News by Emir Zainul

During cross-examination by lead defence counsel Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah today, Ali said he was surprised to learn that the NAD official had made an audio recording of the meeting, which was convened to discuss amendments to be made in the department's audit report on 1MDB.

Lead defence counsel Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said it turned out that his associate, Rahmat Hazlan, only had the flu.

Lead public prosecutor Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram told High Court Justice Mohamed Zaini Mazlan he will seek to amend certain wording in the charge sheet tomorrow as he claimed that there were "typographical errors".

Najib’s lawyer Tan Sri Shafee Abdullah had earlier told the court of the defence’s application to recuse Sri Ram in the case. Shafee argued that the matter should be resolved first because if the court were to proceed with the trial, it would be as if the application is non-existent or trivialised.

Its director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the man in question is a Pakistani national who works at a barbershop in Kuala Lumpur.

"What is certain is that when we reach the end of RMCO, we should have almost all of the economic sectors opened. But we need to make sure the number of daily cases does not increase."

Chief statistician of Malaysia Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin further said that in the normal business environment, it is estimated that the sales of wholesale and retail trade fell RM45 billion in April 2020.

Noor Hisham said at this point, Malaysia is still strengthening its border control in order to curb the spread of Covid-19.

Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah pointed to a case reported today which saw a foreign worker testing positive for Covid-19 after he was required to undergo the screening before joining the company. 

Under this programme, dubbed the SME Go-Scheme, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin announced that SME Bank will provide financing support to contractors and vendors who were awarded small Government projects under the Economic Stimulus Package 2020 and the PRIHATIN stimulus package.