NUMBERS-ILLITERATE Umno gets a tongue-lashing from Chang Khim

Selangor state assembly opposition leader Shamsudin Lias came under fire from state exco Teng Chang Khim for getting his facts wrong in debating the 2014 state budget.

During the debate session, Shamsudin criticised Selangor Menteri Besar Abdul Khalid Ibrahim for adding a supplementary budget every year since 2009 despite a balanced budget tabled at each year's end.

This had drew the wrath of Teng who slammed Shamsudin (right), alleging he did not study the budget speech carefully after it was read out by Khalid yesterday in tabling the budget.

Citing Khalid's speech, Teng pointed out that the state government will review the budget every six months in order to monitor the balance of the expenditure to avoid any deficit.

He added that the state government will only table a supplementary bill after the state had reviewed the budget and finds there is extra revenue.

"Sungai Burong (Shamsudin) did not read the text, he does not know what had been said by the Menteri Besar," said Teng.

However, Shamsudin was unruffled and continued his speech, where he listed out the number of supplementary budgets that the state government has asked from the state assembly since 2009.

The RM1.85 million balanced budget, which was tabled by Khalid at the state assembly yesterday, stated that the development expenditure and the operating expenditure are RM633 million (33.8 percent) and RM1.225 billion (66.2 percent) respectively.

Khalid also announced that the state government will spend RM430 million of its reserves for six projects, including RM150 million for the construction of the third Klang bridge.

As such, Shamsudin slammed that it was not a balanced budget as the development expenditure, which includes the proposed reserves spending, has reached RM1.055 billion.

He said that the total expenditure of the budget has reached RM2.28 million and it will only be a balanced budget if the state government is able to gain RM430 million extra revenue next year.

He chided Khalid for not keeping his promise by allowing the development expenditure of the budget to exceed 30 percent.

‘The opposition should attend classes’

However, Teng subsequently clarified that the RM430 million reserves is not included in the budget.

“I think that the house should conduct classes and send the opposition (assemblypersons) to attend the classes, otherwise they won’t be able to differentiate between what is included in the budget and what isn’t,” he said.

Citing Khalid’s speech again, Teng said that the ratio of the development expenditure of the budget could exceed 30 percent of the total expenditure.

He also said that Shamsudin’s statement was made in bad faith by referring to standing orders.

To this, Shamsudin replied, “If there is such a course, there is no problem then”.