National Oversight and Whistleblowers (Now) is not engaging in an illegal donation drive in its campaign to shut down 1Malaysia Development Bhd, the NGO’s founder and PKR secretary-general Rafizi Ramli said.

He says this after BN’s official Facebook page ‘Friends of BN’ accused Rafizi of breaching the Anti-Money Laundering Act 2011 by using an “invalid private company” to raise funds.

“Donations for the campaign are specific in nature, that is, to fund the costs of filing injunctions against the Employees Provident Fund (EPF), Retirement Fund Incorporated (KWAP) and Lembaga Tabung Haji (Pilgrims' Fund Board).

 

“This is not the same with the accusation made that we are collecting money without permission because the latter is aimed to obtain profits by lying to the public,” he told Malaysiakini.

In a posting yesterday, Friends of BN cited Companies Commission Malaysia (CCM) documents to say that Now is a firm owned by Rafizi which has never been audited since inception in 2012.

 

“Is this how PKR leaders collect money from the rakyat, by making use of sympathy and attacks against the federal government?” asked Friends of BN.

Now’s ‘Close down 1MDB, return the rakyat’s money’ campaign launched Thursday seeks a RM10 donation per person to raise RM20,000 for legal fees, to stop the government agencies from investing in 1MDB and its subsidiaries in light of the financial scandals plaguing the investment firm.

Attacking the messenger

Rafizi said ‘Friends of BN’ is attacking the messenger to divert the message - problems plaguing 1MDB.

 

“It’s actually good publicity (for us). The donation is reaching RM10,000,” he said.

 

The Pandan MP noted many NGOs in the country are registered as private limited companies due to the difficulty in registering with the Registrar of Societies (ROS).

 

This is especially if the NGO’s scope is seen as not in line with the government, said Rafizi.

 

“Now displays the amount of donations received thus far daily to inform the people how much we have collected and for what each payment is made for.

 

“If these Umno apple polishers are really concerned about the rakyat, they should be lodging police reports against 1MDB and the prime minister (Najib Abdul Razak) instead of trying to stop efforts to safeguard the rakyat’s money,” he said.

Police report lodged

Meanwhile, Ramesh Rao Krishna who leads a pro-BN NGO, yesterday lodged a police report against Rafizi over the illegal collection claim.

Ramesh claimed he had donated RM10 to Rafizi's campaign but later discovered that Now was a company under the CCM instead of an association under the ROS.

"I also checked on Bank Negara website and found that Now does not have permission to collect funds from the public under Section 6(5) of the Banking and Financial Institutions Act 1989 (Bafia) where collecting funds without a licence from Bank Negara is an offence.

"I request that police do their best to investigate Now," read Ramesh's police report which was made at the Petaling Jaya district police headquarters.