AUDITOR-GENERAL Madinah Mohamad today stood by her statement concerning amendments made to 1Malaysia Development Bhd’s (1MDB) final audit report. 

Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman Ronald Kiandee said her statement to the committee today concurred with the one made to the press last month. 

“I cannot share the evidence but Madinah touched on the press statement she had made, and today made another statement that corresponded with her previous statement,” Kiandee said after the PAC proceedings. 

In her statement last month, Madinah had said former prime minister Najib Razak had summoned former auditor-general Ambrin Buang on February 22, 2016, and instructed that certain parts of the report by expunged.

She had said a paragraph in the original report stating that fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho was present at a 1MDB board meeting was removed from the final report. She also said that Najib’s former private secretary, Shukri Mohd Salleh, had ordered the removal of the paragraph on the grounds that it was a sensitive issue and to prevent it from being manipulated by the then opposition. 

The PAC’s session with Madinah began at 3pm and lasted three hours. 

Kiandee said the proceedings went well and that it obtained many statements from Madinah. He added Madinah would not be called in again. 

Former government audit sector director Saadatul Nafisah Bashir Ahmad will be called in tomorrow. 

Meanwhile, Madinah said it was now up to the committee to investigate the alleged tampering and amendments made to the audit report. 

She said she had also furnished the PAC with the original audit report that had not been tampered with. 

“We gave it. Yes, we did,” she said. 

However, she said that she was not privy to what information former auditor-general Ambrin Buang had given the PAC yesterday. 

On the veracity of her claim that Najib had ordered the amendments, Madinah said she had explained it all to the PAC and that it was up to its chairman whether to disclose the information to the public. – December 5, 2018.