GRANTED, Malaysia finally has to eat humble pie and admit that 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) had “wrongly paid” the bogus International Petroleum lnvestment Company, under an arbitration settlement agreement on Monday.  

The amount to be received, as revealed by Abu Dhabi’s IPlC to the London Stock Exchange, is US$1.205 billion (RM5.32billion) by December. 

IPIC, at the same time, discharges itself entirely as a guarantor for 1MDB’s US$3.5 billion bonds. 1MDB now assumes responsibility for all future interest and principal payments for the two bonds issued by 1MDB due in 2022. The bonds are issued by 1MDB Energy (Langat) Ltd (for US1.75billion at 5.75%) and 1MDB Energy Ltd (US1.75 billion at 5.99%).

1MDB has said these obligations will be mainly met by the monetisation of 1MDB investment fund units. That is really a double whammy! Why? Now, Malaysians have to fork out US$7.01 billion – first, paying the bogus IPIC US$3.5 million and now another US$3.51 billion for the two bonds? Incredulous and despicable!

We could vividly recall that 1MDB and its CEO, Arul Kanda, informed the auditor-general and the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that they were correct in making such payment. Who are Arul and the entire 1MDB board and its adviser (MO1) trying to fool now? In simple term, the verdict has exposed their many lies and deceits.

The United States Department of Justice has decided that Aabar (BVI) is a fraudulent impostor company. The 1MDB management and Arul Kanda, however, doggedly and unashamedly insist that it is a wholly  owned subsidiary of the IPIC group.

With the arbitration concluded, the winner and loser announced, the attorney-general must now act to get to the real culprits. Heads must roll. There is no two ways about it.

Crimes have been undoubtedly committed and it is only a matter of determining the culpability of the 1MDB board, the CEO Shahrul Azral Azmi Ibrahim, Jho Low, his many associates and by extension, the Malaysian Official No. 1. Under the current pressure, to opine that Prime Minister Najib Razak is frantic to have Parliament dissolved is surely an understatement.

While Khadem Al-Qubaisi and Mohamed Badawy Al-Husseiny were both pursued by the Abu Dhabi authorities and several banks and banking officials in Singapore and Switzerland, will Malaysia’s A-G finally final take the bull by its horns? 

Will he finally be consistent with the law and his constitutional mandate and act similarly to the Swiss A-G, Abu Dhabi and Singapore authorities? 

Act now A-G and show us you truly care, by either determining the existence of an incompetence of a management team or the existence of a criminal negligence. 

Without being overly presumptuous, you need not be rudely reminded that most likely, it would be at least a case of breach of trust or at worst, a case of an international conspiracy to perpetrate fraud in an unprecedented scale on the misadventure that is the 1MDB fiasco.  

So A-G, if you still have the nation in your interest, justice must be done and heads must undoubtedly roll or the rakyat will be more than willing to take you on, at the appropriate time. – April 27, 2017.

* Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad is the strategy director of Parti Amanah Negara.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.