This means that for the last two months and more Mr Arul Kanda has
been going round assuring Malaysians that a bail-out deal had been
achieved for 1MDB, when this was plainly not the case.
In his key TV ‘tell all’ interview on August 12th Kanda informed audiences that his deal with IPIC had already “guaranteed” 1MDB’s debts:
“In June, 1MDB signed a [term sheet] agreement with IPIC of Abu Dhabi. IPIC, a company owned by the Abu Dhabi government, is valued at US$60 billion. And the [term sheet] is for IPIC to take over 1MDB’s debts, which actually have bveen guaranteed by IPIC. The principal and debts come to about US$3.5 billion.
IPIC has also paid US$1 billion, which we have used towards the debt settlement”[transcript]
What today’s development has now made very clear indeed is that 1MDB
is still in fact in the negotiating phase of this deal with IPIC,
because Kanda has now admitted it:
“…. 1MDB remains engaged in discussions with IPIC, to conclude the transaction per the terms as officially announced by IPIC to the London Stock Exchange on June 10 2015“
This key sentence confirms that the actual deal is NOT signed or guaranteed, as previously stated and suggested by 1MDB.
It also means that the doubts reported by the hitherto respectable
Singapore Times are entirely possible and probable and indeed far more
reliable than anything announced by 1MDB.
After all, in the intervening period IPIC has sacked the very CEO who
was the architect of this controversial deal, which is hardly a
comforting sign.
Last week Sarawak Report detailed
why Al-Husseiny’s links to 1MDB can only have provoked extreme concerns
in Abu Dhabi and are therefore the most likely reason he was dismissed
so suddenly.
For example, it was Al-Husseiny who signed all the controversial
deals between Aabar and 1MDB in 2012/2014 which are now the subject of
global scrutiny.
He was also the Chairman of the Board of IPIC/Aabar’s Falcon Bank at
the time it processed the US$681 million transfer into Najib Razak’s own
private bank account.
And it was none other than Al-Husseiny who finally identified himself
as the funder of Najib Razak’s step son Riza’s US$100 million Hollywood
blockbuster, Wolf of Wall Street.
Al-Husseiny’s former boss and co-player in the various earlier Aabar
deals with 1MDB, which cost Malaysia so much money, was of course Khadem
al Qubassi, whom IPIC had already sacked in March of this year following reports by Sarawak Report on his irregular social and business activities involving Najib Razak’s business proxy Jho Low.
With both men sacked, who is pushing for this murky deal to be completed at IPIC/Aabar Malaysians are entitled to be asking?
Does Abu Dhabi really wish to become further enmeshed in 1MDB’s
growing list of scandals and financial investigations, involving
regulators across the globe or might they indeed exercise their options
to withdraw from the negotiations on these terms of agreement?
Abu Dhabi may eventually decide the deal is worth it, despite the
rumours. But the world has learnt today is that the 1MDB bail-out is
not yet a bail-out and it may very well fail.
We have also learnt that Arul Kanda’s ‘denial’ is actually an
admission and that once again this senior public official has lied on a
crucial matter.
No one will be very surprised at this deception. In March Kanda was
also forced to retract his statement that 1MDB had US$1.13 billion
stored in cash in BSI bank Singapore, after Sarawak Report exposed a report by the Singapore authorities confirming it was all untrue.
No wonder hundreds of thousands will be taking to the streets to demand transparency in KL this weekend.
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