SHAH ALAM, 12 Dec: The Federal Government has been urged to follow the British model of creating the world’s first central public registry of corporate beneficial ownership information to stop the outflow of dirty money which is becoming worse in this country.
The DAP Secretary General, Lim Guan Eng, said that Malaysia is now the ‘world champion’ with USD 370.38 Billion (RM1.2 Trillion) of dirty money or illicit outflow of funds between 2002-2011 from crime, corruption and tax evasion.
He said that Malaysia recorded RM173.84 billion (US$54.18 billion) of illicit funds outflow or dirty money siphoned out of Malaysia in 2011, ranked fourth worst in the world.
For 2011, Malaysia is behind giants Russia (US$191.14 billion), China (US$151.35 billion) and India (US$84.93 billion).
“Clearly Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) has been ineffective and incompetent at best and at worst downright irresponsible and criminally negligent in stopping the illicit outflow of funds despite setting up a task force in 2010 to implement measures to stop the outflow of dirty money,” Guan Eng said in his press statement.
He said, according to Washington-based financial watchdog Global Financial Integrity (GFI) Report, despite a smaller population Malaysia has a higher illicit funds outflow than many larger populated countries in the world from 2002-11 of USD 370.38 billion.
Crime, corruption and tax evasion has been identified as amongst the main causes. With a total of RM1.2 trillion or USD 370.38 billion lost from dirty money between 2002-11.
“This huge loss of funds from dirty money is larger than Malaysia’s GDP this year or next year,” he said.
Guan Eng said that the BN Government should address this shameful title accorded to Malaysia by punishing those responsible for huge financial scandals such as the RM 52 billion bumis shares scandal where ordinary Malays missed out on these shares which disappeared presumably to BN leaders.
“The RM14 billion Port Klang Free Trade Zone scandal and the annual exposes of financial malpractices highlighted in the annual Auditor-General Report (involving amounts of RM 6.5 billion in 2012). To date no one has been punished,” said Guan Eng.
