Call on the Bank Bumiputra Chairman and other Board Members to resign if they are not prepared to implement the recommendations and findings of the Ahmad Nordin BMF Inquiry Committee

by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Kota Melaka, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Thursday, March 13, 1986:

Call on the Bank Bumiputra Chairman and other Board Members to resign if they are not prepared to implement the recommendations and findings of the Ahmad Nordin BMF Inquiry Committee

Bank Bumiputra Chairman, Tan Sri Bashir Ismail and the Bank BumiputraBoard members should resign if they are not prepared to implement the recommendations and finding of the Ahmad Nordin BMF Inquiry Committee, either because they lack the power to act independently or for fear of alienating powerful and influential people.

It is now three months since the Ahmad Nordin Inquiry Committee submitted the BMF Final Report together with Special Brief Part III to the Bank Bumiputra. The other six reports and briefs were submitted very much earlier, the first one -Interim Report- was submitted as far back as 3/11/1984.

It is just not good enough, three months after the submission of the BMF Final Report and Special Brief on a scandal which had started seven long years ago, to say that the bank’s panel of lawyers “is looking into all angles in the BMF issue, from the final report and outside it, and will take action against all involved” and that the bank’s lawyers were “working all the time”. If the bank’s lawyers are so unproductive in the terms of results, probably the Bank should consider changing its lawyers!

Where the Ahmad Nordin Inquiry Committee had made specific recommendations and findings, the Bank Bumiputra is morally bound implement, or the Bank Bumiputra would have wasted two years of work of the three-member committee and two millions dollars of the bank money for nothing. This would constitute a new negligence and irresponsibility on the part of Bank Bumiputra Board.

I want to clarify my position on my ultimatum to the Bank Bumiputra Board issued in Parliament on Tuesday, 11th March 1986, that I will lodge a report with the police and turn over the BMF Final Report and Special Briefs, especially with regard to former BBMB Board Chairman, Dr. Nawawi Mat Awin, in connection with Bank Bumiputra’s acquisition of Carrian’s US Assets for US $85 million if the Bank Bumiputra Board does not do so in 24 hours.

I have decide not to immediately take the matter to the Police myself and lodge a police report and turn over to the Police the BMF Final Report and the Special Briefs, and all the volumes of exhibits, because this will enable the Bank Bumiputra Board and the Government to escape from their duty and responsibility cheaply – by claiming that since I have lodged a police report, they need not implement the Inquiry Committee’s proposal recommendations and findings any more. They would wash their hands and say, ‘Let’s wait for the police outcome’.

The Bank Bumiputra Board and Government must not be allowed to escape from their responsibility so easily. The weight and pressure of public opinion must continue to implement the Inquiry Committee’s recommendations and findings, I reserve the option, however, to lodge a police report on the basis of the three Inquiry Committee Special Briefs at any future time.

No more empty words from Attorney-General, but action!
The Malaysian people are also thoroughly fed up with the meaningless refrain from the Attorney-General, Tan Sri Abu Talib Othman, that he would not hesitate to institute criminal proceedings against anyone involved in the BMF loans scandal if he had sufficient evidence against them.

Malaysians have before them the biggest banking and financial scandal in world history for s single institution, and yet, for the last four years since the public disclosure of the scandal, the Attorney-General had been saying only one thing: ‘No evidence, no prosecution.’ The Attorney-General should get to work to get the evidence and start the prosecution, instead of waiting for evidence to fall from the skies.