Talking about the continuous defence of Prime Minister Najib Razak by Umno and Barisan Nasional (BN) leaders, the DAP supremo took particular aim at Annuar’s recent comment which compared 1MDB with the billions lost as a result of Bank Negara Malaysia’s foreign exchange trading in the early 1990s.
“Umno and BN leaders have been competing with each other to say the most inane and outrageous things to justify their pretence and sham that the 1MDB scandal is not a real problem.
“A most egregious example was provided by Annuar, who said that BNM’s forex losses 25 years ago were real while the 1MDB losses are only on paper,” Lim said in a statement today.
On Aug 25, Annuar said the forex losses could never be recovered but 1MDB was still a running business that could generate profit.
“The RM30 billion losses due to foreign exchange trading by BNM in 1993 has been confirmed by the current RCI. That is a real loss that the country cannot recover. It is not a loss on paper but a real loss that is forever.
“It is not like 1MDB, where the losses are only on paper. The company is still capable of generating profit and is undergoing a rationalisation process to overcome the losses,” Annuar was reported to have said at a press conference after an Umno supreme council meeting.
Lim highlighted how his party colleague Tony Pua had questioned if taxpayers were the ones footing the bill for 1MDB’s payment of some US$350 million to IPIC earlier this week.
“Would Annuar like to answer that 1MDB’s payment of some US$350 million to IPIC were just ‘only on paper’ and were another of a series of fake transactions by 1MDB?” Lim asked.
The DAP parliamentary leader also targeted Najib for failing to bring up the issue of corruption in the latter’s Merdeka Day speech on Thursday.
“This was a most conspicuous omission as corruption has become one of the four apocalypses of Malaysia, giving the country the infamy and ignominy on the global stage in the last two years,” the Gelang Patah MP said.
Lim also brought up MCA president Liow Tiong Lai’s recent video clip released on YouTube in conjunction with the 60th Merdeka celebrations, as proof of how wrong Najib was in ignoring the issue of corruption plaguing the nation.
“In Pete Teo’s extraordinary and unprecedented Merdeka video ‘Citizens’, where Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai took on a double acting role, corruption was specifically mentioned as one of the national issues which had caused Malaysians to lose hope in Malaysia and in the Malaysian Dream.”