The Malaysian Insight

THE Pandora Papers are about shareholdings held in offshore companies, not the outflow of money, said Azhar Azizan Harun.

“As far as I know, the Pandora Papers are not about the illicit outflow of hundreds of millions from Malaysia. They are a revelation about the shareholdings in offshore companies,” said the Dewan Rakyat speaker when rejecting a motion by Anwar Ibrahim (Port Dickson-PH) to debate the documents in Parliament.

These are two different matters, he added.

Previously, Anwar had filed a similar motion, which was also rejected.

Azhar said he has looked at the Pandora Papers, adding that some of the shareholdings are small.

“These shareholdings are not even in the millions (as claimed by Anwar). Some are just £5 (RM28).”

But Anwar insisted that the shareholdings must have come out of the illicit outflow of money from Malaysia.

“I have a document that says a minister has shareholdings there. Where did the money come from if there is no illicit outflow? I do not understand why you are defending them. I just want to debate the issue here.

“My sources say that there are more. I am not seeking punishment as some are legitimate, but many cases involve ministers who have no reason to keep millions overseas,” said the opposition leader, without providing any proof.

The Pandora Papers are an anonymous dump of 2.94 terabytes of confidential financial files to the Investigative Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

The dump is made up of more than 11.9 million documents and records from 14 offshore service providers that set up and manage shell companies and trusts in tax havens around the globe.

However, the data does not show any wrongdoing on the part of the depositors.

Among those named in the Pandora Papers as having offshore accounts are Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz, former deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, former finance minister Daim Zainuddin and Selayang MP William Leong. – October 11, 2021.