He said with the Finance Ministry assuming the debts of 1MDB, tax-paying Malaysians would have to bear the burden of the debts.
“Presumably, all the 1MDB debts will also be assumed by the Finance Ministry.
“Otherwise how can 1MDB pay its debts without any assets, which would then still require the Malaysian government to bail it out as it is a government-owned entity and the Federal Government has also guaranteed some of the 1MDB loans.
“Even the type and value of assets from 1MDB transferred to the ministry is subject to dispute,” he said.
Lim, in a statement, said the remaining tangible 1MDB assets were its parcels of land in Kuala Lumpur and Air Itam, which were also highly questionable.
The parcels of land were the Tun Razak Exchange Bandar Malaysia land in KL, given at a low rate without an open tender to be resold by 1MDB at a huge gain; and the 234 acres of land in Air Itam bought for RM1.08 billion, RM2.3 billion in cash and RM14 billion of investment units.
“Against this are debts amounting to RM50 billion and if interest payments are included then the debt quantum could easily exceed RM55 billion,” he said.
Lim said the Penang government would freeze all land transactions on the 234 acres of Air Itam land bought by 1MDB until there was “full clarity, certainty and competency in fully accounting for what went wrong.”
“For this reason, unless the overall questions listed above are fully accounted for, the Penang government would not allow any land transactions, whether an application of change of land ownership or consent to charge, without the prior approval of the Penang state exco,” he said.
Lim said the only way the Federal Government could come clean over the troubled sovereign fund was through three steps:
Making public the Auditor-General’s Report on 1MDB;
• Tabulating the cost of the negative impact of the first debt default by a government entity last month and early this month of USD50 million in interest payments; and
• justify why no action was taken by Malaysian authorities against those responsible for such a huge scandal when arrests and charges have been made by authorities overseas against those linked to the 1MDB scandal.