Mahathir says tons of shredded documents found in government offices

This was disclosed by Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday.

The NYT article highlighted how Dr Mahathir and his aides stumbled on the alarming sight upon entering the government offices.

“There was even half-consumed food left by former occupants in a hurry to get out.  At the Finance Ministry down the street, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng found computers in which even the highest-ranking bureaucrats were locked out of certain accounts.  In some cases, vital files were accessible only to a single person, Najib Razak, who had also served as the finance minister.”

Dr Mahathir told the NYT that his government had found the country was in worse financial shape than he and his allies had feared and national debt was well above the RM1 trillion which is 80 percent of Malaysia’s GDP.

“Any organization that had the money, the previous government found the means to take the money,” said Mahathir, adding this included “theft from national coffers extending beyond 1 Malaysia Development Bhd to an astonishing array of government-funded initiatives, from a rural development programme and a plan for religious pilgrims to a provident fund and a coal mine in Mongolia,”