From Malaysiakini news
Don't
be daft, Al-Jubeir has not cleared Najib!
Kee Thuan Chye
Published Today 8:00 am Updated Today
8:45 am 1 comments
COMMENT | Has Saudi Foreign Minister Adel
Al-Jubeir settled Najib Razak’s RM2.6 billion scandal and cleared the prime
minister of wrongdoing by merely saying, “We are aware of the donation and it
is a genuine donation with nothing expected in return”?
I certainly don’t think so. And I’m sure neither would any
individual with grey matter in their brain.
Al-Jubeir said that in response to a question by a Bernama reporter
at the 13th Summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in Istanbul on
April 15. But I think the reporter asked the wrong question.
She asked Al-Jubeir, “Are you aware of the background and the
details regarding the donation to the prime minister of Malaysia?” (I may not
have got it exactly word-for-word because the sound quality of the video I saw
of the press conference is not all that clear, but I think my rendering of it
is pretty close.)
Of course he would be aware! Unless he was someone who had his
head stuck in the sand. So, what a question to ask!
Besides, he had just come from a meeting with none other than
Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak on the sidelines of the summit. He would
probably have been suitably briefed. So what could the reporter expect him to say?
Well, apart from saying he was aware of the
“donation”, he added, “We are also fully aware that the attorney-general (AG)
of Malaysia has thoroughly investigated the matter and found no wrongdoing. So,
as far as we are concerned, the matter is closed.”
Speaking as a former journalist, I would have posed the question
differently to Al-Jubeir. I would have asked him, “Can you confirm that a
donation of US$681 million was made to Najib by Saudi Arabia and that it came
from the Saudi royal family?”
His answer to such a question might get us somewhere. Would he
then say yes, the donation was from the royal family?
If so, I would proceed to ask him how he could demonstrate
conclusively that the donation did come from the Saudi royal family, and why
they did not issue a public statement when the scandal broke out to affirm this
donation - in order to save Najib from embarrassment.
I would also ask him why he was now saying something different
from what he had said more than two months ago to the New York Times,
which reported on February 5:
“In Saudi Arabia, Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said that he
accepted the attorney general’s opinion that there had been no wrongdoing, but
he also said that he did not think that the money had come from the Saudi
government or that it was a political donation.
“‘It is a private Saudi citizen, I believe, and the funds went to
an investment in Malaysia,’ he said in an interview on Thursday.”
From “investment” to “donation” - that’s a big leap. And notice
that in February, he said he believed that the money came from a private
citizen, not the Saudi government.
Where does the truth actually lie? Why is the Saudi minister
flip-flopping like the Malaysian government tends to do?
More grilling needed
It’s obvious that for us to be convinced, we need to further grill
Al-Jubeir to get the important answers and elaborate, truthful information from
him. Until we achieve that, we cannot possibly jump to the conclusion that his
statement has cleared Najib.
And yet we have Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin
promptly declaring on April 16 that Al-Jubeir’s statement has resolved the
RM2.6 billion donation issue involving Najib.
He said, “The Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister has confirmed that
the donation is a contribution that does not expect anything in return. So it
is valid and the issue is settled.”
How shallow that is! Just because of the say-so of the Saudi
minister, the case is “settled”? Can a billion-ringgit scandal be settled so
easily? Does Khairy lack grey matter?
How can Al-Jubeir’s statement be “valid” when it contradicted what
he said in February?
In February, why didn’t Khairy accept Al-Jubeir’s word as gospel
(as he does now) and announce that based on it, the AG must be wrong in
declaring that it was a donation and that it came from the Saudi royal family?
Why didn’t Khairy demand then that the AG investigate the case further to get
at the truth?
Reacting as he does now, Khairy comes across looking like he’s
involved in a scheme to cover things up.
So does the AG himself, Mohamad Apandi Ali. On April 17, he
responded to Al-Jubeir’s statement in a similarly addlepated fashion.
He said he was “relieved” by Al-Jubeir’s confirmation that the
donation to Najib came from Saudi Arabia.
“For me the issue is settled,” he told Utusan Malaysia.
“There have been calls for further investigation, but I don’t feel that it is
necessary. There is already a statement from the donor, so what is there left
to be investigated?”
In Apandi’s case, the response appears to be a convenient one as
well.
Because, to be sure, Al-Jubeir has confirmed only half of Apandi’s
declaration about the “donation”. Al-Jubeir did not confirm that it came from
the Saudi royal family. But Apandi conveniently overlooks that.
He is also wrong in saying that Al-Jubeir’s statement came from
the donor. It does not. Al-Jubeir does not represent the donor, and he was not
conveying an official communiqué from the Saudi government.
His response to the Bernama reporter was
off-the-cuff. It was not a statement that had been officially issued by the
Saudi government. How much clout does an off-the-cuff statement have?
Is it enough to dismiss a huge scandal without providing any
evidence to back up what was said?
Questions unanswered
On top of everything else, there are still so many questions left
unanswered.
Why did Najib keep the “donation” secret from even his fellow Umno
leaders? Isn’t Khairy himself peeved that he knew nothing about it until the
scandal was exposed? How can he still defend Najib after the fact? Why does he
not instead question the whole issue rigorously?
And what about the deposits other than the RM2.6 billion allegedly
made to Najib’s account? Is that aspect of the scandal “settled” too?
I reiterate, Al-Jubeir has contributed nothing conclusive or even
significant to the scandal surrounding Najib. The case is not closed. If our
officials entrusted with the integrity of our nation do not probe it further to
arrive at nothing but the truth, if all they want to do is to protect their
master, they are committing the worst sin of public office.
Meanwhile, they should stop looking like dimwits and ass-kissers.
It does not become such trustees of the nation’s well-being.
KEE THUAN CHYE is the author of bestsellers ‘Unbelivably Stupid!’
and ‘Unbelievably Stupid Too!’
Related stories
Comments
Post a Comment