Illicit flow of funds not linked to Pandora Papers, says Najib

Illicit flow of funds not linked to Pandora Papers, says Najib

The ex-PM questions DAP for not focusing on trade mispricing, a method for moving money illicitly across borders which involves the deliberate falsification of the value, volume and type of commodity.

Former prime minister Najib Razak said ex-finance minister Lim Guan Eng and PH had said nothing about the illicit outflow of funds during their 22 months in the government.
PETALING JAYA:
Former prime minister Najib Razak said today the illicit flow of funds is not linked to the Pandora Papers.

But he said DAP had persistently linked Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington-based think tank that focused on the illicit flow of money and trade mispricing by import and export companies and multinational companies to avoid tax, with the leaked Pandora Papers.

He questioned DAP for not focusing on the issue of trade mispricing.

“Why did PH abolish GST (goods and services tax) which could have controlled trade mispricing?

“The funniest thing is that although DAP had played on the issue of the GFI report and the outflow of illicit money worth more than RM100 billion in trade mispricing since 2011, (former finance minister) Lim Guan Eng or the Pakatan Harapan had said nothing about this during their 22 months in the government,” said Najib.

Najib was referring to DAP’s Facebook posting yesterday quoting Lim Guan Eng on the Pandora Papers. Lim had called on Bank Negara to probe the alleged illicit outflow of RM138.66 billion from Malaysia from 2006 to 2015, as exposed by GFI.

Najib questioned why DAP was keen on linking the GFI report with the Pandora Papers, which he said only listed the names of people who own shares or were directors of offshore companies. He said the leaked papers did not mention the GFI report.

He said the GFI clearly blamed the outflow of funds on trade mispricing or misinvoicing, which he said was a method used by importers and exporters as well as multinational companies to escape taxes.

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