Opposition tight-lipped on Dr M-Johari foreign reserve loss feud
KUALA LUMPUR: Pakatan Harapan leaders are tight-lipped over the feud between Second Finance Minister Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani and former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad on Bank Negara Malaysia’s RM160 billion foreign reserve losses between 2013 and 2015.
DAP’s Klang member of parliament Charles Santiago said he was not the right person to comment as he had not been keeping track on the issue.
“I have not been following the issue, so I am not the best person to comment,” he told the New Straits Times.
Similarly, PKR secretary-general Datuk Saifuddin Nasution Ismail and DAP vice-chairman Datuk Teng Chang Khim, who is also Selangor state executive council member, declined to elaborate.
In a blog post last week, Dr Mahathir said the outflow of
US$39.6 billion (RM160 billion) from 2013 to 2015 could only be caused by Bank Negara selling US dollars from its reserves to prop up a weak ringgit.
Johari had clarified that the losses were due to outflows of foreign funds, and not caused by speculative foreign exchange trading.
He penned an open letter on
Tuesday that during the administration of Dr Mahathir, Bank Negara was involved in “voluminous” foreign-exchange trading in 1992 and 1993 amounting to a staggering RM750 billion in 1993 from an average RM140 billion in 1992 and a substantial portion of the transactions was very speculative.
Economists said the central
bank’s massive bets in foreign exchange trading during the early 1990s could have led to a severe liquidity and financial crisis.
Malaysia teetered on the edge of collapse when Bank Negara incurred losses of RM31 billion from “voluminous” forex trading in 1992 and 1993 during the administration of Dr Mahathir.