This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on March 22, 2018

KUALA LUMPUR: 1Malaysia Development Bhd's (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 yesterday.

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

"It had 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 repeated requests for the relevant documents by the AG and the PAC over nearly a year," he said.

Pua, 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 US$700 million was secretly transferred to Good Star Ltd without the board of directors' knowledge or approval," Pua claimed.

"Is Arul Kanda now claiming that Tan Sri [Mohd] Bakke Salleh,  currently the CEO (chief executive officer) of Sime Darby [Bhd], the largest GLC (government-linked company) in Malaysia, lying to the PAC?"

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

According to Pua, Mohd 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.