Anwar wants to attend RCI as his ‘name was mentioned a few times’

KUALA LUMPUR: Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim yesterday expressed his wish to attend the proceedings of the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) foreign exchange (forex) losses.

In a statement, the jailed PKR leader said he is “concerned” about the proceedings as provided for under Section 18 of the Commission of Enquiry Act 1950.

Anwar said he could only follow the proceedings with much difficulty through limited contact with his lawyers in Sungai Buloh.

“I remain concerned that I am not allowed to be present during the proceedings despite repeated requests by my lawyers, based on the fact that my name has been mentioned a number of times by certain witnesses,” he said.

Anwar denied BNM former assistant governor Datuk Abdul Murad Khalid’s claim on Monday that he, in his capacity as then finance minister, had ordered for the matter to be kept a secret.

“That allegation is false. I never said that to him. I should stress that there was no need for me to say such a thing to a functionary like Murad, who was sent by (then) BNM governor Tan Sri Jaffar Hussein to brief me on technical aspects of the accounting done by BNM and the contents of their annual report. I must stress that at all other times, I dealt directly with Tan Sri Jaffar.”

He said he read Murad’s statement, who had alleged that on a flight to Hawaii in early 1994, he had briefed Anwar on the forex losses and if the losses were made public, the latter would have to resign as finance minister.

Anwar described the exchange as a “clear malicious insinuation”, that he had implied a coverup was needed.

“I had been dealing with the issue of the BNM forex losses since April 1993 when I was replying in Parliament based on figures and information in BNM’s published 1992 report and their briefings to me. I did the same again in Parliament in April 1994 based on BNM’s 1993 report and their updates to me,” he said.

He accused Murad of being hostile towards him since 1999, when the latter published a sworn statutory declaration making “false and scurrilous accusations” against him.

“This declaration was investigated by the then Anti-Corruption Agency and found to be completely baseless. A High Court judge affirmed these findings and said ‘the declaration had been discredited’ when he ruled in my favour in my libel suit against the New Straits Times, which published an article referring to the declaration.”

He added that he would reiterate the statements to the commission when they called him as a witness to assist their inquiry.

“I say ‘when I am called’ because I would consider it quite unjust if other witnesses are allowed to make prejudicial allegations against me in front of the commission and I am not allowed to make my response to them in the same manner.”

Anwar was finance minister from 1991 to 1998 and had in the past claimed that former BNM assistant governor Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop did not provide a complete report on the billions of ringgit in forex losses suffered by the central bank.

The RCI, which has been given five terms of reference, has to complete its inquiry and submit its report to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong within three months by the scheduled date of Oct 13.