A-G’s provisional report on 1MDB ready by month-end, PAC confirms

KUALA LUMPUR, June 15 — The Auditor General’s interim audit report on 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) will be ready by the month’s end, Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed said today.

Confirming the A-G’s previous announcement, Nur Jazlan also said the report will not be made public, however, and will only be presented for PAC’s perusal.

“It is only an interim report... and it will be part of our consideration (for our own assessment),” Nur Jazlan, who is also Pulai MP, told reporters after meeting with the A-G Tan Sri Ambrin Buang in Parliament here.

He explained that there was no need to make the interim report public as the findings will be incorporated into the PAC’s own.

“The findings will eventually come out in the final report,” Nur Jazlan explained.

In March, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak ordered the A-G and PAC to investigate 1MDB, amid growing demands for explanations over the state investment firm’s allegedly opaque investment decisions and for its RM42 billion debt.

Previously DAP Petaling Jaya Utara MP said the Auditor-General’s (A-G) office should be made answerable to Parliament instead of the Finance Ministry, claiming this would help gain public trust in the department’s 1MDB report.

Although Pua said the A-G has done commendable work in the past when auditing other federal agencies, he pointed out that the department is still answerable to the Finance Ministry and ultimately Najib, who is also finance minister.

Because Najib has been at the centre of the controversy involving 1MDB’s allegedly opaque deals, the federal opposition lawmaker said the A-G’s investigation on the troubled firm should be reported directly to Parliament.

Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, when speaking at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Malaysia dinner here last month, said he was more confident in the ability of the PAC to trace the billions of ringgit allegedly lost by 1MDB than he was in the A-G.

Dr Mahathir has been at the forefront of the attacks on Najib and his government, and has been actively pushing for the prime minister’s early resignation, claiming that the latter staying in power would cost Barisan Nasional to lose Putrajaya in the 14th general election.