Bank Negara Confirms The Award Listed On Dropped Perdana Fellow's Poster Doesn't Exist
The Central Bank of Malaysia confirmed this with SAYS earlier today, 15 September.
By Sadho Ram — 15 Sep 2023, 12:12 PM
Yesterday, 14 September, SAYS reported on the case of one Muhammad Azhar, also known as Azhar Ali, who scammed his way into this year's Perdana Fellowship before he was kicked out
In our story, we ran verification checks on Azhar's achievements
We found that two out of the three achievements listed in the poster, as originally uploaded by Investment, Trade, and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz on his Instagram, were faked.
However, the veracity of Azhar's third achievement — Best Delegate at the Bank Negara Fiscal Policy Summit in 2021— was not immediately ascertained, as SAYS was waiting for a response from Bank Negara.
SAYS can now confirm that there is no such award as "Best Delegate"
A Bank Negara strategic communications department employee confirmed with SAYS earlier today, 15 September, that "there is no such award" as Best Delegate at the Bank Negara Fiscal Policy Summit 2021.
It is now clear that Azhar falsified all three achievements seen in the poster.
To recap:
The WorldQuant Brain 2022 Global Alphathon winners were from Vietnam, China, and South Korea.
The Microsoft Imagine Cup 2021 winners were from Kenya, while other finalists were from the US, Thailand, and New Zealand. Malaysia wasn't even among the five Asian teams that made it to the top 12 finalists.
There exists no Best Delegate award at Bank Negara.
Azhar — who has now been dropped from the Perdana Fellowship — is the same guy who faked receiving a NASA scholarship back in April 2020, and later claimed he was "scammed" after a SAYS exposé.
