KUALA LUMPUR (June 25): Damansara member of parliament Tony Pua, who is also a special assistant to Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng, has called on former prime minister and 1MDB advisory board chairman Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak to explain where the RM3.07 billion siphoned from TRX City Sdn Bhd has gone to, if not to repay 1Malaysia Development Bhd’s (1MDB’s) debts. 

“Datuk Seri Najib Razak must decide between claiming that it is “inappropriate” for him to answer 1MDB questions or constantly attempting to defend the dodgy transactions which have taken place in the 1MDB Group,” the Pakatan Harapan lawmaker said in a statement today.

Pua said the former prime minister cannot simultaneously feign ignorance by blaming the directors or management of 1MDB for the strategic investment fund's troubles, while demonstrating detailed knowledge of the transactions that have taken place in the fund.

“What Najib explained is merely how 1MDB and TRX City justified and ratified the accounting irregularities between the two companies,” he said. 

Pua was referring to Najib's claim via a Facebook post on June 21 that no money from TRX City was misappropriated by 1MDB, and that the RM3.07 billion from TRX City had been inter-company loans that had been repaid by 1MDB effective March 31, 2017, through a combination of cash and a set-off against dividends paid by TRXC to 1MDB. 

Najib had also claimed repayments were carried out with the approval of Ministry of Finance Inc and were properly reviewed and signed off by the auditors of TRX City.

In response, Pua slammed Najib for denying that the recent RM2.8 billion extension by the Ministry of Finance (MoF) to TRX City is not a “bailout”,, because the 70-acre Tun Razak Exchange (TRX) development can still “eke out a profit” upon completion.

“The fact that TRX might still be able to eke out a profit, does not invalidate the fact that it is a bailout. This is because if not for the misappropriation, it would have meant that TRX could have made an additional RM3 billion in profits!.

“Had the funds in TRXC been utilised for its projects in a transparent and accountable manner, the company would not have needed to seek the RM2.8 billion additional funding from the MoF for TRX in the first place. It is precisely because of the misappropriation by 1MDB that the ministry is now forced to step in to rescue the project,” Pua said. 

Pua said the heart of the matter remains that over RM3 billion was taken by 1MDB from TRXC "to cover up the shenanigans" in 1MDB — money that was intended for development of the Tun Razak Exchange and Bandar Malaysia projects, and that as a result of the misappropriation, TRXC became severely short of funds to fulfil its obligations in TRX.

"If Datuk Seri Najib Razak feels strongly that he has been maligned with wrongful facts, we will be more than happy to welcome him back to the MoF to explain where the RM3 billion misappropriated from TRX City have gone to, and if there’s any chance at all, how 1MDB will be able to recover this money," Pua added.