DAP: Gov't manipulated laws to legitimise debt

DAP has blamed the country’s rising debt level to the ruling BN having raised the statutory borrowing ceiling “multiple times” to legitimise the debt.

DAP national publicity secretary Tony Pua slammed the government for modifying the ceiling “at its whims and fancies over the past decade, rendering meaningless the legal debt ceiling”.

Therefore, he said, the government’s debt at 53.8 percent of GDP as reported in the Economic Report 2011/2 is below the statutory borrowing ceiling of 55 percent, is purely the result of the government’s “creative manipulation”.

“What is worrying is the fact that the ‘statutory borrowing ceiling’ has actually been raised multiple times by the Barisan Nasional (BN) government over the past decade to ‘legalise’ the federal government debt level which has been increasing at a much faster pace than our GDP.
 
The 55 percent statutory borrowing ceiling only came into effect in July 2009 by order of current second finance minister Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah.  

“Prior to the revised limit, the limit was set at 45 percent  in June 2008, barely 13 months before by the then second finance minister Nor Md Yakcop,” said Pua in a statement today.

He added that the limit was raised to 40 percent five years before that, by then second  minister finance minister Jamaluddin Jarjis.

“Hence our statutory borrowing ceiling has been raised by 15 percent of our GDP in just 6 years.  

“The question is if the ceiling is repeatedly raised with such nonchalance, why did the Government bother setting a limit at all?” said Pua, who is also PJ Utara MP.

[More to follow]