KUALA LUMPUR: – The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) will arrange meetings with 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) chief executive officer (CEO) Arul Kanda Kandasamy and former CEO Datuk Shahrol Halmi as soon as possible following their failure to turn up for their scheduled meetings with the PAC yesterday, said PAC chairman Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed.
He said PAC would not delay further in calling them up after confusion arose pertaining to the letter sent to Ministry of Finance (MoF) by the PAC on May 6 for them to testify before the committee.
“Don’t worry, they will come (to give their statements), they have already made public that they will come.
“We also do not want to delay this procedure, we will be calling them up as soon as possible, there is no more delay, the confusion that arose between the MoF and the two witnesses (in regards to the letter) caused some slight problems to us,” he told reporters after holding a meeting with representatives of the Federal Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority at Parliament House today.
Elaborating further, Nur Jazlan said PAC had sent a letter to MoF on May 6 to get Arul Kanda and Shahrol to give their statements yesterday (May 26) in regards to the PAC’s probe into the company’s dealings.
"We had given notice of more than two weeks for them to testify. The issue of whether Arul was informed about the letter early or late is not the PAC's problem.
"Yes, we did not send letters straight to them but via the MoF," he said.
Yesterday, 1MDB had said that they had responded to the PAC on May 21, the same day they received the letter from the MoF (that Arul and Shahrol would not be able to attend the meetings with the PAC because of prior commitments).
Nur Jazlan said the PAC had also sent a letter to MoF on May 25 to call up two firms which audited 1MDB's books, namely Deloitte & Co with the meeting scheduled for June 10 and KPMG on June 17.
He also urged all quarters to give the PAC time to settle its probe into 1MDB.
"Everyone wants us do it fast, but this is something we have do step by step. If we arrive at a decision that cannot satisfy some quarters, they will blame the PAC," he said.
PAC had called the probe to determine the financial status of 1MDB.
On today's meeting, Nur Jazlan said the PAC had called up FELCRA CEO, Datuk Ramlee Abu Bakar, FELCRA general manager (Investment) Adnan Yusof and former FELCRA CEO Datuk Juzilman Basir as continuation of its proceedings from Nov 2014.
The proceedings are about "in-kind" payments totalling RM723,000 to FELCRA board members from 2010 to 2012 without MoF approval. -- BERNAMA