This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on January 27, 2020 - February 2, 2020

MAINTAINS the original copies of Arab donation letters are at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), but did not tell the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC)

•     Claims the original letters from Arab royalty on the purported RM2.6 billion donation to him may still be kept at the PMO

•     But Datuk Seri Najib Razak has never informed the MACC nor mentioned in his witness statement the existence of the original copies

No member of the Saudi Arabian royal family would confirm donations in court

•     Najib said it would be difficult to get the Saudi royal family to confirm in court that the four tranches of funds sent to his accounts were indeed donations

Najib did not check with the donor whether unused donation money was properly returned

•     Najib relied on Jho Low to tell him that the money was returned to the donor

•     Did not check with the donor as Jho Low was the “conduit” between him and the Saudi royal family

•     Najib did not thank the Saudi king for the donation when replying to the king’s “letter of donation”

•     Najib claims he thanked the king when he met him later face to face 

Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil kept as SRC director and mandate holder for Najib’s accounts

•     Despite being informed by Tan Sri Ismee Ismail, through Datuk Azlin Alias, of Nik Faisal’s lack of integrity, Najib still kept Nik Faisal on the board of SRC and as the mandate holder for his accounts

•     Najib said the bank did not alert him of any mismanagement of his accounts, which was why Nik Faisal remained as his mandate holder

Never checked his bank statements

•     Had not checked his bank account to ensure that it contained RM2.6 billion even after he had been informed the amount had been banked in

•     Never saw the statements of his accounts — managed by Nik Faisal at the material time — even though several of the statements were sent to his Langgak Duta residence from 2011 to 2013

•    Continued to spend the funds, without full knowledge of his accounts, although he said Azlin would from time to time update him on the account balances

Maintains decision to grant loans lies with Kumpulan Wang Persaraan (Diperbadankan) or KWAP

•     Agreed that he spoke to Tan Sri Wan Abdul Aziz Wan Abdullah about granting the second loan, but maintains that it was still up to KWAP’s investment panel to decide whether to approve it

•     Without Najib’s interference, would KWAP had lent RM4 billion to SRC — then a RM2 company without a track record?

Najib hoped SRC ‘would do better’ with the second RM2 billion KWAP loan

•     Although there was no concrete development following SRC’s first RM2 billion loan, Najib endorsed the second government guarantee for the second RM2 billion loan

•     The loan was given in a lump sum, as opposed to disbursement on a staggered basis, because SRC would have to show KWAP why it needed the funds if the funds were released on a staggered basis

Datuk Seri Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah was blocked from recovering frozen SRC funds in Switzerland due to lack of ‘a proper plan’

•     Najib said Ahmad Husni did not make a formal request to retrieve the frozen funds from BSI Ltd in Switzerland

•     Najib expected a detailed plan on how the money was to be retrieved to be submitted to the Cabinet

•     Najib felt responsible for the funds being frozen, but said he did not have a plan and had “left it to the management”

•     He said eventually the government would have to step in, but allowed the funds to remain frozen.  — By Ahmad Naqib Idris
 

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