The time has come for a full disclosure of the RM10 billion in foreign exchange losses a decade ago which newly-minted Finance Minister II Nor Mohamed Yakcop was held responsible for as a top Bank Negara official, said an opposition leader.

DAP leader Lim Kit Siang said that such disclosures should serve as "not only a lesson of financial responsibility but also of political accountability".

"While Nor Mohamed's professionalism is not doubted, his commitment to the principles of accountability, transparency and good governance is highly questionable, particularly in view of the still unaccounted Bank Negara foreign exchange speculation scandal of 1992 and 1993...," said Lim in a press statement.

In the early 1990s, Nor Mohamed, was known as the 'Top Cat' in the murky world of currency speculation.

Nor Mohamed, then a key official in Bank Negara, bet billions of dollars from Malaysia's reserves. Initially, he earned hefty profits, earning Bank Negara the reputation as a rogue central bank.

But his luck ran out when in 1992 he bet in favour of the British pound against infamous currency speculator George Soros.

Soros - the man who broke the Bank of England - successfully drove down the value of the pound and bagged himself US$1 billion.

In the aftermath of the bruising feud with Soros, Nor Mohamed and the Bank Negara rang up about RM$10 billion in losses.

This is probably why there is bad blood between Soros and former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Nor Mohamed's rehabilitation

Nor Mohamed soon resigned as a central banker to become an analyst and later a businessman. But five years later, Mahathir brought him back to the civil service and named him adviser to the central bank governor, and later the economic adviser to the prime minister.

His rehabilitation was complete on Wednesday when Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who took over from Mahathir two months ago, tapped Nor Mohamed as the second finance minister.

Abdullah, meanwhile, kept his job as the finance minister as well as home minister, which Lim saw as a sign of the prime minister's lack of confidence in his cabinet colleagues.

This, he said, is the real surprise in Abdullah's minor cabinet reshuffle two days ago.

The opposition leader said that when Abdullah took over the premiership from Mahathir last October and also assumed the Finance Ministry portfolio on top of the Home Ministry post, it was accepted as a short-term measure as there had been no cabinet reshuffle.

However, Abdullah retained both the two key ministry after his first cabinet reshuffle this week following the long-delayed appointment of Najib Abdul Razak as deputy prime minister.

Lim said that this raised questions on why Abdullah had continue the unprecedented practice of heading the two important ministries of Home and Finance.

Nevertheless, the veteran opposition leader said that the appointment of Nor Mohamed as the second finance minister is "clearly to provide Abdullah the professional expertise and even political reliability he needed in the Finance Ministry".