Former auditor-general Ambrin Buang (above) has denied that his 2016 audit report on 1MDB had been "tampered with".

“There was no tampering. I don't know what he means,” Ambrin said when asked to respond to Public Accounts Committee (PAC) deputy chairperson Wong Kar Woh’s claim that the report had been altered.

Yesterday, Wong told the Dewan Rakyat that the report had been “amended” at the direction of certain people whom he did not name.

"The audit report (on 1MDB) was classified as a state secret under the Official Secrets Act 1972. In fact, there was an abuse of power, where the original audit report was amended on the instructions of specific people.

"Luckily, there was a change of government on May 9. Only then can all these be revisited," Wong had stated.

Ambrin said he stood by his report. “Yes (I stand by it), it was my report. I was in total control of my report,” he said.

Now the chair of the special investigation committee on procurement, governance and finance, Ambrin questioned why yesterday’s PAC hearing was delayed and said he ought to be given a chance to explain himself.

“This is why I should be given a chance to explain to the PAC. But now that PAC has suspended (its 1MDB probe), what is there to comment?” he asked.

Ambrin spoke to the media on the sidelines of the Anti-Corruption Summit 2018 in Kuala Lumpur.

He had been a panellist on a forum entitled “Anti-corruption in internal audits - A crucial element of anti-corruption compliance”. 

In March 2015, former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak had instructed the National Audit Department, then led by Ambrin, to audit 1MDB and pass it on to the PAC for further investigation. Najib had promised that the process would be a "transparent" one. 

Almost a year later, the 500-page report was ready but Putrajaya took the unusual step of classifying the report, limiting its use to the PAC only. 

In the end, the Najib administration would claim that the bi-partisan PAC had cleared him of any wrongdoing, although the report had highlighted many irregularities with 1MDB's business.

The audit report was eventually declassified on May 15, after Harapan took control of the federal government.