COMMENT | Give due credit for 1MDB recoveries

COMMENT | Honesty, integrity and the desire to give credit where due decree that the right people are recognised for good things that happen to the country. The Muhyiddin government could have earned some precious public goodwill if it did that for recoveries of money stolen from 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB).

Instead they took credit for something they should not have – the return by the United States of US$300 million or some RM1.3 billion in monies from the sale of assets in the US bought with money stolen from 1MDB.

This brings the total recovered and repatriated to US$620 million or RM2.7 billion – a sizeable amount of money but still just a fraction of the US$4.5 billion (RM19.6 billion) the US Department of Justice or DOJ said was embezzled from 1MDB by Jho Low between 2009 and 2015, implicating also then prime minister Najib Abdul Razak.

In a 2015 report, then classified secret under the Official Secrets Act, Malaysia’s auditor-general said that some US$7 billion or RM30.5 billion could not be accounted for. The RM2.7 billion so far recovered represents under 10% of the 1MDB money which went missing.

The public unhappiness is over who is credited with getting this money back. Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin expressed gratitude to the US government, in particular to its embassy here. But he added more.

“I would also like to commend Malaysia’s minister of finance and the attorney-general for their role in the negotiation process. 1MDB asset recovery efforts are ongoing, and the government will continue to work with the US, the DOJ and other governments to recover and repatriate more 1MDB monies in the future,” Muhyiddin said.

The question is which finance minister and which AG. Sources tell me that a meeting and announcement had been scheduled for the same purpose on Feb 19 with finance minister then, Lim Guan Eng, his political secretary Tony Pua, the US ambassador Kamala Lakhdhir and then AG Tommy Thomas to announce the return of monies.

But for various reasons, including waiting for a larger amount of money, the meeting was postponed. In the meantime, the backdoor government move started, Thomas resigned and Lim and Pua were out of government...