In a flashback on his meeting with then president Donald Trump in 2017, former prime minister Najib Razak said his pledge to get the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) to invest in the US saw the opposition criticising him harshly.
However, he claims to have been vindicated now by the fairly high returns the fund has paid out as dividends in 2018 and 2019, with the rate for last year expected to equal the one declared by ASB at 4.45% or even higher.
“EPF has often reaped benefits by investing abroad and hence that is why it was able to ensure better returns for its members.
“When I was prime minister, I had pushed the EPF to invest in the US, which saw it making handsome returns.
So Najib admits he is not stupid, confirming that he must have realised just like the rest of the world that 1MDB was a massive fraud.
Neither are the informed public stupid either. The informed public was criticising Najib for making an embarrassment of Malaysia by offering to ‘help’ the US economy and to buy a fleet of new Boeing jets Malaysia most certainly did not need.
Those orders were never made. If EPF subsequently made good investments in the US then that will have had little to do with Najib.
The ex-PM should reflect how unfortunate it is that the country’s own pension fund could not make similar profits investing in its own country which would have provided jobs as well as pensions…. but presumably his record as Finance Minister did not provide the necessary economic buoyancy to do so.
This deluded chap should focus on completing the writ against Tommy Thomas for allegedly accusing him of murdering Altantuya, which he had claimed would arrive last Monday.