four days ahead of the deadline.

In a statement yesterday, Pua, member of parliament (MP) for Petaling Jaya Utara and DAP national publicity secretary, asked if the ministry of finance (MoF) had forked out another RM2.4 billion to foot the bill for 1MDB’s debt to IPIC.

“The problem is we all know 1MDB is completely insolvent. So, Malaysians are rightly concerned as to how 1MDB paid its latest instalment of their debt.

“All that is stated in the official 1MDB statement is, the payment is funded through its ‘ongoing rationalisation programme’,” he said.

Pua stresses that no one has a clue as to what the rationalisation programme entails.

He also raised issue with a recent report in Singapore’s The Straits Times and asked if the news was a carefully planted leak to the paper, adding the report merely identified the anonymous buyers as “concerns ultimately controlled by Chinese state-owned enterprises”.

Pua claims this is not the first time The Straits Times had carried out hatchet stories which helped cover up some of 1MDB’s financial shenanigans.

“When the Bandar Malaysia sale to an Iskandar Waterfront-led consortium was terminated out-of-the-blue by the MoF, it was [The Straits Times] which created a media maelstrom by reporting on May 9, 2017 that ‘government officials and financial executives close to the situation told The Straits Times that negotiations with the Dalian Wanda Group to take a central role as master developer have reached an advanced stage’,” he added.

He asked if 1MDB had really succeeded in disposing of its properties in Pulau Indah and Penang to China-owned state enterprises,  and why the absolute silence from official sources.

“Surely if the companies owning these parcels of land were sold for billions of ringgit to foreign investors, from China or otherwise, official transactions would have taken place and the information would be publicly available.

“More curiously, these parcels of land in Selangor and Penang were purchased by 1MDB for RM294 million and RM1.1 billion respectively. Critics were aplenty in citing both parcels were purchased at inflated prices. However, even so, the combined purchase amounted to less than RM1.4 billion,” he said.

Pua said it begs the question as to which Chinese state-owned enterprises would pay an outrageous RM2.4 billion for these parcels of land, which in turn allowed 1MDB to repay its second loan instalment to IPIC.

“Or is it more likely that it is another hoax to evade disclosing the fact that it was really the MoF, which directly or indirectly, repaid both instalments amounting to US$1.24 billion to IPIC?”