‘Any sale of government assets will not involve PNB’

KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 16): Tony Pua, the political secretary to the finance minister, said any sale of Malaysian government assets will not involve Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB) because funds and investments of PNB belong to the company’s unitholders and not the government.

He was clarifying the remarks Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad made in his keynote speech at the “Malaysia: A New Dawn” conference last Tuesday that the government “may have to sell our valuable assets to pay our debt”.

“I had elaborated on a subsequent panel that this may involve the realisation of value of selected non-core assets held via entities such as Khazanah [Nasional Bhd] or PNB. I would like to make a clarification and correction to my statement above that any sale of our assets, if at all, would not involve PNB,” said Pua in a statement yesterday.

“The unintended confusion which may have been caused, arising from the mistaken example provided, is much regretted,” he added.

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on Oct 16, 2018.

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