Arul Kanda defends 1MDB in BBC interview

1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) has stood firm in countering allegations of misconduct pertaining to the company's finances.

In an exclusive interview with the BBC, 1MDB president and CEO, Arul Kanda Kandasamy once again dismissed claims that company funds had ended up in the private accounts of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

“The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has clearly stated that no funds from 1MDB went into the private accounts of the Prime Minister. This is a fact,” said Arul Kanda in the interview with Karishma Vaswani, BBC Asia’s business correspondent.

“And the anti-corruption commission has also clearly stated that the source of the funds, which is a private donor, in the Middle East.

“1MDB has consistently maintained, no funds from 1MDB were ever transferred into the accounts of the Prime Minister,” Arul Kanda added.

When asked by Vaswani about public perception in Malaysia that some money was mismanaged and found its way from companies linked to 1MDB to the Prime Minister, Arul Kanda replied: “Perceptions, I agree with you, are poor and a lot of efforts need to be made to fix that.

“But from my perspective, rather than getting into a war of words with politicians and former politicians… I’m not a politician, I’m a business guy, and my job is to ensure we get to monetize those assets in a way that delivers best value for the shareholders.”

Earlier, in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, Najib had reportedly told US investors to ignore the “noise” back home in Malaysia related to 1MDB, and instead look at how resilient Malaysia’s economy is despite the slow global and domestic economic growth.

In the Bernama report, the Prime Minister said the company was expected to soon announce a further reduction of its total debt by about RM16 billion.

He had also reiterated that the government would turn the company around by this year end.