A SARCASTIC Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng expressed his admiration for former deputy finance minister Ahmad Maslan in the Dewan Rakyat today for the latter’s continued defence of 1Malaysia Development Bhd and former prime minister Najib Razak.
“It may be your choice to trust (former 1MDB CEO) Arul Kanda Kandasamy. But I did not steal any money from the country, unlike Arul Kanda and all the others connected to 1MDB,” Lim said during his winding-up speech on the Finance Ministry’s budget at the committee stage today.
“It doesn’t seem to matter to you that a former Goldman Sachs CEO, Tim Leissner, has already confessed to the crime,” said Lim, addressing Ahmad, who is Pontian MP.
Lim, who is also Bagan MP, said it was blind acceptance by people like Ahmad that had cost the government to lose so much money.
“I’m impressed that you still have faith in Pekan. When nobody else on your side is still defending 1MDB, you are,” said Lim.
To Lim’s surprise, the Pontian MP replied: “Thank you.”
Earlier, Ahmad had said he trusted Arul Kanda, who previously said 1MDB had RM43 billion worth of assets, because he was the CEO.
Based on that, the Umno supreme council member had questioned Lim’s assessment of 1MDB’s debts.
The government said in June that it had guaranteed RM38 billion of 1MDB’s debts at the end of 2017. With interest, the government estimated the cost of 1MDB’s debts to be around RM50.7 billion.
“I have no reason not to believe him as he is a professional who has said that 1MDB has enough assets to discharge its loans repeatedly in public,” Ahmad said of Arul Kanda.
In reply, Lim said: “What assets? There’s nothing left. The Public Accounts Committee report in 2016 had already said that TRX, Bandar Malaysia and its lands had already been surrendered to the Finance Ministry.”
Lim said the latest revelation that the Auditor-General’s Report on 1MDB had been amended by the Najib administration clearly showed that information from the previous government on 1MDB could not be trusted.
Lim said he was at a loss for words if Ahmad still wanted to believe 1MDB was not a scandal, despite all the revelations and confessions.
“I will only accept it after the high court, Court of Appeal and Federal Court has ruled on this matter,” Ahmad said before the exchange ended.
Arul Kanda, whose post at 1MDB has since been terminated, had asked the public to judge 1MDB on its successes and claimed the company had RM43 billion of assets compared with RM31 billion in loans. But some of the assets, such as TRX, had already been transferred to the Ministry of Finance in 2016. – November 26, 2018.
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