Rafizi fears Sabah mining saga will snowball beyond state

Summary

• Rafizi Ramli warns that the Sabah mining scandal may not stop at Jeffrey Kitingan, expressing fears that it could snowball beyond the state.

• He says public perception equates money changing hands with corruption, regardless of official explanations, and predicts the impact will show in polls.

The Sabah mining scandal is not likely to end with Sabah Deputy Chief Minister I Jeffrey Kitingan, former economy minister Rafizi Ramli warned.

On the other hand, the issue is likely to continue, Rafizi said in the latest episode of his "Yang Berhenti Menteri" podcast last night.

"My worry is if it starts to involve figures from the federal government, from Putrajaya," Rafizi said.

Yesterday, Kitingan spent more than five hours giving his statement at the MACC office in Kota Kinabalu.

The Parti Solidariti Tanah Airku (Star) president declined to provide details on the statement he had given, saying it could be the subject of an investigation.

Kitingan’s appearance before MACC came a day after businessperson Albert Tei released a video via Malaysiakini.

Tei alleged he had paid RM1.78 million to the politician in connection with a cancelled mining exploration licence.

Did money exchange hands?

Rafizi said that Malaysians narrowed down the complicated bureaucratic process of mining licences to whether money had exchanged hands.

"The people will say that as long as there is an exchange of money, then it is corruption. So it doesn't really matter what the answer is given by the authorities and political leaders.

"We don't know what the real impact is at the level of the people (on the ground). We will only know in the next election," he said.

He said he had escalated the issue of corruption to Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim earlier this year.

This was caused by mounting public concern over corruption - something Rafizi saw as worrying, as it was happening during Pakatan Harapan's time in power.

He said one of Harapan's major strengths over its competitors is its strong anti-corruption stance.

However, he pointed to statistics from an unknown survey, saying, "One in three Malaysians in the span of more than two years since Anwar became the prime minister feel that corruption is a big issue".

This is in comparison to eight percent in 2022, he added.

He explained that this was why he had raised concerns about MACC chief commissioner Azam Baki and Anwar's ex-aide Farhash Wafa Salvador Rizal Mubarak.

Another 1MDB scandal?

In a recent interview with KiniTV’s “Explain Sikit, Kini!”, Rafizi cautioned Anwar that the latter's ties with Farhash could expose the government to the same pitfalls that led to the 1MDB scandal, if left unchecked.

Rafizi likened the situation to fugitive financier Low Taek Jho, or Jho Low, whose central role in the 1MDB scandal helped topple the BN government under Najib Abdul Razak.

Farhash was linked to two high-profile allegations recently, one of which relates to the controversial Sabah mining licences.

On July 21, MalaysiaNow published documents allegedly proving that Farhash had received authorisation to prospect for minerals across a massive forest reserve in Sabah.

Farhash, however, dismissed the report as fake, lodged a police report against the portal, and sued for defamation.

On Sept 9, the MACC cleared Farhash of alleged links to the Sabah mining scandal, after investigations revealed that no exploration licence was issued to a company owned by the businessperson.

Farhash’s name was also linked to a recent syringe attack on Rafizi’s son at a mall in Putrajaya. He, however, denied any involvement in the case, calling the accusation “crazy”.

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