KUALA LUMPUR: The latest Global Financial Integrity Report on the RM196.8 billion illicit money siphoned out of Malaysia in 2010 shows that “something is rotten” in Malaysia, said DAP Parliamentary Leader Lim Kit Siang.
The GFI report showed that in the past ten years from 2001 to 2010, RM871 billion worth of illegal capital has been shipped out of the country, the third highest rank in the world over the decade.
Lim said this “mind-boggling” figure was a “warning” to Malaysians to change the federal government in the forthcoming 13th General Elections.
“The year 2012 ended very poorly both for the country and the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak.”
The Edge reports that last year, Najib, who is also Finance Minister, gave Parliament a lower outflow figure of RM135.3 billion from 2000 to 2009. The GFI report, however, put Malaysia’s illicit outflow at US$220.84 billion for the 2001-2009 period.
Global financial watchdog GFI warned that capital flight in Malaysia is “at a scale seen in few Asian countries”. Neither Bank Negara nor the government has explained the results of this illegal outflow, which has persisted and worsened over the past decade.
Lim described the country as being increasingly haunted by the ghosts of past decades of corrupt, undemocratic and unjust governance.
He gave the example of the murder of auditor Jalil Ibrahim in Hong Kong in the first mega-scandal of the Mahathir era, the RM2.5 billion Bumiputra Malaysia Finance (BMF) scandal in the eighties.
Recently, former Prime Minister Tun Mahathir made the unforgettable quote that it is better for the people to elect the devil they know rather than the angel whom they may not know.
“What Mahathir had not reckoned with is that the ghosts of the past are increasingly taking centre-stage in Malaysian politics.”
Lim said this in reference to the “ghosts” of murdered Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu; Malaysian Anti-Corruption Agency (MACC) victim Teoh Beng Hock and the countless who had been “murdered” while under police custody in police lockups like A. Kugan.
He also pointed out other “skeletons” rattling in the national closet, such as the public allegations of corruption and abuses of power made against the Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail, and the recent “explosive confessions” made by carpet trader Deepak Jaikishan on the Altantuya case.
“Only a change of Federal Government in Putrajaya in the 13GE in the next 100 days can resolve and appease all the “ghosts” of the UMNO/BN administrations, particularly of the past three decades,” Lim said. – The Rocket
