It has been over a year now that Bank Negara has frozen the accounts of the Bestino Holdings of Ipoh.

It was alleged that the company was collecting funds without permission and has broken the laws by issuing Preference Share scripts to its investors without the permission of the Securities Commission of Malaysia.

Fair enough, now investors like me are waiting to hear from Bank Negara what its investigations of one year have revealed and when, if at all, will any action be taken to refund the investors’ monies.

Many of us, investors have used a major portion of our life savings in this venture and have been patiently waiting for the refund.

The Bernard Madoff scandal involving much more in funds and complicated financial dealings saw funds being refunded to investors within a year of the arrest and adjudication of the man behind it all.

So why the delay in this Bestino case in Malaysia?

It does not endear the authorities to its citizens if unnecessary delay is being placed in bringing to a close the grief and anguish for the loss of their life savings.

Many of us have been wanting to reinvest this misplaced funds into the ‘1Malaysia’ bond fund but how can we if Bank Negara officials continue to unreasonably hold back our money?

Give us another chance to recover our losses of more than a year, by allowing us to reinvest in the ‘1Malaysia’ fund. I hope that our sufferings will soon be diminished by Bank Negara.