A QUESTION OF BUSINESS | If you need any further evidence that everything is still very much awry with 1MDB, read Arul Kanda’s answers to Malaysiakini’s detailed and probing questions on 1MDB, our national strategic development company gone horribly wrong.

Can a new CEO restructure 1MDB such that its acknowledged debt problems can be sorted out just like that by creating cash flow from somewhere else? No, not unless the government diverts money from elsewhere to intravenously feed its bleeding monster baby, which is crying out for more as the days go by.

The only way that we can go forward with 1MDB is if we acknowledge unreservedly that 1MDB has problems - serious ones - acknowledge them, deal with them one by one and progressively bring to account all those responsible, all of them without exception.

That is the only way that a repeat of this miserable state of affairs, unprecedented in the annals of world history which has brought loss and shame to our country and its people and is widely recognised the world over as the largest kleptocracy anywhere with some US$7 billion unaccounted for, never ever happens again here.

Arul Kanda’s publicity blitz over 1MDB is obviously election-related to try and reduce the bad press over 1MDB by at least seeming to give answers while actually saying little or nothing, putting up a brave front in the face of a mountain of evidence that theft in the billions occurred at 1MDB. That includes a bold but foolhardy interview with Malaysiakini whose probing, persistent and purposeful questioning has left him rooted to the spot with little room to manoeuvre.

By giving obscure answers to complicated issues, he hopes to try to give the impression that all is well with 1MDB when it is not and get away with it by repeatedly saying that there is no issue at 1MDB.

Nothing is further from the truth.

This is what I said here when Arul Kanda was first appointed as CEO of 1MDB in January 2015, after it came to light that it was already losing billions of ringgit - that his appointment will make no significant difference to 1MDB’s turnaround. Over three years later of wasted and squandered time, his answers to Malaysiakini in the interview shows wide, gaping, unfillable holes. There is no turnaround in sight for 1MDB.

Twenty-one months earlier, in March 2013, the online business news website I started together with Malaysiakini, KiniBiz, came up with the first major expose of 1MDB anywhere in a series of eight articles questioning many moves made by 1MDB.

Subsequently, there was a flood of reporting on 1MDB from many different sources culminating in the major email leaks, forcing the government to acknowledge problems at 1MDB and to take steps, including the hiring of what was touted as a dynamic new CEO who will solve all of 1MDB’s problems.

Caught in a web of intrigue

Nothing has changed because Arul Kanda is not the right man for the job. He is caught in a web of intrigue with some of the key players in 1MDB, who the US Department of Justice (DOJ) says unequivocally defrauded 1MDB to the tune of at least US$4.5 billion.

He himself came to 1MDB from a company which is majority owned by the Abu Dhabi government, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB).

ADCB had bought a 25% stake in RHB Capital in 2008 from the Employees Provident Fund which had to pare down its stake to adhere to banking regulations. Three years later, ADCB sold its stake in RHB Capital to Aabar Investments PJS, another arm of the Abu Dhabi government.

(This is the very same Aabar PJS to which 1MDB said it had paid US$3.5 billion but the former denied that it had been paid. The money was paid to the account of a company with the same name but registered in the British Virgin Islands. This money, the DOJ says in its report, was stolen from 1MDB and laundered through a convoluted series of transfers.)

That deal, basically a swap of the RHB Capital stake from one arm of the Abu Dhabi government to another, and bears no relation to the market price, put paid to any offer that Maybank or CIMB were contemplating in 2011 for RHB Capital, with both banks withdrawing from any bid.

While Arul Kanda joined ADCB some two and half months after the deal was done, according to the Malaysiakini interview, he acknowledged knowing Jho Low as well as the two Aabar executives Khadem Abdullah al-Qubaisi and Mohamed Badawy al-Husseiny. The three are fingered by the DOJ as being involved in the theft and subsequent laundering of 1MDB money.

He should never have been hired to head 1MDB because he was too close to the Abu Dhabi government and key officials, especially since it was obvious that there were complicated links between Abu Dhabi state organisations and 1MDB which already were clearly questionable at that time.

When the Swiss authorities said they were investigating some US$4 billion of possible fraud and other illegal activities involving 1MDB, Arul Kanda then admitted that fraud could have happened but has since changed the story to suit the latest spin. He says now if there was an offence at 1MDB, it was up to the Swiss authorities to prove a crime was committed. Really?

Is 1MDB not missing any money? What about all the billions in seized assets that the US and others want to return to Malaysia but can’t because Malaysia won’t acknowledge the losses.

On why there has been no audit of 1MDB accounts for the last three years, his trite answer is the police still have the accounts. Does anyone believe this anymore?

Why would the police hold on to the accounts when they have completed investigations already? And could he not have given the police copies and taken back the original, getting some competent authority to certify that the copies are true? Or is even this too difficult to get people to certify given that 1MDB’s auditors have changed at least three times and there are questions about its latest auditor?

And he has no proper explanation for the mysterious and missing fund units amounting to oh, about US$2.3 billion. Against repeated questioning by Malaysiakini, he took evasive action, unconvincing to say the least.

Still wondering why he was god-sent to 1MDB? God-sent to the opposition, that is. Because Arul Kanda’s answers confirm that 1MDB is still deep in trouble and continues to keep 1MDB in the minds of voters. Spinning a loaded top is not only silly but dangerous because it can explode in your face.

P GUNASEGARAM will vote against 1MDB and Arul Kanda. Email: t.p.guna@gmail.com.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.