Speaking at the royal commission of inquiry (RCI) into the losses, Anwar said the amount of RM5.7 billion that he presented to the cabinet in 1993 was based on BNM’s annual audited financial report.
The report was finalised after a discussion between BNM and then auditor-general Ishak Tadin, he added.
“To say they (then cabinet members) didn’t know about the losses … that’s not true,” said Anwar at the Palace of Justice here today.
Anwar was grilled by the RCI’s five-man tribunal for almost half an hour this afternoon over the lack of information on BNM’s losses provided to the cabinet, then chaired by former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
The tribunal’s chairman, Mohd Sidek Hassan, had accused Anwar of failing to reveal that BNM was making losses from its forex trading.
Fellow RCI member Saw Choo Boon backed him up on this. Saw said the annual report Anwar presented to the cabinet didn’t show any losses but instead a profit.
This was despite them now knowing that BNM had suffered losses amounting to RM12 billion in 1992 and RM15 billion in 1993, he said.
“Why wasn’t this shared with the cabinet or the prime minister?”
Anwar kept reiterating that whatever he presented to the cabinet was based on the audited report, which he believed to be true as it had gone through the auditor-general, who had better accounting and auditing knowledge than he did.
Anwar did, however, admit that he knew earlier on of the actual losses but was “duty-bound” to go by the books that had been established by the central bank.
“I couldn’t be expected to make allegations against BNM. And the cabinet didn’t ask for my personal opinion.
“They asked me what the report said.”
Mahathir, when met outside the court, said Anwar had done the right thing by going with the audited figures.
“He can’t make assumptions that money was stolen or something.
“He made a statement based on what was confirmed by the auditors,” he said.