The Malaysian Insight

FORMER prime minister Najib Razak was the beneficiary of the amendments made by top officials to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) audit report before it was presented to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in 2016, the Kuala Lumpur High Court heard last week.

Saadatul Nafisah Bashir Ahmad, 64, who led a special 1MDB audit team, told the court that high-ranking government officers, led by then chief secretary to the government Ali Hamsa, had wanted to amend the report for the benefit of the nation and Najib.

This occurred at a high-level meeting on February 24, 2016 chaired by Ali, the seventh prosecution witness said.

Also present at the meeting was her boss, former auditor-general Ambrin Buang.

During cross-examination, lead prosecutor Gopal Sri Ram referred an audio recording of the nearly-three hour meeting, whereby Ali had said: “We want to take care of our leadership”.

Asked on who he meant by that, Saadatul Nafisah said it was Najib, who was then finance minister and chairman of the 1MDB advisory board.

She agreed with Sri Ram’s suggestion that, had the meeting not been held, the amendments and revised report would not have come into existence.

Ali also directed the National Audit Department not to print the 1MDB audit report until Najib had given the “green light”.

Saadatul Nafisah, who was an audit director with the department, said she was told this when submitting the report at Ali’s on February 29, 2016.

The report was handed over to the PAC by Ambrin on March 4, 2016.

The final audit report, Saadatul Nafisah testified, had only 60% of the information required as former 1MDB CEO Arul Kanda Kandasamy failed to provide the remaining information.

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

“But the information never came to us.”

Arul Kanda, 43, is on trial for abetting Najib in removing parts of the final 1MDB audit report between February 22 and 26, 2016 at the Prime Minister’s Department.

When cross-examined by Najib’s lead counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, Saadatul Nafisah 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.

Saadatul Nafisah said Najib’s principal private secretary Shukry Mohd Salleh wanted to remove all references to Low before the report was tabled in Parliament.

She said Arul Kanda also mentioned Bank Negara’s investigations into business dealings involving Country Group Securities Thailand and ACME Time Ltd, which were owned by Low.

“Arul Kanda then proposed that (this) issue be removed from the 1MDB audit report because he was of the view that the matter was outside the 1MDB audit issue.

“Tan Sri Ali Hamsa agreed for the issue to be dropped from the report, based on those reasons,” Saadatul said.

The trial, before judge Mohamed Zaini Mazlan, has been adjourned to an unspecified date. – January 19, 2020.