The Malaysian Insight

DESPITE promising to cooperate with the National Audit Department, former 1Malaysia Development Bhd CEO Arul Kanda Kandasamy did not hand over all the information he had for an audit report that was to be delivered to parliament in early 2016.

Saadatul Nafisah Bashir Ahmad, who led the special audit team, told the Kuala Lumpur High Court today that Arul only provided 60% of the information required for the 1MDB audit report that was to be presented to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

“We met him many times (in 2015); as the CEO, he promised to cooperate us. The way he talked was okay, and we waited for the information.

“But the information never came to us,” the 64-year-old witness testified during cross-examination at the Arul Kanda’s 1MDB audit tampering trial today.

Arul Kanda, 43, is on trial for abetting former prime minister Najib Razak to remove parts of the final 1MDB audit report between February 22 and 26, 2016 at the Prime Minister’s Department before it was submitted to the PAC.

When cross-examined by Najib’s lead counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, Saadatul did not agree to suggestions that Arul Kanda was not in full control and that it was possibly his predecessor, Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi, who wished to withhold information from the department.

The witness also did not agree with the suggestion that 1MDB intermediary Low Taek Jho, commonly known as Jho Low, was to be blamed for information being withheld.

Shafee: Did you determine whether it (1MDB) was within his (Arul Kanda’s) control?

Saadatul: As a CEO, it should be under his control.

Shafee: To be very fair, 1MDB is not like any other company. There are conspiracies and counter-conspiracies within this company. You must have determined this?

Saadatul: Yes.

Shafee: And there was this Jho Low character running around. Why didn’t you say Jho Low?

Saadatul: But he’s not within the company (then). We don’t know to what extent his role was.

Shafee: Now you know (of his involvement in 1MDB)?

Saadatul: After the audit.

Shafee: How did you know that Mr Arul does not suffer from a handicap?

Saadatul: He should have told us. We only got 60% of the information we asked for. He said 40% was not available.

The final 1MDB final audit report was handed over to the PAC by auditor-general Ambrin Buang on March 4, 2016.

Najib and Arul Kanda sat in the dock today. The former CEO was represented by N. Sivanathan, who has deferred the cross-examination of prosecution witnesses until Arul Kanda is called to the witness stand to provide evidence.

Arul Kanda served as 1MDB CEO from January 2015 until he was dismissed in June 2018.

Earlier, Shafee suggested to the witness that the NAD had not done a proper job in preparing the report.

Shafee: I am putting it to you that the JAN (NAD) had not done this auditing in an intelligent way that we expected.

Saadatul: No. We ask for information and they also did not provide the information in an intelligent way. We started to ask month after month because we cannot get information from 1MDB. We waited for one month, two months and the PAC wanted the information, kept asking for it. I went to see Mr Arul and I went to see the chairman.

Shafee: Your unhappiness with the responses, or lack thereof, should be with Mr Shahrol.

Saadatul: I never worked with him.

Shafee also suggested that former chief secretary to the government Ali Hamsa never explicitly co-erced the witness or her boss, Ambrin, during a high-level meeting on February 24, 2016, to make amendments to the 1MDB audit report.

The witness was made to go over a transcript of the audio recording of the nearly three-hour meeting, in which she identified a part showing Ali allegedly coercing her into making an amendment.

That part of the transcript read: “Boleh la ni, A-G boleh guna budi bicara to drop it”. (This will do, the attorney-general can use his discretion to drop it).

Shafee: Ambrin did not protest (to Ali’s suggestions). In this recording you also did not protest. Did you protest?

Saadatul: I did not protest by saying I can’t (do this). But the direction was that amendments were to be made.

Shafee: He did not say you must drop this, you must drop that. He said clarification must be made. I don’t think he would directly say to drop (the matter).

The witness did not agree and said that Ali did instruct to make amendments. Shafee then requested that the witness find an explicit statement of coercion by Ali, which she could not.

Shafee: Puan, we can only know a man’s intention by his word. Without it, in fact, in English we call it, only the devil knows. Here we only know by what he says.

Saadatul: Yes, at least this time.

The trial, before justice Mohamed Zaini Mazlan, is adjourned to an unspecified date. – January 16, 2020.