PETALING JAYA: Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has welcomed Umno Youth's suggestion on the setting up a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) to investigate Bank Negara Malaysia's (BNM) alleged foreign exchange (forex) market losses in the early 1990s.
"They (government) is welcome to do so (start the RCI) and we (the opposition) want a same commission to investigate on the RM2.6 billion political donation scandal and what happened to the money now.
"We also want the same commission to investigate 1MDB (1Malaysia Development Bhd) and what the prime minister (Datuk Seri Najib Razak) is doing with a huge sum of money from (1MDB)," he said during a press conference at Tropicana Golf & Country Resort, Selangor here today.
Umno Youth vice chief Senator Khairul Azwan Harun had reportedly claimed that based on the wing's own research, the losses stood at a whopping US$30 billion, which exceeded the reported amount of US$10 billion.
He called on the government to set up an RCI to probe into the matter.
Meanwhile, Dr Mahathir also questioned the government's move of putting relevant documents under the protection of Official Secrets Act (OSA).
"So open all those documents first. Don't try to hide something under OSA and at the same time using something that has happened 30 years ago to as a political weapon." he added.
The forex scandal made headlines again after the New Straits Times published an interview with former Bank Negara assistant governor, Datuk Abdul Murad Khalid who claimed BNM has suffered foreign exchange losses of US$10 billion in the early 1990s.
Just a few days prior, the media reported about the declassified United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) papers on the BMF scandal.
Dr Mahathir has since downplayed the report, saying that it did not directly link him to the scandal, and was merely a normal information paper for the US government back then.
In support of Dr Mahathir, DAP advisor Lim Kot Siang during a media conference in Penang said that there was nothing new to the BMF scandal, adding that he was disappointed as there was no new revelation in the document.
Lim however was slammed for his tame comments against Dr Mahathir although the former was a vocal critic of the scandal during Dr Mahathir's premiership.
Following that, Lim today challenged those who accused him of downplaying the forec scandal to provide proof.
"I've been accused of making a U-turn on the forex scandal. So today I challenge whoever it is (who accused me) to show how I made a U-turn because I've had always been consistent on what I said inside outside of the parliament." Lim said.
