KUALA LUMPUR, May 30 — Not long after posting a RM1 million bounty for clues to Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s “hidden wealth”, a group today declared that they will extend their search for Malaysia’s allegedly misappropriated funds to include Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Datuk Seri Najib Razak next.

Citizens for Accountable Governance Malaysia (CAGM) said it has set on this path to prevent more money getting lost from the nation’s coffers by the time Prime Minister Najib is replaced by another leader.

“Our members have decided that the best action we can take right now is to study how our nation’s leaders have been wasteful and lost billions of ringgit,” its chairman Md Zainal Abidin, 45, told Malay Mail Online over phone.

“We think we have to first start with Dr Mahathir. Then Pak Lah, and after that Najib,” he added, using Abdullah’s moniker.

Earlier today, CAGM offered rewards of up to RM1 million for anyone who can provide information leading to Dr Mahathir’s alleged “hidden wealth and assets”.

Md Zainal claimed that cost of the bounty will be paid for by the group’s 2,000 members, whom he described as mostly professionals.

CAGM will also take pains to protect the identities of any whistleblowers who come forward “at all costs,” said Md Zainal, a lawyer by profession who had lived in the United Kingdom for several years before coming back to Malaysia in 2012.

The group will at the same time handle any defamation suit against whistleblowers in the course of feeding CAGM with information, he added.

“We are not doing this the Rafizi way; he is only in it for the publicity. We are not looking for publicity, we just want to solve this problem,” Md Zainal said, referring to PKR secretary-general and whistleblower Rafizi Ramli.

CAGM said it will forward any information it received that can implicate its target straight to the authorities, such as the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), on behalf of the whistleblowers without involving them.

It also proposed today for the Parliament to table a Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Asset) and Imposition of Tax Bill, similar to other countries, to get to the bottom of such claims.

Yesterday, CAGM had warned that it will file a RM50 billion lawsuit against Dr Mahathir if he fails to provide full disclosure on the many allegedly “outrageously questionable” ventures during his tenure as prime minister.

The day before that, CAGM had urged Putrajaya to issue a “white paper” detailing the money it has purportedly lost since the administration of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad until now.