Straits Times stands by report on 1MDB debts

PETALING JAYA (Oct 17): Responding to political secretary to the finance minister Tony Pua, who denied ST reports on interest payments for a 1MDB bond, The Straits Times editor has said it stands by its reporter. 

The Oct 7 report in question, said an interest payment of US$50.3 million (RM209.25 million) for a huge debt owed to Abu Dhabi that falls due in mid-October represents the first financial commitment that Pakatan Harapan must honour over 1MDB affairs since coming to power.

In a statement quoted by The Edge Financial Daily, Pua said: “The interest payment in October is certainly not the first this administration has faced with the 1MDB bonds. On May 31, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng announced that he had very reluctantly signed off the interest payment of RM143.75 million on the previous day for a 1MDB bond ‘guaranteed’ by International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC).”

Another ST report on the same date, by the same writer, reported that “the conundrum facing the Malaysian government is that the commitments listed in the IPIC statement to the London Stock Exchange, amounting to roughly US$6.89 billion before interest charges, is more than double the sum Kuala Lumpur believes is owed to Abu Dhabi”. 

Pua said he had checked the IPIC statement to the London bourse, and the Abu Dhabi company had stated that the guarantee for IPIC debts amounting to about US$6.89 billion will be assumed by its parent company, Mubadala Development Company PJSC.

He also said the announcement at the same time disclosed that the “guaranteed obligations” provided by IPIC for the two 1MDB bonds amounting to US$3.5 billion will also be assumed by Mubadala.

In response to Pua, ST regional correspondent Leslie Lopez, who wrote the Oct 7 report as well as the other report says, in this excerpt from the Straits Times: “Malaysian government lawyers remain in the dark about the settlement agreement between 1MDB and Abu Dhabi because they are unable to source documentation related to the deal.

“The London lawyers appointed by the Malaysian government have been instructed to look into the possibility that the notes cited in the IPIC announcement could be tied to 1MDB, he added.”

The Straits Times has said that the paper stood by its reporter, and that reports filed were “based on documents and information from highly placed and reliable sources.”