Malaysian Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s Ministers have been very busy indulging in sophistry, prevarication, obfuscation and downright evasion instead of being true and frank about the RM50-55 billion 1MDB and RM4.2 billion global financial scandals.
It would be difficult to find a denser statement than the one made by the Communications and Multimedia Minister, Datuk Salleh Said Keruak that the Wall Street Journal cannot convince Malaysians if it does not reveal the sources of its stories.
In fact, WSJ must thank Salleh for giving greater publicity to its latest report about Najib’s stepson Riza Aziz’s purchase of a RM137 million property in London is now part of the 1MDB probe by international investigators.
Salleh cannot be more wrong when he suggested that WSJ reports have no credibility unless they reveal the sources of its stories, as it is the Prime Minister and his ministers who have been haemorrhaging from a credibility crisis since the 1MDB global scandal burst on the global scene more than a year ago, till today there is considerable truth in the claim that “For foreign media, Malaysia now synonymous with kleptocracy”.
What commands attention is the fact that despite the avalanche of foreign media reports about Najib’s twin mega scandals – RM50-55 billion 1MDB and RM4.2 billion “donation” scandal – neither Prime Minister Najib nor 1MDB dared to sue anyone of these publications for their mountain of revelations for more than a year.
It is now some ten months since Salleh had abused his Ministerial powers to block access by Malaysians to the whistle-blowing website, Sarawak Report, but this had not prevented the website from continuing its exposes of Najib’s twin mega scandals.
Can Salleh cite the instances of Sarawak Report website exposes for over a year about Najib’s twin mega scandals which are false or untrue?
Herein lies the answer as to who does not have credibility, whether locally or internationally.