Finance Ministry: IMDB funds from Cayman Islands are kept in BSI Bank

KUALA LUMPUR: The Finance Ministry today told the Dewan Rakyat that 1Malaysia Development Berhad's (1MDB) investment funds from Cayman Islands have been redeemed in the form of assets and are being kept in Singapore’s BSI Bank.
In its parliamentary written reply to Tony Pua (DAP-Petaling Jaya Utara), the ministry said: “1MDB has explained that the balance investment funds that have been redeemed are in the form of assets in US currency in a bank in Singapore to balance its denominated liability.
“The bank is the custodian for 1MDB’s assets,” the ministry said.
It also stated that the ministry is amending its answers to Pua in March stating that the Cayman Islands investment funds were redeemed in the form of cash and are still kept in BSI Bank in US currency.
Slamming 1MDB and stating that it had “lied” to the people that there was a lot of cash in the account, Pua demanded that 1MDB provide a clear explanation for this misinformation.
Questioning the change in the government’s answer, Pua urged the government to reveal the real value of the assets as he believed that this was the cause of 1MDB’s problem in servicing its debts.
“This is an admission that it has no cash in BSI Bank in Singapore. It is an admission that the whole redemption of its investments in Cayman Islands is a lie.
“It is paper, not cash. What they did was they shifted the paper assets from Caymans to Singapore,” he told a press conference at the Parliament lobby today.
Pua said in March he had questioned specifically on whether the US$1.1 billion (RM3.98 billion) which 1MDB redeemed from Cayman Islands was in the form of cash or still kept in the form of assets.
“The balance investment fund managed by the Cayman Monetary Authority was redeemed in the form of cash money and is still kept in US currency in the BSI Bank Limited Singapore.
The decision to use the Singapore bank was to ease the transaction process looking at the regulation stipulated by BNM (Bank Negara Malaysia), which requires its approval to withdraw more than RM50 million cash,” the Finance Ministry had replied on March 10.