KUALA LUMPUR, March 23 — DAP’s federal lawmaker Tony Pua today reiterated his call to allow his motion to refer former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to the Rights and Privileges Committee for trying to mislead and insult the Dewan Rakyat’s members with his speech on 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) three weeks ago.
The Damansara MP said Najib has failed to provide any explanation to support the allegations mentioned in his speech in the Dewan Rakyat on March 2 and had also tried to confuse Speaker Tan Sri Azhar Azizan Harun with false and unfounded additional information.
“Najib’s refusal to apologise or withdraw his allegations, clearly showed his intention to mislead the House.
“YB Pekan’s motive in this matter is obvious because he is the person who has been charged in court on serious allegations that he is the main character in the embezzlement of billions of ringgit from 1MDB.
Pua also alleged that Najib was using the Dewan Rakyat as a stage to give a false impression that he is innocent.
“On the other hand, YB Pekan would like to give the impression that his actions in the affairs of 1MDB do not burden the people, but provide huge profits.
“What’s more, as the former Finance Minister, he is the one who should stick to accurate figures and facts, instead of making all sorts of false and baseless allegations,” said Pua in response to Azhar Azizan on his motion to refer Najib to the Rights and Privileges Committee for misleading the House.
In his letter to Azhar Azizan dated yesterday, Pua listed the four areas raised.
The first being l1MDB’s principal debt paid in 2017 and 2018 that was done only after the Pakatan Harapan (PH) administration was established.
The second revolves around the actual calculations on the claimed savings of RM50 billion on the settlement of the one-sided Independent Power Plant (IPP) deal,
Third alleged that Najib did not provide any explanation that the acquisition of three private IPPs by 1MDB contributed to Petronas’ cash reserves that increased from RM30 billion to RM176 billion in 2018.
The fourth involves the Bandar Malaysia value of RM140 billion that refers to the estimated Gross Development Value (GDV) and not the value of the land assets formerly owned by 1MDB, and now by the Finance Ministry.
On March 3, Najib reiterated again that not a single sen from taxpayers was used by the government to repay the principal amount of 1MDB debt, despite being disputed by the current and former finance ministers.
He said that part of the loan had instead been paid by selling 1MDB’s own assets, which included IPP companies worth RM10 billion and a plot of land in Penang worth RM2.6 billion.
Earlier on the same day, Finance Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz called Najib’s claims “baseless” saying that the federal government will begin servicing the principal debt once the bonds issued by the sovereign fund and its subsidiaries mature, at least two of them by May this year. The debt servicing will continue to be paid until 2039.
DAP’s former finance minister Lim Guan Eng also previously said the government has already repaid RM13.3 billion of 1MDB’s debt so far.
On March 2, Najib argued in Parliament that not a single sen of public funds was used by the government to repay the principal amount of 1MDB debts.
He said this is because various entities, including Goldman Sachs, audit firms KPMG and Deloitte, AmBank and the US Department of Justice (DoJ) had returned 1MDB funds totalling RM23 billion to Malaysia.
