RCI DISMISSES REQUEST FOR CLOSED-DOOR PROCEEDINGS
RCI chairman says the proceedings are an inquiry, not a trial
THE Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) yesterday rejected Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) request to hold the inquiry into its foreign exchange (forex) market losses in the 1980s and 1990s behind closed doors.
A lawyer representing BNM told the RCI panel that several documents involved in the probe were classified under the Official Secrets Act (OSA).
He said revealing the documents to the public might implicate the witnesses who were scheduled to testify at the hearing.
“Two witnesses from BNM have no immunity to criminal action for breaching OSA.
“We have an alternative suggestion — exclude the press and public from the investigation,” said Datuk Tan Hock Chuan during yesterday’s inquiry at the Palace of Justice court complex here.
RCI chairman Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan rejected Tan’s request, saying the proceedings were an inquiry and not a trial.
“If everything is under OSA, there is no point in having this inquiry.”
He said nobody was on trial during the RCI, and that the panel was merely trying to get to the truth.
“I have been advised that this is an inquiry and not a trial.
“We have been commissioned by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to do this.
“We have very limited time to do it, which requires us to submit a report to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong on Oct 13.”
Two witnesses testified on Monday morning — retired BNM senior officer Abdul Aziz Abdul Manaf and Labuan Financial Services Authority director-general Datuk Ahmad Hizzad Baharuddin, who had conducted an internal audit of BNM in the past.
Aziz said he was tasked in 2007 by then BNM governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz with coming up with reports on the losses and gains made in BNM’s forex trading between 1988 and 1994.
Hizzad said the audit report he made was about what BNM should do to “improve things”, and not so much about finding out who was responsible for the forex losses.
He said this was why he could not comment on what had been reported by the media.
Former BNM assistant governor Datuk Abdul Murad Khalid testified later in the afternoon.
Murad was among six witnesses scheduled to give their testimony at the RCI hearing yesterday. He was the third witness to be called.