MALAYSIA’S 1MDB STATE FUND STILL INDEBTED BY $7.8B

1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), the state fund at the center of a massive corruption scandal, still has an estimated 32.3 billion ringgit ($7.80 billion) in outstanding debt as of September, the government said, Reuters reported.

Set up in 2009 by former prime minister Najib Razak, authorities are investigating how billions of dollars went missing from 1MDB - a disappearance the government says led to the finance ministry having to bail out the fund.

Malaysia said in 2018 the government would have to pay about $13 billion of 1MDB’s dues. Since April 2017, the government has provided 9.4 billion ringgit in loans and advances to help 1MDB meet its financial commitments and debt obligations, according to the 2021 fiscal outlook report, released ahead of the government’s budget announcement .

Malaysia has also recovered a total of 13.4 billion ringgit ($3.24 billion) in assets linked to 1MDB’s financial trail as of the end of September, the report said. The amount includes about 2.6 billion ringgit ($628 million) in cash and assets recovered and returned to Malaysia by the US authorities, as well as $2.5 billion paid by Goldman Sachs to settle a Malaysian probe into the investment bank’s role in the 1MDB scandal.