Youth and Sports Minister and UMNO and BN Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin has come forward with his take on yesterday’s revelation by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) that the USD700 million (RM2.6 billion) deposited into Prime Minister Najib Razak’s personal bank accounts was not from 1Malaysia Deverlopment Berhad (1MDB), but was instead from “donors”.
“I was made to understand the contribution came from supporters and donors,” he said to Malaysiakini‘s Kow Gah Chie today.
“In Malaysia, there’s no law to prohibit political parties from receiving contributions from supporters,” he added.
The MACC’s announcement on the source of the RM2.6 billion came almost exactly a month after a report published by The Wall Street Journal alleged that the funds had come from 1MDB and were transferred into Najib’s personal AmBank accounts.
Najib’s lawyers sent a letter of inquiry to the WSJ and its parent, Dow Jones & Company, to “seek clarification” on whether the article had accused Najib of misappropriating funds. Dow Jones asserted that it had no reason to clarify further than what the WSJ article had already stated.
Despite public speculation and even anticipation that it would, Najib’s legal team has not proceeded to actually sue the WSJ for defamation or any other reason.
Last Tuesday, Najib reshuffled his Cabinet, ousting Muhyiddin Yassin from the post of Deputy Prime Minister (and Education Minister), replacing him with Home Minister Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi in the #2 spot.
Muhyiddin and several other members of the Cabinet, such as former Rural Development Minister Shafie Apdal, had been seen as critical of Najib’s handling of the 1MDB issue.
Also fired on the same day was former Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail, whose agency had to that point been part of the Federal Government’s Special Task Force investigating the 1MDB allegations, along with the PDRM, the MACC, and Bank Negara.
Also last week, government officials, in particular Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Minister Abdul Rahman Dahlan began floating the talking point that under the UMNO constitution, the party’s president was allowed to have a holding account under his name, to store party funds to be saved or used when necessary.
The MACC stated yesterday that its role in the Special Task Force is to investigate former 1MDB subsidiary SRC International and the RM4 billion loan it had taken out with Retirement Fund Inc.
Other aspects of the investigation on 1MDB, the agency said, are left to the PDRM and Bank Negara.
