FORMER prime minister Najib Razak made baseless claims about the repayment of 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) debts to the Dewan Rakyat to create the impression that he is innocent, Damansara MP Tony Pua said.

The Pekan MP, who has been convicted of graft in one set of charges related to the 1MDB scandal, is out to give the impression that his actions did not burden the people but benefited them instead, Pua said in a letter to Dewan Rakyat speaker Azhar Azizan Harun.

Pua’s letter, dated March 22, is a response to Najib’s explanations to Azhar about Najib’s remarks made in the Dewan Rakyat to March 2 that the government did not have to pay a single sen of the principal amount of 1MDB debt because various entities had returned 1MDB funds to Malaysia totalling RM23 billion.

After Najib made that claim, Pua called for the former prime minister to be referred to the Rights and Privileges Committee for misleading the house.

Azhar said on Monday that he would decide if Najib had made misleading remarks after Pua responded to Najib’s explanations, which the latter had submitted earlier.

Pua, who was former finance minister Lim Guan Eng’s political secretary at the Finance Ministry when Pakatan Harapan was in power, rebutted Najib on several points in his letter today.

For one, after his March 2 remarks that not a single sen of the principal amount had been paid, Najib in his explanation to the speaker admitted that it is true that the principal amount was paid in 2017 and 2018, when he (Najib) was finance minister.

Pua said this was misleading because Najib, when making his claim on March 2, never specified a time period and as such was trying to make it look as if the PH government, which came into power in 2018, had not made any payments.

Pua then rebutted Najib’s contention that the principal amount was repaid in 2017 and 2018 using proceeds from the sale of 1MDB’s assets like Edra Energy and land earmarked for the Tun Razak Exchange project.

“This is a completely false claim because a letter from the Finance Minister has stated that these 1MDB debts worth RM6.47 in 2017 and RM1.65 billion in 2018 were repaid through the Finance Ministry and Finance Ministry Incorporation, and not from the sale of 1MDB assets, which had been used to settle other 1MDB debts prior to 2017,” he said.

The DAP lawmaker also said Najib’s other claim that 1MDB had saved RM50 billion by taking over independent power producers (IPP), was not backed up with any evidence or calculations.

Instead, Najib used irrelevant and piecemeal facts about IPPs and stitched them together to make such a claim, Pua said.

This included a proposal by the Finance Ministry to save on the government’s gas subsidies to IPPs, which remained as proposals, because the gas subsidy was in fact continued with the IPPs that were taken over by 1MDB, resulting in no savings, he added.

Najib also wrongly tied together electricity tariffs and 1MDB’s takeover of IPPs, when they were unrelated and did not contribute to any “savings”.

Pua also cited reports by Petronas on “Revenue Forgone” to the electricity generation sector, which showed that the national oil company’s gas subsidy increased after 1MDB took over IPPs in 2012, instead of dropping. 1MDB sold its IPP assets in 2015 after investing RM12.1 billion for them through a RM22 billion loan.

“The value received (after sale) was only RM9.83 billion. Overall, 1MDB’s investment in the IPP sector was a loss to the government worth RM2.27 billion, not including the millions of ringgit that has to be paid in interest, which is still being borne by the government till today.”

Pua also said Najib had deliberately confused the Dewan Rakyat by saying the sale of Bandar Malaysia land had contributed an additional RM140 billion.

However, this was actually its gross development value (GDV) and not the actual value of the land that was returned to the Finance Ministry, at between RM9 billion and RM12 billion.

“Only the value of the land asset can be used in calculations (to repay 1MDB debt) and his use of the GDV figure is confusing,” Pua said.

“It is clear the Pekan MP is trying to confuse the speaker with false information. His refusal to apologise or retract his statements clearly shows his intention to mislead the Dewan Rakyat.

“Pekan’s motive in this matter lies in that he is the main figure facing court charges in the misappropriation of billions of ringgit from 1MDB,” Pua added.

He reiterated his call to Azhar to allow his motion for Najib to be referred to the Rights and Privileges Committee.

After Najib’s remarks on March 2, he was also rebutted by Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz, who said the government had only repaid interest incurred on the 1MDB debts, and that the principal amount will be repaid in May upon the maturity of its first bond. – March 23, 2022.