1MDB issues under international scrutiny too: Zeti

KUALA LUMPUR: Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz, in reassuring the public on concerns over 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), said any irregularities would eventually be uncovered, as the issues are being scrutinised not only by local investigators but also the international community.
“In this day and age, it must be known that there is no place on this planet that anyone can actually hide because the world has come together. They will come together to track down any irregular type of activities. So, that is where we are now,” she said.
Zeti was speaking at a panel discussion at the Economic Update forum organised by the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) yesterday.
“We know the public want answers to these questions and the public deserve to get the answers. We know there are ongoing investigations but we also need to know who is doing what investigations,” she said.
The three agencies involved are the police, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and BNM.
“For BNM, we’ve looked at contraventions to the approvals we gave specifically to 1MDB. These investigations have been completed and handed over to the Attorney General’s Chambers. We are in discussions with them, ongoing discussions, and that is all I can say for the time being.
“But there’s another aspect I would like to highlight. The international community has come together and this is the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). They have come together to deal with the issue of anti-money laundering and, therefore, you will see actions taken by the international community,” she said.
She said the FATF has strengthened the regulations and standards immensely in recent years, after events related to terrorist financing.
“They will come to every country to make an assessment, whether we implement the standards that they have set and whether we enforce these standards. Malaysia has already had our assessment and we came out quite well, actually, in terms of whether we comply with these standards but they would like to see further enforcement.”
Pemandu CEO Datuk Seri Idris Jala said the country would not be facing such issues today if the government had taken up its recommendations on reforms and political financing.
“In 2010, we recommended, under our Government Transformation Programme, reforms and political financing. Under the NKRA (National Key Results Area) against corruption, we recommended that we have to have reforms that do three things: all political donations to political parties must be given to the account of the political party rather than to individual accounts; money must be receipted, that means all donations must have receipts; and must be publicly made available, known to the public in a transparent, manner and audited,” he said.
However, Idris said, the proposal did not get traction from both sides of the political divide.
“If that political reform had been accepted, we would not be in the current quandary. There is no law that tells you what you can and cannot do in the current scenario,” he added.