However, added Pua who is also DAP National Publicity Secretary, the mask has been exposed with the full-blown 1MDB and RM2.6 billion donation scandals which have made Malaysia the butt of international jokes. “The outcome was the ringgit becoming the worst performing currency among Bloomberg’s basket of 10 Asian currencies for 2015.”

Najib, who is both the Finance and Prime Minister, must take full blame for Malaysia’s failure to build any substantive economic resilience to external turbulence despite enjoying years of super-high oil prices and record low global interest rates, said Pua. “His much-hyped GTP and ETP reforms have failed miserably both in implementation and in goals achieved.”

Worse, continued Pua, there was no one but himself to blame for the collapse of 1MDB under the weight of RM50 billion of debt which he personally approved, and the controversial RM2.6 billion “donation” which he received in his personal bank accounts.

The MP was commenting on the Prime Minister finally conceding two days ago that “we are facing a challenging (economic) situation”. “However, he tried to shift the entirety of the blame of the current and impending economic crisis to ‘factors outside our control’.

“He said ‘they are not our mistakes, not our weaknesses’.”

First, noted Pua, Najib blamed the international oil price plunge “from about USD100 a barrel to between USD32 and USD33 a barrel, currently”.

Then, he blamed the United States Federal Reserve who normalised the interest rate which “made the US dollar stronger compared with the value of currencies worldwide”.

Finally, he blamed China’s economic slowdown for negatively affecting Malaysia’s economy.

However, the price of oil never impeded Malaysia’s economic performance in previous years, recalled Pua. “The price of crude oil was less than USD25 per barrel prior to 2007.”

Instead, the question that needs to be asked of Najib who became the Finance Minister from September 2008, said Pua, was what happened to all the excess earnings when oil prices hovered above USD100 per barrel.”

The windfall profits over the past seven years have been wasted away, lamented Pua. “Corruption, abuses, mismanagement and wastage, left the Malaysian Government defenceless against blips in the global economy.”