President of beleaguered state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), Arul Kanda Kandasamy, is ready to “move on” from deflecting public scrutiny, and feels his work at the firm has been done.
Speaking to Bloomberg‘s Shamin Adam and Laura Zelenko for an article published on the financial news agency’s site today, Arul said his job of sorting our 1MDB’s organisational issues has been completed.
“I only signed up for one-third of what I ended up doing,” he said.
“I did not sign up for the investigations because that happened after I joined, and I definitely didn’t sign up for the extent of the comms-slash-politics that I had to deal with.”
Arul, who signed on to the position of 1MDB group president in January 2015, asserted that 1MDB’s woes truly began when its business problems – namely, its RM42 billion debt – became politicised and was used by the Federal Opposition and those acting against the administration of Prime Minister Najib Razak to topple the democratically-elected government of Malaysia.
He also claims that he has done all he set out to do.
“From my perspective, I’m done. Everything’s signed. Legal agreements are there, they’re binding,” he said.
Arul also asserted that he will leave 1MDB with available funds, not debts. He added that “leaving the company with available funds” did not mean he is about to resign from 1MDB.
