KUALA LUMPUR: Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said he will leaving the direction of Khazanah Nasional Bhd to Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
The fate of the sovereign wealth fund, he said, is the prerogative of the prime minister.
“We leave it his wisdom with regards to the new direction and appointment of Khazanah Nasional’s new directors... the final decision lies with him,” Lim told reporters at the Parliament lobby.
Khazanah Nasional managing director Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar and eight other members of its board have offered to resign “to facilitate a smooth and orderly transition under the new government."
This was confirmed by Khazanah Nasional in a statement this morning.
Lim meanwhile said the Khazanah Nasional board was appointed by the previous government under Barisan Nasional, and noted “it is up to the prime minister on whether to appoint people from the previous government or new directors."
Asked if the Khazanah Nasional issue was discussed at the weekly cabinet meeting yesterday, Lim replied in the negative.
Earlier this month, Dr Mahathir had said Khazanah Nasional had deviated from its original objective of helping the Bumiputera.
He had also vowed to put an end to the high salaries for the heads of government-linked companies (GLCs). This, he said, was because the Bumiputera who received shares had a tendency to “sell them and enrich others instead.”
"But along the way, Khazanah decided it should take all the shares for itself and if they are good shares, well, why not acquire the shares at the time of listing when the price of shares was very low and so they forget entirely about holding the shares for the Bumiputera,” he was quoted as saying.
Speaking on Khazanah, which was established in 1993 during his first tenure as prime minister, Dr Mahathir was quoted as saying that the firm was formed to hold shares for the Bumiputera until the latter possessed the capacity to purchase those shares.
Dr Mahathir had said that Putrajaya would review the companies in which Khazanah has a stake in and sort matters to return the wealth fund to its original path.
"We need to agree with some of these companies to reduce the number (of shares held by Khazanah) and to a certain extent go back to the original intention of holding the shares allocated to the Bumiputera until such time when they can buy (them)," he said.