Malaysia Needs More Tactful Handling of 1MDB Mess
The finance minister must remember his day job.
The very institutions that have to ensure economic stability are under stress.
Photographer: NurPhoto/Getty Images
Malaysia’s new finance minister is taking a sledgehammer to 1MDB. A less blunt tool would do the job just as well, probably better.
Lim Guan Eng is busy telling the world about the shocking state of affairs at the scandal-ridden state fund. But that won’t sate the Malaysian public’s desire for justice. Investors, meanwhile, are uneasy about things getting out of hand. Already, foreigners have sold out of the nation’s stocks for 13 consecutive days. For Lim to declare in his first press conference that government debt has exceeded 1 trillion ringgit ($251 billion) because of a sly public bailout of 1MDB gets him full marks for honesty, but not for tact.