KUALA LUMPUR, June 30 — Datuk Seri Najib Razak has expressed regret over not taking more steps to ensure good practices in relation to investment fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), noting that many things had gone “wrong”.
Najib reportedly said he would have on hindsight carried out 1MDB in a different way, admitting that taking on debts to fund 1MDB was not the best of decisions.
“Probably in the execution of 1MDB, we should have put in more safeguards to ensure transparency, good governance and accountability. I regret not doing this as a lot of things went wrong,” he said in an interview with Malaysiakini that was published today.
He also admitted that his administration then should have just made the Auditor-General’s (A-G) report on 1MDB — which was placed under an Official Secrets Act seal — available to a parliamentary committee.
Najib explained that the Barisan Nasional (BN) federal government led by him had in 2016 decided to classify the A-G’s report on 1MDB as a secret under OSA to avoid its contents from being “twisted” negatively by the then federal opposition.
“We were facing elections and we didn’t want things to be twisted or spun around,” he said.
The BN government was then midway in its five-year term, with about over two years before the 14th general elections (GE14) was due. The national polls could also be held earlier any time before the GE14 due date.
In the same interview, Najib said his administration had thought it would be sufficient that opposition politicians sitting on Parliament’s bipartisan Public Accounts Committee (PAC) had access to the A-G report on 1MDB that was then barred for release to the public.
“The A-G report had always been made available to the PAC with opposition members. They went through it and they were satisfied. We thought that was enough.
“But in hindsight, which, as they say, is always 20/20, we should have just made the A-G report available as an appendix to the final PAC report,” he said.
The PAC had in March 2016 received the A-G’s final audit report on 1MDB, and had on April 7, 2016 released its report on its own separate inquiry on 1MDB.
The PAC had in March 2016 said the government’s move to classify the final federal audit report on 1MDB under OSA was done to prevent information from being leaked, also saying that it will no longer be an official secret once the PAC report was tabled in Parliament.
But the A-G’s report remained classified even after the PAC report was tabled in Parliament and made public, with the OSA seal on it lifted only on May 15, 2018 after the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition came into power.
But other than the 1MDB-related issues, Malaysiakini reported Najib saying that on hindsight he would not have changed other things done while he was prime minister, such as his transformation plan and vision for the country.
Najib claimed PH had used 1MDB in a negative campaign against BN as GE14 neared, highlighting that PAC had cleared him of wrongdoing and that DAP’s former Kepong MP Tan Seng Giaw who was on the parliamentary watchdog had also publicly cleared his name.
Malaysiakini noted that Najib was not implicated in the PAC report.
When asked to comment on what appeared to be no action two years later against certain key 1MDB individuals that the PAC recommended investigations into, Najib said it could be that the authorities lacked sufficient evidence.
“Once a report like that goes to the police and the appropriate agencies, it is left up to them to take action against these people.
“Maybe they have not got the full proof yet, or whatever evidence. You cannot simply take action,” he said, but reiterated his previous position that no one is above the law and action should be taken against those who breached the law.
