UPDATE 2 Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim held Prime Minister Najib Razak accountable for the huge jump in "dirty money" siphoned out of Malaysia, accusing him of blocking investigations and failing to make public the results of a central bank probe."He is complicit in this. We raised the matter two years ago but not only has nothing been done, the amount of illicit outflows has more than doubled in 2010 compared to 2009. He has not been transparent to the people and has blocked investigations," Anwar told a press conference on Thursday.
Expressing a lack of confidence in Najib to come clean on the scandal or to come up with an action plan to stop the outflows, Anwar said his Pakatan Rakyat coalition would be initiating a roundtable in January 2013 to get the Malaysian government, the central bank to thrash out the issue with the Global Financial Integrity.
The Opposition Leader was responding to a report released earlier this week by the Washington-based financial watchdog that sent shock waves around the world.
GFI, which tracks capital flight, is run by top financial experts including former senior IMF researchers. It said in its latest report that RM 197 billion of 'dirty money' had been siphoned out of Malaysia in 2010 compared to RM 93 billion in 2009, an increase of 112 %. This gives Malaysia the rather shameful record of being the No.2 country in the world after China of having the highest illicit outflows in 2010.
GFI warned that capital flight in Malaysia is "at a scale seen in few Asian countries". For the 10 years from 2001 to 2010, Malaysia was ranked No. 3 globally with the cumulative amount of 'dirty money' siphoned out amounting to US$285 billion (RM871.4 billion), after China's US$2,740 billion and Mexico's US$476 billion.
Explain, Zeti & Najib: Don't 'blackout' the news
Anwar also challenged Bank Negara to explain "how it can fail to detect such a large sum as RM197billion" leaving the country in 2010 alone when the existing financial system was "transparent."
Anwar also slammed BN Members of Parliament for failing in their duty to the people and demanding for an explanation from the government.
"We are talking about mind-boggling crime... This is the same situation as in the Great Indian Robbery where US$500 billion was spirited out of the coutry over a period of 6 decades. But not a single BN MP has stood up to question what is happening here," said Anwar.
"The Opposition raised the matter in Parliament and we were told by the Deputy Minister of Finance that the probe carried out by Bank Negara found the amount was exaggerated. But now we find that a year later, the amount of illegal outflows has jumped even more.
"The Bank Negara report was never made public. Why? I will be writing to Zeti Akhtar Aziz, the BNM governor, GFI officials, representatives of the government and state governments to come together in a meeting in 2013 to sort out what is behind these huge numbers. We also welcome Datuk Najib to attend."
A former deputy prime minister, Anwar also lamented the media "blackout" on the news and did not discount the possibility that Bank Negara may have come under political pressure to "keep silent".
Malaysia Chronicle
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