CNA – Malaysia is not “some banana republic where one can plunder and leave”, said Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, as he warned United States (US) investment bank Goldman Sachs that the country would go “very far” to retrieve most of the public funds lost in a multibillion-dollar financial scandal.
He also said the government is determined to bring back convicted Goldman Sachs banker Roger Ng Chong Hwa and financier fugitive Low Taek Jho, both linked to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) case.
Speaking during the Asia Summit organised in Singapore by the Milken Institute on Wednesday, Anwar warned Goldman Sachs not to take Malaysia “for a ride” and urged the bank to renegotiate a settlement it had reached over 1MDB with a previous government.
“You cannot say that this issue is over because it was agreed by my predecessor. I have issues to raise,” said Anwar, adding that Goldman Sachs has not been forthcoming over the matter and that he does not wish to prolong this issue.
Under a 2020 settlement agreed with the former Muhyiddin Yassin administration, Goldman Sachs agreed to pay Malaysia USD3.9 billion for its role in the 1MDB case, while Kuala Lumpur agreed to end all criminal proceedings against the bank. This includes a USD2.5 billion cash payment and a guarantee to return USD1.4 billion in assets to Malaysia.
Malaysian and US authorities estimate some USD4.5 billion were stolen from 1MDB between 2009 and 2014, in a globe-spanning scheme that implicated high-level government and banking officials in Malaysia and elsewhere.
Anwar has publicly declared the deal as being far from satisfactory, saying that he would like to get back as much of the money as possible, and that the recovered funds would go to public education, healthcare and amenities.
While Anwar accepted that a previous settlement had been reached under former prime minister Muhyiddin, he said he wished to raise some issues and urged the bank to listen to him in hopes of settling some of them “amicably”.
Before his dialogue at the Asia Summit, Anwar also spoke to CNA’s Melissa Goh and Afifah Ariffin in an interview where he stated his desire to bring former Goldman Sachs banker Roger Ng back to Malaysia to face outstanding 1MDB-related charges. Ng, a Malaysian citizen who was extradited to the US in May 2019 under a special government-to-government arrangement, played a central role in the 1MDB fiasco.
He was convicted in April 2022 over the case and just under a year later was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a US District Court.
Anwar was also asked about another 1MDB-linked figure – fugitive financier Low Taek Jho, often called Jho Low – in relation to his other upcoming foreign trip to China from September 17, where he will meet with Premier Li Qiang and discuss investment as well as “issues of concern”.
