‘I refused to clear Najib’s name’

Zeti turned down ex-PM’s request after news broke of RM2.6bil deposit

PETALING JAYA: A day after news broke that RM2.6bil went into the personal account of the former prime minister, Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz (pic) was called in to help clear his name.

Zeti, who was the Bank Negara governor then, said that Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak requested for her to issue a statement on July 3, 2016, stating that he had done nothing wrong and she refused.

A minister in Najib’s Cabinet also called Zeti and made the request for her to issue such a statement.

A day earlier, Wall Street Journal broke the story that investigators probing 1Malaysia Development Bhd ( 1MDB) had discovered that some US$700mil had been deposited into Najib’s account.

Zeti, who retired in 2016 after heading the central bank for 16 years, said in a statement she informed Najib and the minister that she could not issue such a statement because she did not have any knowledge of what transpired in the account.

“I informed him (Najib) that I could not issue such a statement because I did not have knowledge of transactions that had occurred in his account. “I later received a call from another Cabinet minister who made the same request for me to issue the statement.

“I gave him the same answer that I could not issue any such statement because I did not have knowledge of what transpired in his account,” she said in response to questions in relation to the RM2.6bil.

Najib in an interview with MalaysiaKini last week had said that Zeti and Bank Negara had known about the RM2.6bil going into his account a few weeks before the 2013 general election and did not raise the “red flag” of any wrongdoing.

Najib, who is now under arrest by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) in relation to investigations into SRC International Sdn Bhd, had said that the money was a donation from Saudi Arabia and not from 1MDB. SRC International used to be a subsidiary of 1MDB before it was taken over by the Ministry of Finance.

“I had no knowledge of the RM2.6bil remitted to his account,” said Zeti.

The RM2.6bil was deposited into Najib’s personal account in AmBank sometime in March 2013. Najib called for a general election a month later.

Bank Negara had fined at least two banks and 1MDB for offences related to the Financial Services Act related to the transaction of funds from the beleaguered fund. The total fines imposed were RM115.8mil.

Zeti said that on matters relating to transactions by account holders, Bank Negara relied on information provided by the banks themselves.

“Unless the relevant banking institution reports to Bank Negara on irregularities in an account or if Bank Negara receives a tip-off that gives a reason to believe that an offence has occurred, the central bank is not able to initiate investigations into that individual account,” she said.

Banks are supposed to initiate a Suspicious Transaction Report (STR) if there are large deposits going into the accounts of individuals.

In the case of the RM2.6bil, AmBank groupwas fined RM53.7mil for not alerting the central bank through an STR.