Thursday 28 Mar 2024
By
main news image

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on June 26, 2018

KUALA LUMPUR: The special officer to then prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak who was arrested by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) on Sunday had received around RM62 million from his then boss, sources say.

The money allegedly originated from 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) and was paid to Orb Solutions Sdn Bhd from 2011 to 2014. The special officer is a director and joint shareholder of Orb Solutions, according to company records. It is not clear how a government officer can be a shareholder of a private company and if this is a breach of civil service conduct.

The MACC has secured a seven-day remand order on the 42-year-old special officer to help in investigations into 1MDB and SRC International Sdn Bhd. He was brought to court at 9.15am, handcuffed and clad in the MACC orange lock-up attire. He was asked to give a statement at the MACC headquarters on Sunday and was arrested at 9.45pm.

According to company records, Orb Solutions was formed in 2010 to provide “web management and communication strategies solutions”.

Sources say the special officer was tasked to implement a social media strategy to promote Najib and the Barisan Nasional (BN) government. His official responsibility in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) was for economic policy and budget.

The 42-year-old joined the PMO in 2009 from Bank Negara Malaysia where he was with the economics and markets department.

He was brought to the PMO by the late Datuk Azlin Alias, who was head of Najib’s economic policy team. After Azlin died in a helicopter crash in 2015, the special officer was promoted to head the team.

Orb Solutions is one of several hundred recipients of cash from Najib’s account at AmBank where more than RM3 billion that originated from 1MDB was alleged to have been banked in from 2011 to 2013.

Besides politicians and political parties, these recipients included business entities, foundations, non-governmental organisations, lawyers, media and political strategy consultants. All of them are believed to have been paid by Najib to do work to generate support for the then prime minister and BN government.

Sources say investigators are calling up everyone who received money from Najib’s AmBank account and more arrests are expected.

      Print
      Text Size
      Share