Malaysian minister: Former government lacks transparency in property dealings
Malaysian Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng has affirmed that former Prime Minister Najib Razak's government led by the National Front showed the lack of transparency in property transactions worth over 4 billion USD during the 2010 – 2017 period.
Former Prime Minister Najib Razak (Photo: Xinhua)
Lim said much of the government land sale during this period was undertaken via direct negotiations and not on the basis of open tenders, adding that 14 plots of land owned by the Federal Lands Commissioner in Kuala Lumpur, and two in Selangor, were sold from 2010 to September 2019 in a dubious manner.
Meanwhile, the business of divestments and disposal of non-core and non-critical assets of the country was under the purview of the Prime Minister’s Department, aimed at rebalancing government portfolio and realigning the role of the public sector.
Razak is now focus of a scandal involving the 1MDB fund founded by himself in 2009 for socio-economic development.
Malaysian and US investigators said the fund has lost nearly 4.5 billion USD, about 1 billion USD of which was sent to Razak’s individual accounts.
The former PM now faces 42 counts of corruption and money laundering. He pleaded not guilty and denounced the charges as politically motivated./.
