“It’s clearing the deck for restructuring.”

THE resignation of Khazanah Nasional Berhad’s Managing Director and board members will enable the Government to restructure the sovereign wealth fund accordingly.

In welcoming the offers of resignation from the entire board, Prime Minister YAB Tun Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad said the board members’ resignation is a move to “clear the deck to allow the Government to restructure it” in line with policies of the new administration.

Dr Mahathir stressed that it is the Prime Minister’s prerogative to appoint the fund’s new board members, re-designation to other entities and to retain some of them to allow for continuity.

He said the Government is not on a witch-hunt.

“We do not regard everyone as guilty of everything, but this administration will not accept obvious wrongdoings.

“This action of clearing the deck will allow restructuring as our policies are now different. While we believe in paying good salaries we cannot all the time base it on commercial rates. We would rather focus on rewarding with good bonuses tied to performance as some companies may not perform as they should.”

On reports that RM2 billion had been wiped out from Bursa Malaysia, Dr Mahathir asserted the amount of paper loss was nothing compared to the burden of RM1 trillion debt that had been inherited and is now to be shouldered by the current Government.

“The amount of debt is real, the amount needed to service the debts is real. And most of the amounts “invested” by the previous administration has yet to be recovered as we do not know where they have been invested in”.

On former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s comment on the PH Government’s policies as “returning to bygone era”, Dr Mahathir asked if the people preferred to return to the era of Najib’s administration?

“The bygone era is the era when Malaysia was known as an Asian Tiger. Is he saying that the people should be taken back to the era when the nation was known as a kleptocracy led by a kleptocrat?”

PRIME MINISTER’S OFFICE
PUTRAJAYA
JULY 27, 2018