This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on September 6, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: At one point, Datuk Amhari Efendi Nazaruddin brought home some RM75,000 per month as the special officer to Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

This comprised RM55,000 per month from his position as a director in Khazanah Nasional Bhd, as well as RM20,000 from ORB Solutions Sdn Bhd that facilitated Najib’s digital presence, where Amhari was its largest shareholder.

The former aide, who is testifying against Najib as the eight prosecution witness in the 1Malaysia Development Bhd-Tanore (1MDB-Tanore) trial, told the High Court here that he got his position in sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional Bhd in 2016 — three years after he first approached his then-boss for a transfer out of Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) in the months following the 13th general election.

Just before he left for Khazanah, Amhari earned RM25,000 in BNM.

He recalled how he had hit his ceiling salary at the central bank, and asked Najib “because of his loyalty” to continue serving under the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) whether he could be transferred to another government-linked company (GLC) to “reflect that”.

“That was when Khazanah was identified,” Amhari said yesterday.

Previously, Amhari testified that he worked together with the late Datuk Azlin Alias, Najib’s former principal private secretary, and fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low, on 1MDB matters since 2009, when the fund was called the Terengganu Investment Authority.

The three of them often conducted secret meetings to discuss actions related to the company, and Amhari testified Azlin was more involved in the fund’s affairs than he was at the time.

Amhari said in 2016, he was also given bigger responsibilities by Najib — through Jho Low — to look after 1MDB matters, and was Najib’s representative when dealing with China to bail 1MDB out of its debts that had come to light in the international media.

The witness assumed the reason he was given that role was Azlin’s passing in April 2015.

At the time, he was seconded from Khazanah to serve as director of the PMO’s economic division.

Amhari is now unemployed, and is still on police bail following his remand by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission in mid-2018 after the conclusion of the 14th general election in May that year.