KUALA LUMPUR – Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) commissioner Tan Sri Rashid Hussain has forcefully pushed back against claims that former Auditor-General Tan Sri Dr Madinah Mohamad was denied a voice in the high-stakes Lembaga Tabung Haji (TH) investigation, revealing official records that prove she was subpoenaed and provided sworn answers to 75 questions.
Rashid, who also serves as TH chairman, flatly rejected Madinah’s recent assertions, revealing that commission logs confirm she was summoned to testify on June 3, 2022. However, she requested to be accompanied by her deputy director of financial audit, Mona Osman.
Because the RCI strictly examines witnesses on a individual, one-to-one basis, the commission opted to take testimony directly from Mona on June 2, 2022, before securing Madinah’s input through written statutory declarations.
“It is impossible to believe that we would not have called her to appear before us. Our records showed that she was subpoenaed to appear on June 3, 2022.
“But she requested not to come alone, but instead to be accompanied by her deputy director, Mona Osman,” Rashid told reporters following a dialogue on the reality and future of TH today.
Addressing claims that the former top auditor was erased from the proceedings, Rashid detailed how Madinah’s extensive testimony was formally recorded under oath.
“She submitted her answers to the 75 questions, together with an accompanying letter, and all these are recorded in our witness statement records. So, it is not true to say that she did not have an opportunity to be represented or to provide her views,” he stressed.
The RCI commissioner’s public defense comes after Madinah claimed on August 25 that the RCI might have reached vastly different conclusions had she been called to testify in person. Madinah, who served as Auditor-General from 2017 to 2019, maintained that her team’s 2017 audit report found no evidence of direct theft involving TH funds.
The controversy surrounds the 211-page RCI Report published by the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (JAKIM) on July 29, which investigated TH’s management and operations between 2014 and 2020.
The scathing report exposed severe operational and governance weaknesses during that period and laid out 25 critical reform recommendations—75 percent of which TH has already implemented. – September 3, 2026