KUALA LUMPUR, May 21 — 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) chief executive officer Arul Kanda Kandasamy did not secure any falsified statement on the firm’s assets in Singapore’s BSI Bank, the Finance Ministry said today, rebutting a Sarawak Report expose on the matter last month.
In a one line reply to Raub MP Datuk Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz, Finance Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak denied the allegation, saying that “it is not true” that Arul Kanda had obtained the fake bank documents.
“Your statement that CEO Arul Kanda had obtained bank statements not belonging to BSI is not true,” Najib said briefly in a written reply.
Ariff had asked Najib to state how Arul Kanda had obtained the allegedly falsified bank statements and that if the claim were true, would it then leave 1MDB open to legal action by the Singapore-based Swiss bank.
In Sarawak Report’s latest expose last month, it was alleged that Arul Kanda had distributed falsified financial statements to various parties on 1MDB’s assets held in BSI Bank.
The assets, Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua later noted from the expose, were purportedly held under 1MDB’s wholly-owned subsidiary Brazen Sky Limited.
The whistleblower site also claimed that the Swiss bank branch in Singapore told the island state’s authorities that the documents did not originate from them and do not represent the true picture of 1MDB’s assets.
The information was subsequently relayed to the Malaysian authorities in March.
In January, the Finance Ministry said 1MDB had deposited the US$1.103 billion (RM3.91 billion) it redeemed from its offshore account in the Cayman Islands into a Singapore-based branch of Swiss bank BSI Bank, with the amount held in US dollars.
Explaining why the funds were not repatriated back to Malaysia, Arul Kanda told a Business Times interview in February that this was because the funds were to be used to service 1MDB’s US dollar debt interest payments.
Arul Kanda, in clearing the air over the movement of the recently redeemed funds, said it was only “sensible” that the money stays in US dollars.
But in the latest twist to the story yesterday, Pua revealed yet another Finance Ministry reply to him claiming that the redeemed investment was not held in BSI Bank in cash but in assets.
The US$1.103 billion is the second tranche of funds in 1MDB’s Cayman Islands foray, which totalled US$2.32 billion (RM8.23 billion).
1MDB, a brainchild of Najib’s, is currently the subject of an investigation by the Auditor General’s Department and in line for further scrutiny by Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee.
