Salleh: Attack on former BNM man misplaced

PETALING JAYA: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s attack on Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) former assistant governor is misplaced as he should be blaming his nemesis-turned-ally Lim Kit Siang instead, says Datuk Seri Dr Salleh Said Keruak.

The Communications and Multimedia Minister said the former prime minister should not have pinned the blame on Datuk Abdul Murad Khalid as the former banker had merely testified in the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) that the real amount of foreign exchange (forex) losses suffered by BNM was RM31.5bil, and not RM5.7bil.

“Dr Mahathir should not be angry with Murad. Instead he should be angry with Lim.

“It was Kit Siang, who for 20 years has been asking for the RCI on Bank Negara’s forex losses,” said Salleh in a blog post yesterday.

The minister said now that Dr Mahathir needed Lim as a political ally and Lim needed the former premier “for the Malay votes”, both have done U-turns regarding BNM’s forex losses in the 1990s.

“Was it not Kit Siang who demanded the truth and Dr Mahathir who said he only seeks the truth?” Salleh wrote.

On Wednesday, Dr Mahathir wrote on his blog that Abdul Murad had known about the losses but chose to keep quiet about it and only revealed it recently.

“He could have exposed it much earlier, as well as the officers and the auditors involved, but he did not.

“If the then prime minister and the then deputy prime minister are accused of hiding losses of up to RM30bil, Abdul Murad was even more involved in hiding the truth,” Dr Mahathir said.