THE Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) is expected to question former prime minister Najib Razak on his role in the activities of SRC International Bhd, a little-known company involved in the multi-billion-dollar scandal surrounding 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

Najib, who has been summoned by MACC for questioning tomorrow, is expected to be asked by prosecutors about fund transfers involving SRC amounting to more than RM30 million between mid-2014 and January 2015, according to the Straits Times.

These transfers flowed from SRC International into several financial intermediaries, before the money was allegedly credited into his private account, lawyers and government officials familiar with the investigation told the newspaper.

The intermediaries that have become the focus of the corruption probe include Putra Perdana Construction Sdn Bhd, the construction arm of publicly-listed property development company Putrajaya Perdana Bhd, and Putra Perdana Construction’s fully-owned subsidiary Permai Binaraya Sdn Bhd, they said.

The companies were controlled by business proxies close to Najib, said the report.

Prosecutors are trying to determine how Najib abused his position as finance minister to ensure that SRC obtained loans from another government agency, and ultimately channelled part of those funds to his personal account through a complex series of financial transactions.

Since taking over the government under Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s leadership, Pakatan Harapan has reopened the probe into 1MDB, which is the subject of a global money-laundering investigation by the United States Justice Department and regulatory agencies in Singapore, Switzerland, and Hong Kong.

Lawyers and officials familiar with the investigation said building a case against Najib on the 1MDB debacle could take several months, given the complexity of transactions involved.

However, the case around SRC is easier to build quickly, as much of the investigations had been completed in the first half of 2015 before Najib apparently shuttered the probes, said the Straits Times.

Lawyers and officials said that MACC will now be able to reopen their earlier files and tie up several loose ends when they interview Najib tomorrow.

State-owned SRC was established in 2011 as a subsidiary of 1MDB, which had been incorporated two years earlier to pursue strategic investments in energy projects overseas.

The seed capital came in the form of an RM4 billion loan from state-owned civil servants pension fund KWAP.

Together with Aabar Investments PJS, a state-owned unit of the Abu Dhabi government, SRC’s investments totaling more than US$165.5 million (RM658 million) soured, and in a move to reduce the losses in 1MDB, the Finance Ministry assumed full ownership of SRC in February 2012.

SRC’s activities have been cloaked in secrecy. Investigations by MACC have shown that private companies closely associated to SRC helped facilitate the money transfers into several undisclosed private concerns that held accounts in Malaysia’s AmBank Group, before these funds flowed into Najib’s private account in the same bank, said the report. – May 21, 2018.