KUALA LUMPUR: Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng has defended the government’s decision to reveal the National Audit Department which confirmed that the final audit report on 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) was altered on the orders of Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
“It is appropriate for us (the government) to highlight. What is important to me is the people have the right to know and the intention is to tell the truth. So that the people must know the truth,” he said when met at the parliament lobby here.
He was asked to comment if it was right for the Auditor-General General Department to issue a statement on 1MDB’s audit report alteration when the matter is in the court.
“You should instead ask Utusan Malaysia newspaper, who wrote about it much earlier, then our statement. There must be a balance.”
Lim questioned on how Utusan knew about the alteration in the audit report.
“You should ask Utusan first before asking me. They published much earlier… refer to Utusan first before asking the government.”
He added that he does want to contradict with Najib’s lawyer Tan Sri Shafee Abudullah’s statement as “this is a court case now”.
“Utusan said Najib and his officer were involved in amending, changing and making false report on the 1MDB audit report. To me they are traitors,” said Lim.
Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia reported on Sunday that the former prime minister ordered the original audit report on scandal-plagued fund 1MDB to be altered.
Quoting an anonymous source, the report said Najib wanted his involvement and fugitive broker Low Taek Jho, or Jho Low, omitted from the report prepared by then auditor-general Tan Sri Ambrin Buang.
The audit report was said to note Najib’s knowledge of the mismanagement in 1MDB.
On the same Sunday, later in the afternoon, the National Audit Department Malaysia confirmed that the final audit report on 1MDB was altered on Najib’s orders through his then principal private secretary Tan Sri Shukry Salleh.
In a statement, Auditor-General Tan Sri Dr Madinah Mohamad confirmed that fugitive Jho Low attended a 1MDB board of directors meeting.
However, this fact was asked to be dropped on Najib’s orders through Shukry.
In an immediate response, lawyers representing Najib have questioned the motive behind Madinah’s statement that the final audit report on 1MDB had been altered, saying that it was political in nature.
In a statement issued by Shafee & Co – the law firm acting for the former prime minister – they said it was unusual for the Auditor-General to release a press statement to the public on a Sunday morning, and that it was made under orders of the Cabinet.