COMMENT When the Malaysian attorney-general, Mohamed Apandi Ali, decided that his office would not cooperate with his counterpart in Switzerland to carry out further investigation into 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), it further casts a shadow on Malaysia’s integrity.
In the eyes of the world, we appear to have something to hide, especially after the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has already revealed the outcome of their investigation.
Therefore, for someone like Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Paul Low to be speaking on good governance in an upcoming seminar would make us a further laughingstock. He should be preaching that to the people who are supposed to champion it, but failed to live to public expectations.
We all know
It has already been established how the money has allegedly been siphoned out of 1MDB and ended up in several accounts, including those of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and his stepson, Rizal Aziz.
In fact, the entire document from the DOJ is available online for anyone to read. I also understand that the parliamentary public accounts committee’s audit of 1MDB is available on Sarawak Report’s website. However, this whistleblower’s site has been blocked by the Malaysia Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC).
We are grateful to Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Abdul Rahman Dahlan who identified Najib as the Malaysian Official 1 (MO1) with no qualms. This was told to the whole wide world. I wonder if Rahman is even ashamed of his own revelation?
Apandi’s rejection of Switzerland’s two requests for Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) in connection with the 1MDB case, despite vowing to cooperate, clearly shows the Swiss authorities have hit a nerve which could further implicate certain important people.
My question is: are we now seen as protecting the fugitives? Apandi’s response to the Swiss authorities will only trigger further suspicion within the country, and place Malaysia once again on the international media.
If we do not have anything to hide, why are we so reluctant in not going after the culprits behind the 1MDB scandal?
For example, Singapore is now looking for the fugitive, Jho Low, but what kind of cooperation is the Malaysian side offering to their Singaporean counterparts?
As a nation, we should be concerned about who was involved in siphoning off so many billions of ringgit from the state investment arm. The decree by the Conference of Rulers to expedite the investigation has not been upheld, and when foreign investigators request for MLA, we are turning down the opportunity to get down to the bottom of things.