The former principal private secretary to Najib Razak had allegedly ordered the Audit Department to remove any mention of controversial businessman Low Taek Jho’s presence at a meeting with the 1MDB board of directors in its report on the troubled investment arm.
In a statement, Auditor-General Madinah Mohamad said the directive was made on the grounds that such information was “sensitive”.
“And they wanted to prevent any distortion of facts by the opposition,” she said.
The former principal private secretary had allegedly issued the directive on Feb 26, 2016.
However, a check revealed that the finance ministry in 2015 said that the fugitive businessman, popularly known as Jho Low, had attended a 1MDB board of directors meeting.
In a report by Malaysiakini, the finance ministry said Low, who is at the centre of the 1MDB scandal, attended on behalf of the Saudi royal family and did not participate in discussions.
“This was because the Saudi royal family were invited to make a courtesy call to 1MDB.
“However, the royal family could not attend and asked Low to represent them to extend their courtesy to the 1MDB board of directors,” the portal quoted the ministry as saying.
The minutes of the meeting also revealed that Low left immediately after.
The finance ministry said this is was in response to Tony Pua (DAP-Petaling Jaya Utara), who asked the finance minister if Low attended a 1MDB board meeting in September 2009 over the US$1 billion investment in a joint venture with Petro Saudi International.
In her statement, Madinah gave a chronological breakdown of the times when the 1MDB report was altered.
She said on Feb 20, 2016, the former principal private secretary to Najib had requested for the 1MDB audit team to prepare a final audit report on the troubled state fund to be discussed with the former prime minister.
Two days later, a meeting was held with Najib in the presence of former chief secretary Ali Hamsa and former auditor-general Ambrin Buang and Najib’s former principal private secretary.
During the meeting, Najib had ordered a paragraph in the audit report which contained two versions of 1MDB’s 2014 financial statement to be removed and ordered a full investigation by the authorities.
As a result, the audit report which was supposed to be presented to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on February 24, 2016 was postponed to March 4 and 7 of the same year, Madinah said.
She also listed several more meetings where more amendments were made to the report.
The 2016 Auditor-General’s Report on the state investment arm came under the spotlight last month following claims by deputy PAC chairman Wong Kah Woh that the original audit report was amended on the instructions of specific people.
However, two individuals involved in separate probes on 1MDB denied such claims.
Former auditor-general Ambrin Buang refuted Wong’s allegations, saying no one had interfered with the department’s probe.
“That was my report and I had full control over it,” he told reporters in October.
Hasan Arifin, the former chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), also denied it, adding he was not sure what Wong meant.
Original article from https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2018/11/25/audit-dept-told-to-remove-mention-of-jho-low-in-1mdb-report/?fbclid=IwAR1NXSA0hFkgOKW6h61krjJeT77Rd3X_HlQ7fNxPUMX1UmzfT6MEyZnsgzI
