GOVERNMENT propaganda chief Mohd Puad Zarkashi has accused former Bank Negara Malaysia adviser Nor Mohamed Yakcop of trying to shield Dr Mahathir Mohamad from prosecution over the central bank’s forex losses. 

“He took responsibility for the huge losses, but denied that all decisions regarding forex trading by the central bank in the 1990s were decided solely by him,” said the Supreme Council member in a statement today.

“This means that there were others involved. Who is the (other) person? Did he mean BNM’s (then) governor?

“Certainly, Nor Mohamed avoided implicating the then prime minister (Dr Mahathir) and finance minister (Anwar Ibrahim).”

The BNM governor at the time was the late Jaffar Hussein.

Puad said the actions of Nor Mohamed, a former assistant governor at BNM, might be a sign of gratitude towards Dr Mahathir, who appointed him as finance adviser during the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis.

“The issue is that the people have been lied to. Nor Mohamed should not be the scapegoat and conceal the truth in the scandal, which has caused the country to suffer losses amounting to billions of ringgit, just because he was appointed as finance adviser when we faced the Asian financial crisis in 1997/98.”

He questioned why forex trading continued despite the losses incurred, which amounted to billions of ringgit.

“Why was it not stopped immediately? It is impossible that Nor Mohamed made all the decisions alone, and it is impossible that there were no instructions given from the higher-ups.

“Anwar himself tried to refuse explaining, while being questioned at the Royal Commission of Inquiry, why Cabinet ministers were only told of RM5.7 billion in losses, when the actual losses were estimated to be about RM32.074 billion.”

Yesterday, RCI chairman Mohd Sidek Hassan had a heated exchange with Anwar over an audited report that the latter had presented in Parliament in April 1994.

Sidek insisted that ministers were not aware of the actual losses suffered by BNM from forex trading.

On Wednesday, Nor Mohamed took accountability for the forex losses, and confirmed that he was responsible for BNM’s forex trading from 1986 until 1993 before his resignation in April 1994. – September 8, 2017.