The opposition leader says he smells a cover-up, based on finance minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz’s recent statement that unsecured loans were not uncommon as banks would assess such loans based on their risk and credit assessments.

Anwar said the repercussions of GHK’s winding-up will be felt by all Malaysians, eventually.

“When banks suffer losses, the people’s interests are also affected. Therefore, the losses incurred by the three banks will also be ‘borne’ by Malaysians as a whole,” Anwar said.

He said “those with cables” could afford to say that bankruptcy issues pose “no material loss”, while economists could describe bankruptcy as a “moral risk”, but the impact of bankruptcy on regular folks was palpable.

He said the finance minister served critical positions at two of the three banks when GHK obtained a loan.

Anwar said the minister could have used his expertise to ensure that regular bankers benefitted. But Tengku Zafrul never did anything, Anwar said.

“In short, there is only one person who can negotiate a better agreement with GHK on behalf of Malaysians, namely the current finance minister. It’s clear that he has failed.”

GHK, a cruise operator, filed for bankruptcy earlier this month, and it was reported that Maybank, CIMB and RHB Bank were among some of the company’s chief unsecured creditors, with a combined exposure of US$600 million (RM2.5 billion).