The only way for Arul Kanda Kandasamy to earn some sympathy from the Malaysian public is for him to come clean to own up to all the frauds in the biggest global scam in Malaysian history – the RM50 billion 1MDB scandal – including those committed before his time.
It is just not good enough for the 1MDB president to canvas the possibilities of “massive fraud” and “collaboration from our side” over the US$3.5 billion worth of payments made to the “fake” Aabar BVI, when the international news media and whistle-blower website Sarawak Report had been detailing such “massive frauds” and “collaboration” for almost the past year.
Didn’t Arul take the most elementary measures to check on the veracity of these very detailed reports in the international media and Sarawak Report?
Even more important and relevant, why did he defend the integrity and good governance practices of 1MDB in these these cases of “massive frauds” and “collaboration”?
Nor can Arul exonerate himself from being complicit in Malaysia’s mega scam by just washing his hands and quitting his MDB post, protesting that the issues and scandals at the 1MDB scam were not his and “not what I signed up for”.
True, these scandals were not his when they were committed before he became 1MDB President in January last year, but he had made them his by defending their propriety and correctness for more than a year, including in his appearances before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) inquiring into 1MDB.
It is just too little too late for Arul to indulge in such “escapades”, as he can only redeem for his own “sins” in the 1MDB scandal.
Just as Arul cannot continue to pretend ignorance and innocence over the “massive fraud” and “collaboration” over the US$3.5 billion worth of payments to the “fake” Aabar BVI, the 1MDB President cannot continue to pretend ignorance and innocence over the “original sin” of the 1MDB scandal – the diversion of US$700 million of 1MDB funds in 2009 to Jho Low’s bogus shell company, Good Star Limited, especially as Wall Street Journal and Sarawak Report had alleged that Good Star Limited is solely owned by Jho Low and had nothing to do with PetroSaudi International, the firm which partnered with 1MDB in a now defunct investment joint venture.
There is now a growing storm over the PAC Chairman, Datuk Hasan Arifin’s unilateral and arbitrary deletion of a paragraph in the PAC Report on 1MDB which had stated that “Bank Negara Malaysia had been informed voluntarily by the authorities of that country that Good Star Limited is a company owned by an individual that has no links to PetroSaudi Group”.
Let Arul state whether he had prior knowledge of the PAC Report on the 1MDB before it was tabled in Parliament on April 7, and whether he had any role in the deletion of this crucial paragraph by the PAC Chairman in the PAC Report on 1MDB when it was finally tabled in Parliament.