Kit Siang to appear before BNM forex losses hearing


DAP supremo says he stands by his speeches made in Parliament asking for a royal commission of inquiry to investigate the losses said to be around RM30 billion in the 1990s.

(FMT) – DAP veteran leader Lim Kit Siang will appear next week before the special task force investigating the Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) forex losses in the 1990s.

The seven-member task force, investigating the BNM forex losses between 1991 and 1993, is headed by Mohd Sidek Hassan, who is former chief secretary to the government.

The task force was set up by the cabinet in mid-February.

In a statement today, Lim said if the administration is sincere about accountability and good governance, former Bank Negara top officer Nor Mohamed Yakcop should resign, be sacked or suspended as Khazanah Nasional Bhd deputy chairman.

“This is because Nor Mohamed was the chief operator of Bank Negara’s forex speculation which resulted in colossal losses which could total some RM30 billion.

“Former finance minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had said that Nor Mohamed was complicit in the Bank Negara forex losses in the early 1990s when the latter was then a senior Bank Negara official.”

He said that as finance minister at the time, he had asked for Nor Mohamed’s resignation but this was not allowed. (Nor Mohamed later became second finance minister from 2004 to 2009.)

Lim said he had referred to Nor Mohamed’s role in the Bank Negara forex losses in his speeches in Parliament on the issue in 1993 and 1994, referring to the massive forex speculation by Bank Negara in the forward foreign exchange market.

He said at its height, Bank Negara’s maximum exposure could have been in the region of RM270 billion – three times the country’s GDP and more than five times the country’s foreign reserves at the time.

More than 20 years have elapsed, but Nor Mohamed “owes it to the nation and Malaysians to make a clean breast of what he did more than two decades ago – and not just to the cabinet special task force,” said Lim.

He said in his speech in Parliament in April 1994, he had called for a royal commission of inquiry into the Bank Negara forex losses, with the following tasks:

• to ascertain whether Bank Negara’s forex losses since 1992 could exceed RM30 billion;

• to ascertain whether there had been any financial malpractices and abuses in view of the inconsistencies and conflicting explanations about the forex losses; and,

• to establish as to how Bank Negara could incur such losses.

“But what is more urgent and imperative now is a royal commission of inquiry into the 1MDB scandal.

“Is such a RCI into the 1MDB scandal only possible if there is a change of federal government in the 14th general election?”

 



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