FORMER Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak lashed out at Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim for implicating his name in the Pandora Papers expose.
“I have mentioned this numerous times. My name was never mentioned in the Pandora Papers and I don’t have any off shore accounts,” he lashed out in a Facebook post.
Yesterday, Anwar told Australia’s ABC Radio that his aim to become prime minister has become very challenging due to the Pandora Papers expose; revealing several Malaysian leaders parking their funds off shore such as former Finance Minister Tun Daim Zainuddin, Finance Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz and Umno president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.
He also mentioned Najib’s name in the interview.
“Well, when you’re taking up the Pandora Papers issue, it would only make it more challenging to achieve that (PM position).
“The whole power apparatus, political elites, conglomerates and apparatchiks in the media will gun for you. So, I don’t worry about that.
“I just do my tasks, que será será. If I continue to be the opposition leader, so be it. If (I become) prime minister, I will say thank God Almighty,” The Malay Mail reported him as saying.
Misquoting reports
On that note, Najib accused Anwar of misquoting the Global Financing Integrity (GFI) report in regards to illicit capital outflow from Malaysia, giving an impression that billions had been stolen and parked offshore by Malaysian politicians and criminals.
He added that GFI was more about trade misinvoicing, where multinational corporations and Malaysia companies evade taxes using levy rate differences among other countries.
“That was one of the reasons I introduced the goods and services tax (GST). Without it, we couldn’t reduce corporate tax and income tax, which affected our competitive edge to gain investors.
“Reducing corporate tax is important in an effort to curb illicit capital outflow, which was already a problem before I became the prime minister.
“For example, in 2004 Malaysia lost 21.2% of its gross domestic product (GDP) to illicit capital outflow. In 2005, it was at 24.6%,” Najib stated.
The Pekan MP added: “It’s ironic that Pakatan Harapan leaders play up the illicit capital outflow issue to hoodwink the people but they were the ones who abolished GST, which was a good way to resolve the issue.” – Oct 9, 2021
