This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on July 17, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: Yayasan Rakyat 1Malaysia (YR1M), the charity arm of 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), funded part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes through contributions of RM230 million from Genting Group, with most of the amount coming from its gambling business, said the foundation’s former chief executive officer Ung Su Ling.

During her testimony at the trial of Datuk Seri Najib Razak yesterday, the prosecution’s 49th witness said the foundation had set up three accounts with AmBank Bhd, where one of them used to keep money from Genting, another for project funding obtained from other sources, and the third one for its operational expenditure.

YR1M had also received RM210 million from 1MDB and RM3 million from Petronas, she told the court.

“One funder [for YR1M] was 1MDB. The second was companies within Genting Group. We also received a small amount of money from Petronas — that was for very specific projects,” she said.

YR1M’s CSR activities benefit non-Muslim recipients while Ihsan Perdana Sdn Bhd (IPSB) — YR1M’s CSR partner — performs charitable projects targeted at Muslims.

The foundation’s board of trustees — comprising Najib, his deceased principal private secretary Datuk Azlin Alias, then-1MDB chairman Tan Sri Lodin Wok Kamaruddin, and former special officer in the prime minister’s office Datuk Wan Ahmad Shihab Wan Ismail — would then decide how the funds would be spent via circulars of resolutions.

Azlin passed away in a helicopter crash in April 2015, which also killed PR1MA Corp chairman Tan Sri Jamaluddin Jarjis and four others.

Ung said Azlin had instructed her to transfer funds to IPSB on several occasions, as well as where the company should channel the funds.

She would meet him on the fifth floor of Putra Perdana, where the prime minister’s office is also located.

Azlin ordered Ung via WhatsApp to tell IPSB to transfer RM27 million and RM5 million on Dec 26, 2014 and RM10 million on Feb 10, 2015 into Najib’s personal AmBank accounts.

The witness added that the funds that make up the RM42 million sourced from SRC International Sdn Bhd do not belong to YR1M.

“Azlin told me that funds had been transferred to Ihsan Perdana Sdn Bhd and had asked me to inform IPSB’s [former chief executive officer and] managing director Datuk Dr Shamsul Anwar Sulaiman to transfer the funds to two AmPrivate Banking accounts,” she said, adding that Azlin had told her the funds were for CSR activities.

The RM27 million, Ung said, was transferred into the account ending 880 while the RM5 million was transferred into the account ending 906.

The witness added that on Feb 9, 2015, she received instructions from Azlin to transfer another RM10 million into the 880 account.

As Ung was the one who instructed Shamsul Anwar to facilitate the transfer of the RM42 million into the two AmBank accounts, she said she also communicated with AmBank relationship manager Joanna Yu to confirm the transfers.

Yu was AmBank relationship manager for YR1M’s AmBank account and Najib’s AmBank accounts as well.

Ung said she was in touch with Yu via both BlackBerry Messenger and mobile phone since YR1M’s AmBank account was opened in 2013.

“I knew Yu was the relationship manager for [the two receiving AmBank accounts], but I did not know these were the personal accounts of Najib,” she said.

It had been previously established that the 880 and 906 AmPrivate Banking accounts belonged to Najib.

Interestingly, Ung also worked at the Wynton Group, an asset management firm set up by Low Taek Jho, the fugitive financier more popularly known as Jho Low, in the early 2000s.

Penangite Jho Low is widely considered as the mastermind behind the multibillion-ringgit 1MDB fiasco.

Najib is facing three charges of criminal breach of trust, one for abuse of power and three more for money laundering of the RM42 million SRC International Sdn Bhd funds.

The funds as stipulated in the charge were RM27 million and RM5 million that were transferred into his accounts on Dec 26, 2014 and RM10 million on Feb 10, 2015.