KUALA LUMPUR (April 26): Elder statesman Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has squarely blamed former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak for the corruption of the country.

In a series of tweets from his @chedetofficial account on Monday (April 25), the physician who served as the fourth and seventh prime minister of Malaysia said Malaysia at present is not the country that the world acclaimed as the Asian Tiger.

“It is not even a shadow of its former self. It is now a kleptocracy — a country of thieves led by thieves,” he said.

“When a person says 'cash is king' he means that 'corruption is king'. That was what Najib Razak said when he became prime minister of Malaysia. It is shocking but he meant it,” he said.

Dr Mahathir said Najib’s actions before and after his declaration proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that he believed in corruption as a way to achieve anything that he wishes.

“Najib believed that to be effective the bribes must be very substantial. He needed to have billions of ringgit for the schemes he had in mind," he said.

Dr Mahathir said Najib conceived of very big projects which cost billions of ringgit, including the East Coast Railway and the high-speed train between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, as well as buying power plants.

He added that for these projects, money that Najib borrowed run into billions of ringgit.

“By overpricing some of the money could be hived off and disappear.

“But Najib found a way to exceed the ceiling the government was allowed to borrow.

“He set up a government-owned company ostensibly to invest. Normally such a fund would come from excess revenue earned by the government. But this fund is to be borrowed,” he said, alluding to 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB).

“Although 100% owned by the government, 1MDB was not subject to the government ceiling for borrowing.

“At that time the ceiling was 53% of the GDP. He borrowed RM42 billion, the biggest loan ever raised by the country,” he said.