No one has made any allegation against Najib on timber or bauxite mining but Najib has yet to give satisfactory accounting for the twin mega scandals which have plunged Malaysia to international infamy as one the world’s top corrupt countries
In his speech at the Support Najib Solidarity Gathering in Kuantan on Sunday yesterday, the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak declared that he was not “a thief of the citizens’ property” which he alleged was the portrayal by certain quarters who he charged “deliberately wanted to tarnish his image”.
He told the 5,000-people gathering of UMNO and Barisan Nasional members and leaders from 14 divisions in Pahang:
“You already know me. I am not like what is said by the people over there. I am not like that. I have looked after Pahang in the best possible manner.
“If I had wanted to rob, I would have robbed the forest here long ago. I didn’t even take an inch, I didn't take a single tree in Pahang, I didn’t take the bauxite mine, I didn’t take anything.
“I have not changed my stand when I became prime minister, I will not take the people’s property, don’t think I am a crook, don’t think I steal the people’s property, I am the prime minister for the people.”
No one has made allegations against Najib whether about timber or bauxite mine but there is no doubt that Najib had still to give a satisfactory accounting for the RM55 billion 1MDB and RM2.5 billion “political donation” twin mega scandals, despite these scandals swirling around the Prime Minister for more than year.
It is Najib’s twin mega scandals which have undermined and even destroyed public confidence in the independence, professionalism and integrity of key national institutions in the country and dogged and hounded the country’s international image in the past year until we suffer the international notoriety of among the top corrupt nations in the world – whether by the international website, ForeignPolicy, the international magazine TIME or Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index 2015.
Never before in the nation’s history as a mega scandal haunted and hounded the government and the country in Malaysia for so long and in so agonizing a fashion, with increasing intensity with the passage of time, because of two reasons:
Firstly, Najib refusal to come full and clean on the twin mega scandals; and
Secondly, the inability of the Najib government to sweep the twin mega scandals completely under the carpet, because both scandals are not just Malaysian scandals but also international scandals, crossing national boundaries and jurisdictions – with at least seven different countries apart from Malaysia conducting separation investigations into the twin mega scandals, i.e. United Kingdom, Switzerland, Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Hong Kong, United States and Australia.
Even more serious and humiliating, Najib’s twin mega scandals have the subject of investigation by the US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) under the US Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative 2010 – the first time any Malaysian political leader, whether Prime Minister or occupant of other high political office, becoming the subject of investigation by the US authorities whether he is a “kleptocrat” whose assets in the United States derived from corrupt practices could be confiscated by the US authorities.
So far, the government has failed to account to Parliament about the US FBI investigations into the twin mega scandals.
Najib’s twin mega scandals are also the major cause for the unprecedented event in Kuala Lumpur on March 4, leading 45 political and civil society leaders to bridge the political divide for the first time in the nation’s history to come together to sign and proclaim the Citizens’ Declaration to Save Malaysia – including personalities like former Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir, former Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and former Cabinet Ministers.
Thirteen of the 37 paragraphs in the Save Malaysia Citizens’ Declaration refer directly to Najib’s twin mega scandals while another 13 paragraphs focus on how the twin mega scandals have caused a multiple crisis of confidence in Malaysia – political, economic, institutional and good governance.
Can Najib answer the questions about the twin mega scandals in the Citizens’ Declaration, not the mention to many other teeming questions, about these two scandals in Parliament this week?