Lessons can be learnt from the 1MDB controversy as the country progresses forward, said CIMB group chairman Datuk Seri Nazir Razak.
Nazir said this was so that there would not be a moral hazard where people think they can get away with anything.
He added that people responsible for any wrongdoings should be held accountable so that no one would dare to do it again.
“Something did go wrong in 1MDB and no one can deny that. The total debt was way out of range of its capital base,” said Nazir.
He added that in 2009, 1MDB raised a RM5bil bond n the capital market.
“I was not privy to information about it,” said Nazir while responding to the audience during the question-and-answer session of the StarLIVE Power Talks-Business Series at Menara Star attended by Star Media Group chairman Datuk Fu Ah Kiow and Star Media Group CEO Datuk Seri Wong Chun Wai .
However, he added that his bonds team showed him that the transactions were not properly priced and were handled in a very unusual manner.
The brother of the PM has spent his career as a responsible senior banker and has increasingly made his concerns clear about the way Malaysia has been run by his sibling and wife.
It has become one of those countries where certain people think they “can get away with anything” he laments and he makes clear this mentality must end for survival of the economy and the well-being of the people.
He focuses on 1MDB, where the management still persist in denying a single impropriety has taken place, but where he himself flagged up issues from the very start in 2009.
The CEO of 1MDB Arul Kanda and former CEO Shahrol Halmi appear to think they can continue to lie that all is well, because they have the backing of the all-powerful brother of Nazir and his wife, who have been nicknamed amongst close associates ‘Bonnie & Clyde’.
Bonnie & Clyde also appeared to imagine they could get away with everything, as long as they had a fast horse….