Tun M: 1MDB should be held accountable for losses incurred

PETALING JAYA: Former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (pix) said 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) should still be held accountable for the billions it had lost even if the current outstanding debts are fully paid up through the sale of assets.
In his blog posting today, Mahathir said that in any business, money can be lost through bad investments or bad management. He said that is acceptable though the
company's chief executive officer and its managers should be sacked.
"But when the money is lost and the management cannot explain where it went and how it disappeared then the management is responsible, even if there is any bailout or the debts are paid," he added.
Furthermore, he said that until the management is able to show the large sums of money it claimed to have invested in Cayman Islands and brought back to Singapore in tangible form, the management is assumed to have misappropriated the money unless otherwise proven.
On the issue of the recently implemented Goods and Services Tax (GST), Mahathir said that the government can avoid this additional tax on the people by reducing its own cost.
He pointed out that educating and training people for higher-paying jobs where incomes will increase substantially in return for work done is a far better way than giving out money to all and sundry because in most cases the recipients might not really need the money.
"Raising wages without increases in productivity, increasing the number of holidays, substituting those falling on weekends, fixing high minimum wages, wasting money on luxuries – all these actually increases the government expenditure which then resulted in increased deficits.
"Hence, probably with better financial management, GST need not be imposed on the people because by introducing GST, the government is actually asking the people, including those who are not in the income tax bracket to bail out the government," he said.