YOURSAY | 'If is a donation, why return it? And where's the rest?'

'Najib returned RM2.03b to Saudi royal family'

Kim Quek: The stranger-than-fiction claim by attorney-general Mohamed Apandi Ali that PM Najib Razak’s US$681 million was a donation is contradicted by the following details in the remittance documents for the two payments of US$620 million (sent on March 21, 2013) and US$61 million (sent on March 25 2013):

(a) The cost of remittance was shared between the sender and recipient as described under Item 71A ‘Details of Charges: SHA’ for both payments.

Would a generous donor donating such a huge sum without any condition attached (as claimed by Apandi) be so calculating and miserly as to insist on the recipient of such charity to share the remittance charges?

The transfers of sums were described as “payment”, instead of “donation”, as described under Item 70 ‘Remittance Information’, with the first payment stated as “partial payment”, and the second payment as “second part of final payment”.

Doesn’t such manner of payments befit more a business transaction than a donation?

Nowadays, with governments around the world watching over terrorist financing like a hawk, is it unthinkable for the donor to send such enormous amount of money without declaring it as donation?

Further, why should the Saudi royal family (making such a momentous donation) use a British Virgin Islands-registered mosquito company (liquidated soon after sending the money) to send the sums through another minute private bank owned by an Abu Dhabi fund managed by executives who were notoriously involved with 1MDB’s financial scams and were subsequently sacked under scandalous circumstances?

Details of the two payments are found in page 2 and page 3 of the banking documents made available by the Wall Street Journal , accessible here .

Mojo Jojo: So Najib and Saudi royals are playing donation ping-pong? Do you expect us to believe that Saudis ‘donated’ money to Najib, only to have Najib ‘donated’ the money back to the Saudis?

Show us the bank statements indicating the remittance of RM2.03 billion to a Saudi royal account.

Wira: Apandi, it's just your word. There is not an iota of evidence or supporting documents to show the return of the money.

It took some people their freedom and lives to provide links and documentary evidence that the money landed in Najib's personal accounts. You need to do the same to convince us.

Doc: If Najib returned the donation back to the Saudis way back in 2013, then why did it take so long for this information to be released to the public?

Poor Najib had to endure month after month of bad mouthing, ridicule and distrust by the opposition, his own Umno members, the rakyat and the international community.

Vijay47: Whatever you may think about the Saudi royal family, you must admire their attention to detail.

In making a donation of RM2.6 billion as a political donation, they seemed to have stipulated that it was to be used solely for election purposes. Thus when the election expenditure left a huge balance, the surplus was duly returned.

First, how was the ‘special election budget’ of RM2.6 billion arrived at, and how could it be so far off the mark? Only nine percent was used. Second, did Najib actually returned just RM2.03 billion?

Anonymous_4031c: Truth be told, the paper trail is out there. It’s just a question of time before it surfaces.

Baiyuensheng: Since it is a donation, why return it? The money could use to build houses for the Kelantanese homeless after the floods, build a road across Borneo, improve our hospitals, provide scholarships, etc.

SultanMydin: An utterly stupid thing to do. Donation willingly given, was returned unceremoniously. An ungrateful act to say the least.

The money should have been kept for use by Umno-BN in the next election.

Yellowhero: This thing about "money returned to donor" is an afterthought to prevent further questions as to what happened to the RM2.6 billion.

Why was this not revealed right from the beginning and this could have saved millions of taxpayer monies in carrying out the investigations?

Kawak: The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) had obtained written statements from donors that the payments were donations and it was later returned to them.

But MACC also had stated that it had not completed the investigation on RM2.6 billion pending obtaining assistance from foreign authorities to complete the money trail.

MACC had requested for mutual legal assistance for foreign states through the AG. It is a basic financial criminal investigation principle that the money trail must be completed to determine to the original source of funds.

Since the AG accepted the written statements from donor/donors in good faith, he concluded that there was no criminal element in the said donation. The mutual legal assistance requested by the MACC is therefore not relevant.

However, if all the facts as reported here are correct, then it appears that the investigation on the RM2.6 billion has not been duly completed as in a standard financial criminal investigation procedure.

Citizen No.26: What had happened to the US$61 million (RM186 milllion) when the balance is US$620 (RM2.03 billion)?

It is an important question since the media reported that Umno's accounts have no record of such huge expenditure.

Versey: If "US$620 million was returned to the Saudi royal family in August 2013, two months after the last general election", why didn't the premier disclose it before the investigation task force was formed?

Why didn't the premier reveal it to the then deputy prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin? Can someone tell a more convincing bedtime story to the grown-up rakyat, please?

Asitis: Talk is cheap. Show us the money trail and documents to prove that he had indeed returned the money.

And also this does not detract from the fact that he had received some money from a foreign source, which can potentially be used to influence the leadership of this country.

And there is still also the matter of the remaining unaccounted RM186 million. What happened to it?

FairMind: Since the money has been returned to the Saudi royal family, everything is fine.

Can the AG and MACC now reveal the name or names of the Saudi royals to whom the money was returned? Malaysians would like to thank these generous donors.

Frankie: Whether it's RM2.6 billion, RM600 million or even a RM100 for that matter, it's just morally wrong for our ‘beloved prime minister’ to accept it without accounting for it in the first place.

Alamak!: Miracle 1: Monies freely given, (even without the recipient's knowledge). Miracle 2: Monies mostly returned because not used.

It’s Bolehland, the Land of Miracles.

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