GOVT PLUGS THE HOLE OF RM23B IN SUPPLEMENTARY BUDGET

By Mamalin Rosmah

KUALA LUMPUR: The government tabled in Parliament today a supplementary supply bill seeking more than RM23 billion for additional funds amid looming financial crisis hitting Malaysia. The bill, tabled by Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak under his capacity as Finance Minister after question time, asked for an addition of RM23,111,111,000 to the RM232.8 billion 2012 budget. He said the extra amount was for the second half of this year.

However, he did not elaborate where the additional funds would come from. Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak has been under pressure to tackle the country’s government debt to GDP ratio, which stands at 53.8% when he launched its 2012 budget last October. As an aftermath of Greece’s default in January 2012 and the subsequent global recession, Malaysian economy shrank 2% in first quarter 2012. This is on the back of an economic forecast of 5.5% growth for 2012 in its 2012 budget. Analysts has since projected the economy in the territory of -2% and -5% for 2012.

Just last month, Standard and Poor’s downgraded Malaysia’s credit rating to “CC-”, which reads “currently vulnerable and dependent on favorable business, financial and economic conditions to meet financial commitments”. This brings the costs of borrowings go up significantly, raising doubt on how this additional RM23 billion to be financed.

During the press conference, Najib responded to query on the concerns of financing, “This is only less than 10% of the total we have budgeted last year. There is so much well beings we can do for the people with only less than 10% of the money.” Asked about the government’s strategy to tackle its debt crisis and kick start the shrinking economy, he responded, “What crisis? Please don’t use such irresponsible term. When we can make people happy, the economy will grow by itself automatically. We don’t need economists to teach us that.” The press conference was ended abruptly in less than five minutes.

The supplementary supply bill, fifth one for Najib of his three years as prime minister of Malaysia, is expected to pass in Parliament smoothly. The Opposition, which has been significantly reduced in numbers during the general election in November 2011, has had half its members suspended from Parliament during the earlier stormy debate on financial irregularities exposed in the massive MRT project. The project, initially earmarked with cost of RM36 billion, has ballooned to RM179 billion after “a miscalculation of costs”, according to the Ministry of Finance.

Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who is one of the suspended members, spoke outside the Parliament House, “We have this supplementary prime minister who knows nothing about economy but continue to dish out goodies just to please the people and enrich his cronies without taking responsibility for the future of the country. I am now very concerned that when we crash, we are going to crash harder than Greece did.”

-BERINAMA

*** The news above is obviously a work of fiction. But the author is fairly confident how close reality will turn out to be in the near future. ***