KUALA LUMPUR, March 15 — Pekan MP Datuk Seri Najib Razak has submitted his written explanation on his remark early this month, that the government has yet to service 1MDB’s principal debt.

Dewan Rakyat Speaker Tan Sri Azhar Azizan Harun’s office confirmed the matter to the media when asked.

"Yes, Datuk Seri Najib Razak had submitted it before 10am this morning,” Azhar’s office said.

On March 9, Azhar told the Dewan Rakyat that he approved Najib’s appeal for time after calls were made for the former prime minister to explain his remark on 1MDB.

He said that Najib had written to him, and that he had agreed to give the Pekan MP some grace period to appear before the House to explain.

On that basis, the Dewan Rakyat Speaker also rejected Damansara MP Tony Pua’s application to discipline Najib for refusing to appear before members of Parliament and clarify his remark that Putrajaya has not used "a single sen” of public monies to repay 1MDB’s principal debt.

Opposition lawmakers had alleged Najib’s assertion was misleading.

"Yesterday, I received a letter from Pekan asking for more time until next Wednesday to explain. I had approved the request by Tuesday morning,” Azhar told Pua on March 9, when chairing the meeting.

"So there is no question about whether or not Najib had defied my order,” he added.

Pua tried to file a motion to refer Najib to the Rights and Privileges Committee. He accused the Umno lawmaker of misleading the House and failing to follow the Speaker’s directive for clarification.

Azhar told the MPs on March 7, that he had already issued the directive to Najib. He initially ordered Najib to provide an explanation in writing by March 9.

Najib was reported by the media saying he would provide his explanation after the March 12 Johor election ended.

Najib, who has been convicted of multiple charges of corruption and power abuse involving funds worth over RM40 million embezzled from SRC International, said in Parliament last week that no public funds were used to repay 1MDB’s principal debt.

He argued that most of the funds to service the debt would have come from entities like Goldman Sachs, audit firms KPMG and Deloitte, AmBank and the US Department of Justice.

These institutions had returned some of the funds embezzled from the firm totalling RM23 billion to Malaysia. SRC International was a former subsidiary of 1MDB.