KUALA LUMPUR, July 17 — Former Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB) chief executive officer Abdul Jalil Rasheed has questioned the purported “smear campaign” to discredit him over his academic qualifications even after he has resigned from the post.
Abdul Jalil was referring to a parliamentary written reply furnished by Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin yesterday when DAP Bangi MP Ong Kian Ming posed a question regarding the former’s resignation from the PNB post.
“One must ask the question why this relentless witch hunt? Why this smear campaign to discredit?
“I was a professional who took my job seriously in wanting to bring professionalism into the firm.
“Perhaps that focus should be the priority rather than harping on a CEO who has already resigned,” he said in a series of posts on Twitter today.
In the written reply yesterday, Muhyiddin said that the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) had confirmed that Abdul Jalil is not one of its graduates.
The reply also said that the Securities Commission (SC), following inconsistencies in the academic and employment background forwarded to it by Abdul Jalil through PNB, had made further enquiries on the matter, and said that this resulted in the 38-year-old’s resignation after the SC sought an explanation from PNB over the issue.
To which Abdul Jalil said he resigned because he did not like where things were going.
“If somebody did not like me in return, (they) could have just told me (nobody did directly), and I would have resigned. Easy.
“This whole thing has been unnecessary. As far as I’m concerned, good riddance,” he said on Twitter.
Abdul Jalil resigned last month, eight months after he was appointed as CEO of the government-owned fund management company.
“Move forward please. I certainly have,” he added.
He also clarified that he studied at LSE as an external student and this is a known fact to all his employers and friends.
“Some proper checks would suggest why its UoL or LSE due to the way the colleges are arranged under the university.
“There are emails from the university confirming this but clearly some want to believe what they believe. Hope that clarifies.
“We need to understand the root cause why this is an issue in the first place. I graduated 17 years ago!” his Twitter posts read.
He added that, in every job, background checks were conducted by third party firms and cross-checked with past employers.
“Never a problem, till this. MY degree was submitted to every employer, so they know,” he said.
Abdul Jalil has since been replaced by former Khazanah Nasional Bhd deputy managing director Ahmad Zulqarnain Onn.
