Dr M pins losses on ex-BNM assistant

‘Abdul Murad just as involved in hiding truth on forex by only exposing it now’

PETALING JAYA: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has pinned the blame over Bank Negara Malaysia’s forex losses in the 1990s on its former assistant governor Datuk Abdul Murad Khalid.

Dr Mahathir argued that as a banker, Abdul Murad had known about the losses but chose to keep quiet about it and only revealed his knowledge 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 wrote in his blog chedet.cc yesterday.

The Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on the issue began in August after Abdul Murad revealed in June that the central bank’s losses amounted to at least US$10bil (then RM25bil).

During the RCI, Abdul Murad, who had taken over as manager of BNM’s Banking Department in April 1992, said that he learned of the losses only in May of that year.

He also claimed that the forex losses were not reflected in the bank’s profit and loss account, but were recorded in the “other reserves” account.

In his testimony, he said former deputy prime minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was briefed on the matter, and that Abdul Murad was told that Anwar would have needed to resign from his finance minister’s position if the real losses were revealed to the public.

Dr Mahathir, who is now Pakatan Harapan chairman, said it was clear that the RCI report merely focused on the involvement of the then prime minister, deputy prime minister, the finance minister and head of BNM’s money market division.

“Everything is based on a presumption. And this presumption is considered as the truth for the police to take action.

“The RCI is not the judiciary, but its report is more about punishing those involved,” he said.