Najib Razak has publicly apologised to the Malaysian people over the 1MDB debacle.
He said he decided to make the statement after much reflection over 26 months in jail following developments over 1MDB-related issues.
“It pains me to know the 1MDB debacle happened under my watch as the minister of finance and prime minister.
“For that, I would like to apologise unreservedly to the Malaysian people,” he said….Reflecting on the past, Najib acknowledged that he should have acted differently when suspicions about 1MDB first arose.
“I did initiate various investigations but I was inclined to believe the explanations by the board and management.”
When he began to suspect misconduct, his immediate concerns centred on 1MDB’s financial struggles and the potential damage to diplomatic relations, he said.
Najib also highlighted the recent court hearings in Switzerland, where PetroSaudi executives were convicted, and an article by The Edge, which further analysed the case using internal PetroSaudi emails.
These revelations, he said, showed that he was not the mastermind and did not collaborate with Jho Low in deceiving 1MDB of its funds.
He said The Edge’s article concluded that PetroSaudi and Jho Low had deceived him, adding that he was unaware of PetroSaudi’s siphoning of 1MDB money and that he did not knowingly receive funds from the transactions.
“As hard as it is for some people to fathom, I was advised and honestly believed at the time that the funds I received were political donations from Saudia Arabia…..
While feeling “deep regret” over the events at SRC and 1MDB, Najib maintained that being legally held accountable for actions he neither initiated nor knowingly enabled is “unfair,” and expressed hope that the judicial process will eventually prove his innocence.
Don’t apply to be a bus driver if you can’t drive a bus.
In fact, Najib was fully qualified for his role having studied economics, been finance minister for many years and spent a lifelong career in politics.
He knew how government and institutions work and he therefore knew exactly what he was doing when he introduced a special clause into the articles of 1MDB that put him personally in charge of very single financial decision made by that fund. This article (Article 117 of 1MDB’s memorandum and articles) did not apply to any other fund managed under the Ministry of Finance.
His initial row with Terengganu spelt out exactly the significance of that over-riding authority that had given him the ability to instruct the management to raise RM5 billion despite the objections of the TIA board.
Again, in September 2009, he over-rode the objections of the 1MDB board when he later instructed management to send all that money into the clutches of Jho Low and his fellow conspirators at PetroSaudi, with whom he had had a cosy personal meeting on a yacht in the Med just the month before. No management present and no board.
Najib knew what he was doing when he dispensed with all the checks and balances to give himself full control over 1MDB – he knew how institutions ought to work to prevent mistakes and had dismantled the normal process. When the Chairman of the 1MDB board resigned in protest Najib wilfully replaced him with a close political ally, Lodin Wok Kamaruddin.
He was to use the self-same authority to override the concerns of the Central Bank and 1MDB’s own bank and indeed 1MDB’s lawyers and 1MDB’s accountants who were all questioning the red flags in this deal both at the start and over years to come.
Instead of taking heed and allowing them to do their professional due diligence he employed his power and self-enhanced authority over the fund to push through these deals that he said he didn’t realise were flawed. Yet, right back in 2009 when the first $700 million was stolen from 1MDB, the chairman of the board, Bakke Salleh texted Najib to warn him what had happened. When Najib failed to reply Bakke Salleh resigned having concluded Najib was in the loop.
Najib knew what the procedures ought to be to protect the public finances he was entrusted with and he got rid of them for 1MDB. He ignored warnings from key people. The money that then disappeared ended up in his account. Yet he says he is innocent and the people he employed are responsible.
If you take all the power then you must shoulder all the responsibility.