MP SPEAKS | The 1MDB Chief Executive officer Arul Kanda Kandasamy’s retort last month that he was a professional and not a politician in response to my challenge to him to stand in the forthcoming general election on the 1MDB ticket.

This instead of organising roadshows throughout the country on 1MDB without the 1MDB scandal being answerable to Parliament.

Is Arul Kanda suggesting that the auditors in the “Big Three” of the auditing world namely Ernst & Young, KPM and Deloitte, who had quit or ceased to audit 1MDB from 2009 to 2016, are all not professional enough for him?

Is Arul Kanda’s definition of being professional one of going all over the country and even overseas to tell fake news about the 1MDB scandal as he did in his recent interview with Indonesian magazine, Tempo?

In his Indonesian interview, Arul Kanda said billionaire-fugitive from justice Jho Low was a PetroSaudi International (PSI) broker to negotiate a joint venture between PSI and 1MDB in September 2009 which started the slide of the 1MDB from a national sovereign fund into a national sovereign poverty fund.

But this is the first time anyone had heard the claim that Jho Low had nothing to do with Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak or 1MDB and that Jho Low was acting as a proxy for the Arabs and not on behalf of 1MDB or Najib.

If this was the case, how come Najib and no one in 1MDB or the Malaysian government made such a claim in the past eight years to keep a clear distance from the exploits of the Penang billionaire-playboy?

Unfortunately for Arul Kanda, the first chairperson of 1MDB, Bakke Mohd Salleh from Aug 20, 2009, to Oct 19, 2009, resigned in protest against the 1MDB management’s abuses of power and disregard of the decisions, powers and role of the 1MDB board of directors.

He told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) a different story about Jho Low’s role when testifying before PAC hearing on Feb 11, 2016.

'A special meeting'

In his testimony, as produced in the PAC report on the 1MDB laid on the table of Parliament on April 2016, Bakke said that Jho Low attended the 1MDB board of directors meeting on Sept 26, 2009, as an “invitee of 1MDB management” to provide any clarification with regard to 1MDB’s joint venture with PetroSaudi.

In fact, Bakke’s testimony at the PAC meeting on Feb 11, 2016, collaborated Paragraph 55 of the US Department of Justice (DoJ) kleptocratic litigation filed in July 2016 to forfeit over US$1 billion worth of 1MDB-linked assets in the US, UK and Switzerland because of 1MDB money-laundering criminal activities, which states:

'55. A special meeting of the 1MDB board was held on Sept 26, 2009, which was attended by 1MDB officers 1 and 2 and members of the board. Low also attended this meeting. Just prior to the meeting, Low spoke by telephone with Malaysian Official 1'.

Arul Kanda was appointed 1MDB CEO on Jan 1, 2015. What does he know about the 1MDB history and activities going back to September and October 2009?

Malaysians are waiting for information and proof about his Tempo interview claim that the Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak had no ties with Jho Low and that there were no ties between Low and Najib’s stepson Riza Aziz.

Maybe Arul Kanda should explain whether he had ever read the US DOJ’s kleptocratic litigation about Jho Low and Riza Aziz’s exploits in the casinos of Las Vegas, as he seems to be ignorant of the meeting arranged by Low aboard a yacht off the coast of Monaco which involved “MO1” in 2009.

When will Arul Kanda speak up to clear the air?

LIM KIT SIANG is DAP parliamentary leader and MP for Gelang Patah.

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