Mahathir names Lim finance minister, returns Zeti to council

(May 13): Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad named Lim Guan Eng as finance minister and set up an advisory board that includes a billionaire and a former central bank governor to carry out his economic plan.

Mahathir, 92, is forming a council of five elders including palm oil tycoon Robert Kuok, former Finance Minister Daim Zainuddin and Zeti Akhtar Aziz, who led Bank Negara Malaysia for 16 years. The people will be tasked with advising the cabinet and probing government personnel.

“We need to do investigations on a lot of things,” Mahathir said on Saturday in Kuala Lumpur. “Some of these things may involve the ministries and the personnel themselves, so we need people who are not involved to be getting and studying reports made either by ministries or by certain bodies which we will consult.”

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