The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.
Bloomberg
Malaysia’s central bank Governor Muhammad Ibrahim offered to resign from his post two years into his term, according to people familiar with the matter, who declined to be identified because the discussions are confidential.
The move comes less than a month after Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad won a surprise election victory and his newly installed finance minister, Lim Guan Eng, raised questions about the central bank’s purchase of land from the previous administration.
It’s unclear what the government’s response was to his resignation offer. A spokesperson for the central bank declined on Tuesday to comment on whether the governor had offered to resign. An official at the Finance Ministry also declined to comment. Muhammad didn’t respond to several calls and text messages to his mobile phone and office.
Lim said in May that the previous administration of Najib Razak had used money raised from a land sale to the central bank — valued at about $520 million — to pay off some of the debts of 1MDB, the state investment fund that’s been mired in a corruption scandal.
Bank Negara Malaysia has said the purchase was transacted at fair value and complied with all governance requirements and relevant laws. The ringgit erased earlier gains to trade little changed at 3.9730 per dollar after the report, while the benchmark stock index pared earlier losses of as much as 0.4 percent to close steady at 1,755.14.