FORMER prime minister Najib Razak kept the floor to himself in the House and used the chance to charge that the Pakatan Harapan government was doing a dismal job managing the economy while debating the Royal Address.

Using the 20 minutes he was given to debate the king’s speech, Najib questioned Pakatan’s handling of the economy, with little appreciation for the fact that the new government’s problems were inherited from his administration.

In the course of the debate, Najib refused to entertain any clarifications from Pakatan backbenchers Nik Nadzmi Nik Ahmad (Setiawangsa), Cha Kee Chin (Rasah) and Dr Kelvin Yii (Bandar Kuching).

The MPs tried to interject Najib four times, but were brushed aside as he bulldozed his lopsided speech through. 

“Khazanah paid RM1 billion in dividends but lost RM6.3 billion while experiencing a 22% drop in net worth,” said Najib.

“Following normal corporate standards, should a company (Khazanah) pay dividends after making losses?”

During the Najib’s BN administration, Tabung Haji (TH) had also made suspicious transactions to boost its 2017 profits to pay dividends to depositors.

An independent review of TH by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), which was tabled in Parliament last December, showed that the fund posted a RM553 million profit in 2017 by buying and selling Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd (BIMB) shares.

“The traders confirmed that the shares were sold to four brokers and subsequently bought back within four days after trade date at the same price and sold through off-market trading,” PwC had said.

“Effectively, the sale of the shares in BIMB did not result in (any) cash benefit to TH, (but) increased the profits of TH for the financial year ended December 31, 2017 by RM553 million. A similar gain of RM605 million had been made in 2016, with total sales proceeds of RM2.07 billion,” it had said.

“The intention was to realise the upside value of BIMB shares and recognise profits needed to meet bonus distribution target for 2017.”

The Pekan MP, who has made himself the centre of the “Malu Apa, Bosku” campaign, said that the new government was borrowing more money than 1Malaysia Development Bhd’s paltry RM30 billion loan.

“Under BN, government debt was RM686 billion in 2017 but it is now RM741 billion (end 2018). During the last 10 months, Pakatan has sold RM28 billion in bonds and another RM7.3 billion from samurai bonds.

“The funds from these bonds were meant to repay other debts, but have now being used for development. So, is 1MDB’s RM30 billion worth of loans a big problem for Malaysia?” said Najib, who is facing 42 criminal charges for corruption and abuse of power.

Among the charges he faces are for receiving money from SRC International, a 1MDB subsidiary.

The last criticism Najib threw at the new government concerned the sale of government assets. 

“This is not a strategy to save our economy. Selling assets is a desperate measure and threatens our ability to generate income. It has sold assets from Tenaga Nasional Bhd and now the Royale Chulan hotel, and wants to sell more from Felda, TH and Telekom,” said the 65-year-old.

During the Najib administration, the government had sold the Sg Besi air base land to 1MDB before selling it back to the government to develop TRX and Bandar Malaysia. – March 18, 2019.