36 cents for Malaysia PM's wife

Ever since a Malaysian activist website published reports that millions of ringgit were deposited into Madam Rosmah Mansor's account, ordinary Malaysians have been trying to find out if there is any truth in it.

The wife of Prime Minister Najib Razak was believed to have had RM2 million (S$710,000) transferred into her personal account in Affin Bank earlier this year, Sarawak Report claimed. The money was allegedly from 1Malaysia Development.

Malaysians, eager to see if bank details that were published in the report were Madam Rosmah's, have been transferring RM1 (36 Singapore cents) to her account, liberal news portal Malaysian Insider reported.

They then shared pictures of their online and cash deposit machine transactions on social media, noting that the said account really did belong to her.

Mr Kuang Keng Kuek Ser said through his Twitter handle‏@kuangkeng that he had deposited RM1, the minimum amount needed to make a transfer, into Madam Rosmah's account and shared a picture of the transaction.

"I just transferred RM1 to confirm the Affin Bank account exposed by @sarawak_report belongs to a Rosmah Binti Mansor," he said.

Mr Haziq Asyraf Jr made a similar transaction and he, too, shared a photo of the transfer on the social networking site.

Other social media users who heard about this had mixed reactions, with several joking that the prime minister's wife could have an additional RM1 million transferred by the time all the "testings" are done.

"I really wanna know, how much exactly hv been transferred to Rosmah's accr since the expose? RM1 per Malaysian.. we hv a lot of Malaysians (sic)," wrote Radiance Leong.

Madam Rosmah, meanwhile, issued a strong denial over the allegations. She clarified that the bank account under Affin Bank was a personal account which was opened in 1984, while she was employed at Island & Peninsular, The Star reported.

CONVENIENCE

It was a matter of convenience as Madam Rosmah's workplace was in the same building as Perwira Habib Bank (now Affin Bank), her lawyers said in a statement.

The statement said: "My client has not committed any criminal offence or misappropriation of funds and strongly denies any links to the funds being from 1MDB.

"The report is deemed to be indecent, menacing, false and is intended to annoy or harass my client."

Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that US$681 million (S$920 million) was deposited into Mr Najib's accounts in two transactions in March 2013, ahead of the general election in May that year.

This article was first published on July 12, 2015.
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