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This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on November 22, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: Former auditor-general (AG) Tan Sri Ambrin Buang was heard mumbling to himself “what is the purpose of the audit” after a meeting on Feb 24, 2016 among top government officials and 1Malaysia Development Bhd’s (1MDB) then chief executive officer to amend and destroy the original audit report of the scandal-ridden fund, the High Court here heard yesterday.

National Audit Department (NAD) director Nor Salwani Muhammad (pic) said she saw Ambrin looking sad and upset after leaving the meeting room.

“I accompanied him as he went to a washroom to wash his face. I followed Ambrin as he looked like he would fall, as he looked so fragile. Ambrin was also mumbling something which I could hear clearly, ‘what is the purpose of the audit’,” she said.

Nor Salwani, 52, recorded the proceedings of the meeting as she had to produce minutes of the meeting, but was not allowed into the room despite being the coordinator of the 1MDB audit report team.

“However, before the meeting started, I placed a recording device in [my] colleague Saadatul Nafisah Bashir Ahmad’s pencil case. The purpose is I have to at times prepare the minutes of the meeting,” the prosecution witness said in response to questions from senior Deputy Public Prosecutor Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram.

She said she placed the recording device without the knowledge of Saadatul Nafisah, who was the former audit director of the department.

Nor Salwani told the court that when the meeting ended, she retrieved the recording device from Saadatul Nafisah.

The witness said after the recording device was retrieved, she and her colleagues played the device before the auditing team and were shocked at what they heard.

“Never before in my 21-year history of working there have we faced an event like this, where the final audit report was asked to be ‘digugurkan’ (dropped) and called for the report to be ‘dilupuskan’ (destroyed). This has never happened before and for this reason, my team and I were shocked,” Nor Salwani said.

The fifth prosecution witness further added that the recording device is owned by the NAD.

She said immediately after they heard the meeting conversation, she made a copy of the recording on a hard drive belonging to the department.

Nor Salwani said as she feared the repercussion of having recorded the meeting proceedings without the knowledge of the chairman (then chief secretary of the government Tan Sri Ali Hamsa), she decided to make another copy on a hard drive and also a thumb drive.

The recording device and thumb drive were tendered by the prosecution as evidence.

On Wednesday, the entire audio recording was played to Ali in the court.

‘NAD’s standard practice to record meetings’

Following the revelation, Najib’s lead defence counsel Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah grilled Nor Salwani during her cross-examination on why she did not tell her superiors that she was recording the meeting.

Muhammad Shafee: Isn’t it an ethical responsibility of the NAD to tell the chief secretary that you placed the recording device for minute-taking purposes?

Nor Salwani: I didn’t have the chance to tell him because we were ushered to leave the meeting room in a hurry.

Muhammad Shafee: But the KSN (chief secretary) was already there?

Nor Salwani: He just got in.

Muhammad Shafee: Then if you had the time to slip in the recording [device], you definitely had the time to tell him if you wanted to.

Nor Salwani: I didn’t have the chance because I was ranked lower compared to [NAD audit director] Puan Nafisah.

Nor Salwani also added that she did not think there was a need to ask for permission from the chief secretary to record the meeting as it was for the NAD’s own minutes of the meeting.

She clarified even without their knowledge, Ambrin and Nafisah should expect that it was recorded as it is a standard practice by the department to record any meeting.

Nor Salwani disagreed with Muhammad Shafee’s suggestion that she intentionally put the recording device in the pencil case to record the meeting secretly.

She was then temporarily dismissed from the witness stand, pending the full transcript of the audio recording, as well as the minutes of an exit conference held on Dec 16, 2015 that was attended by former 1MDB chief executive officer Arul Kanda Kandasamy.

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