KUALA LUMPUR, March 30 — Former auditor-general Tan Sri Madinah Mohamad said the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) matter was an official secret that could not be raised even in government meetings in the past, when explaining why she did not declassify the untampered version of a 1MDB audit report and did not raise it to then prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

Madinah, who was the auditor-general from February 2017 to February 2019, said this while testifying as the 12th prosecution witness in the joint trial of Najib and former 1MDB CEO Arul Kanda Kandasamy over the tampering of the 1MDB audit report.

The trial is over the alleged tampering of the auditor-general’s finalised 1MDB audit report, which was meant to be given to parliamentary watchdog Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on February 24, 2016, but was amended before being given to the PAC in March 2016.

It was in March 2017 that Madinah as the new auditor-general was told by the National Audit Department’s 1MDB audit team coordinator Datuk Nor Salwani Muhammad of the existence of the original copy that was initially meant to be given to PAC and the last surviving copy which she did not destroy. 

Madinah said she was "shocked” to find out that her predecessor Tan Sri Ambrin Buang was ordered to amend the report and that Salwani was ordered to destroy all original copies.

Today, Najib’s lead defence lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah repeatedly asked why Madinah did not raise the issue of the original copy of the 1MDB audit report and its having been amended to the "higher-ups” or then prime minister Najib.

With Najib still the prime minister from March 2017 until the May 2018 elections, Shafee said Madinah did nothing and suggested she had "ample time to lodge a police report to bring it up to the attention of someone higher-up”.

"At that time, as I have mentioned and I have repeated this in my answer, it was under OSA (Official Secrets Act), there was no further activity under 1MDB,” Madinah replied.

Shafee then suggested that Madinah as the auditor-general then could have declassified the 1MDB audit report for the limited purpose of briefing the prime minister, but Madinah said she did not see the need to do so at that time.

"I would not have, at that time, because since 1MDB was an OSA-ed report, the whole thing is OSA, we were not allowed to talk about 1MDB, we could not even mention 1MDB in any of our meetings.

"And as I mentioned, I did not have the opportunity to deep dive into the original report, therefore how could I have thought about declassifying the 1MDB audit report in order to bring it higher up,” she said.

Shafee: Your suggestion that everything about 1MDB is secret is total nonsense. The whole world is talking about 1MDB and yet you auditor-general, you say it is an official secret, can’t talk about it, can’t do anything about it, can’t whisper about it?

Madinah: That was it at that time.

Shafee: The whole world was talking about 1MDB.

Madinah: Not in the country.

Former auditor-general Tan Sri Madinah Mohamad is pictured at the Kuala Lumpur High Court February 19, 2020. — Picture by Firdaus Latif

In explaining why she did not find out immediately in March 2017 from Nor Salwani about who had given the orders for the original copy to be amended, Madinah said that she had to go to a meeting room where other 1MDB audit team officers were waiting to brief her on the amended copy that was given to the PAC.

Madinah said she only received a full briefing in 2018 about the matter relating to the amending of the original report.

Asked repeatedly by Shafee on why she did not check with the rest of the 1MDB audit team regarding the original copy, Madinah explained that the OSA nature of the 1MDB audit report meant the National Audit Department was "not at liberty” to share it with anyone else including the team that worked on it.

She also explained that she was given the briefing in March 2017 on the 1MDB audit report that had already been given to the PAC only because she was the new auditor-general, and not because there would be any tabling or any follow-up action required on the report.

"So there was no reason to go and deep dive into 1MDB at that time. There was no further activity than that, there was nothing of an official nature that required the auditor-general to have any follow-up activity on the 1MDB audit report, so that’s why it was kept in the safe,” she said, adding that there was no reason for her then to declassify the 1MDB audit report that had been placed under OSA before she became auditor-general.

Confirming she was shocked that her predecessor had been ordered to amend the original report and that instructions were given for the original copies to be destroyed, Madinah said she knew such things shouldn’t have been done and knew it was wrong.

"I just knew it was wrong. Wrong — one, for the auditor-general to have been pressured to amend what has been the finalised copy of the auditor-general’s report, and two, Salwani to have been instructed to destroy all the reports,” she said.

She later also clarified that she had not cast aspersions on or said that Ambrin had done anything wrong.

Madinah said she had in 2018 declassified the 1MDB audit report, after then prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was reported saying he wanted the report to be declassified.

Following news reports on May 14, 2018 of Dr Mahathir saying that the 1MDB audit report was to be declassified, Madinah had on the next day declassified the report.

Noting that since the 1MDB audit report was classified under OSA by the then auditor-general Ambrin, Madinah said she as the auditor-general was the one who had the powers to declassify it.

Asked by Shafee if she could take dictation from others to declassify documents, Madinah then replied: "It wasn’t a dictation. The PM had said he wanted it to be declassified and he wanted a briefing on it, so it had to be declassified in order to give him the briefing.”

As she had been instructed to brief then prime minister Dr Mahathir on the 1MDB audit report, Madinah said that she had, after declassifying the report, gone with two of her officers to brief him on the report’s contents.

In this trial, Najib is charged with abusing his position as prime minister and finance minister to receive self-gratification in the form of protection from civil or criminal action regarding his role in handling 1MDB’s operations, by ordering amendments in February 2016 to the auditor-general’s audit report on 1MDB before it was presented to Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee.

Arul Kanda was charged with abetting Najib in the tampering of the 1MDB audit report.

The trial before High Court judge Mohamed Zaini Mazlan resumes tomorrow.