Finance Minister Najib Abdul Razak appears to have cleared the tycoon Tong Kooi Ong of allegations that the latter is attempting to profit from manipulating the ringgit.

 

When asked of progress of investigations against Tong, Najib did not address the question or even mention Tong, but instead assured Malaysia is not threatened by such attempts at currency manipulation.

He also pointed to the sheer trade volume of the ringgit at the foreign exchange market, which averaged at US$11.8 billion (RM43.70 billion) a day in 2014.

 

"Therefore based on such large volume, the probability of a single person influencing the value of the ringgit is extremely remote," he said in a written parliamentary reply to Lim Lip Eng (DAP-Segambut) today.

 

Tong, who owns the The Edge Media Group faced allegations since late January that he is trying to drive down the value of the ringgit to favour his own investmets.

He was accused of using his media empire to publish negative news about 1Malaysia Development Bhd to drive down the ringgit’s value.

Among the companies in The Edge Media Group include the financial daily The Edge and the online news portal The Malaysian Insider.

Tong denied all claims made by the anonymous blogs.

'Blogs proven wrong'

When contacted, Lim (below) said the parliamentary reply proves that the pro-Umno blogs propagating the allegations against Tong are wrong.

 

"Now Umno government said individuals are not involved and this proves those blogs are liars with hidden agendas.

 

"Umno government and various agencies, from Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), police, to Bank Negara, must investigate the mastermind of the blogs and initial prosecutions," he told Malaysiakini .

 

He is also unhappy that the government did not reveal the identity of the bloggers although he had asked for this in his question.

This is disappointing because the government has the resources to, he said.