>>4532584
Interview 2 years ago:
Question: The current Prime Minister is also the Finance Minister, and also the head of 1MDB, the government’s financial investment company.
Petronas reports directly to the Prime Minister's Office.
The Chairman of Petronas is also on the Board of Advisors of 1MDB.
In March 2015, Petronas raised USD $5 billion via Sukuk (Islamic bonds).
Was this USD $5 billion raised by Petronas related to 1MDB debts?
Dr. Mahathir: I cannot say for sure. But what happened with 1MDB is that, initially, it wanted to access the Terengganu royalty given to the state of Terengganu. But Terengganu objected, because they [ would ] lose control of their own funds, so the next step was to set up a company, with 1 million Ringgit capital, and borrowing 42 billion Ringgit. Forty-two thousand times more than your capital! This is absurd.
But of course, it means there must be a government guarantee. So when the government guarantees that, well it has to ensure that there must be payment for the debt. And if they had actually invested in real business, if they invest wisely, they may be able to repay their loans.
But what is strange is that the terms of borrowing is very unfavorable to 1MDB. They bought the power plants at above market value, and these are power plants which are about to lose their license; they are at the end of their license period they have. So you could actually wait until they have no more license, then
the government can acquire at fire sale price. But they made a decision to buy at above market value. That also means that there is a heavy burden on 1MDB. It will not be able to repay the loan that is laid, they even assume the debt of the power plants. So altogether they spent 18 billion Ringgit on that. As you know, they recently sold it at below purchasing price. So they definitely would have lost more than a billion Ringgit.
The other investments are very fuzzy. PetroSaudi, etc. and putting money in Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, and all that, we don’t know what happened to the money. Obviously they are not earning enough to repay the loan. And we don’t even know where the money is. And so I think that it is 1MDB money which went into [ Prime Minister ] Najib’s private account. He has not been able to prove that it is not. I mean, he gave explanations which are ridiculous. So, I suspect that it is 1MDB money which is stashed away in his account.
But you think money that is borrowed and put into your account, how do you earn enough to repay the balance? So at the moment, the government has to stand guarantee, but the government has no money. So indirectly, it has to squeeze Petronas, not directly for 1MDB, but squeeze Petronas to support the government. And the government will then try to pay for the loans that they have taken. And that too, they are not able to do.
So they are in a very tight spot. They are not able to service their loan, they have these heavy borrowings, and terms which are very bad. For example, giving Goldman Sachs 10% commission, and the interest rate is 5.9%. Normally government borrow at 3%. I borrowed before from the Japanese at 0.7%, repayable over 40
years. But this is terrible, the rate is very high. So, whatever they do, they are going to be in grave trouble.
Because I can’t imagine any investment they make could exceed the rate of interest they have to pay on their loans. So I think indirectly, Petronas will have … not contributed to 1MDB, but contributed to the government so that the government can somehow support 1MDB.
And they have been playing around with the EPF money, EPF has a lot of money. And the other pension fund.
So, very indirectly, there will be some needs of the government which have to be met by Petronas.