He said the measures presented were merely a method of debt repayment and added, “There is no rationalisation. If they think rationalisation means just the repayment of debt, that is not rationalisation. It is the loss of money that we must rationalise.”

“Why was the money raised that way and then lost? (That is a) huge amount, lost in unaccounted for dealings, not open (and) not transparent,” he said when met at his office at the Perdana Leadership Foundation.

The former prime minister also said that Arul Kanda’s move to merely settle the company’s debts through the sale of assets did not justify it being called a rationalisation plan.

“It’s not rationalised at all. (By) just paying the debt is not enough. (You have to) recover the money that you lost.”

On the same note, Mahathir also urged 1MDB to obtain a verification from China Railway Group Ltd of the actual purchase price, since there was conflicting information on the sale of the 60 per cent Bandar Malaysia stake to the Chinese company.

“We know that the value is RM12 billion and 60 per cent of that is RM7.41 billion. But it was declared in Hong Kong that the amount was different, just about RM5 billion.

“This clearly shows the difference between what was declared by 1MDB and what was declared by the Chinese company,” he added.

On January 3, China Railway Group made a regulatory filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEx) stating that the share sale agreement stipulated a price tag of RM5.28 billion for 60 per cent equity in Bandar Malaysia Sdn Bhd, a figure that was about 28 per cent lower than the RM7.41 billion 1MDB announced on December 31, 2015 for the same deal.

China Railway Group, through its Malaysian arm, is a 40 per cent partner in the joint venture that won the bid for the 60 per cent stake in Bandar Malaysia.