Wan Azizah questions continuous drop in development spending

PARLIAMENT | Opposition leader Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail has questioned as to why the federal allocation for development expenditure shrunk to only RM46 billion in the newly unveiled Budget 2018, which she claimed is the lowest in history.

The development expenditure amounted to only 16.4 percent of the total RM280.25 billion budget for next year, where RM234 billion (83 percent) allocated for operating expenditure.

According to her, the percentage of development expenditure had been reduced from 27.78 percent in 2010 and 23.9 percent in 2011 to 18.3 percent in 2017 under the administration of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

"(With only 16.4 percent allocated for development expenditure in 2018,) this is the lowest in the history - 60 years after our independence," she said during her budget debate in the Dewan Rakyat today.

"What is the consequence of the shrinkage of development expenditure? We expect to see the reduction of rural infrastructure development projects and human capital building," said the Permatang Pauh MP.

"Bumiputera contractors who usually benefitted from these small-scale development projects will be badly hit," she said, adding that employment opportunities for fresh graduates would also be affected.

"The small and medium contractors will be left without any projects and their staff (will) no longer have jobs. What will happen next, can all of them become GrabCar drivers?" she said.

RM3bil not listed in Budget

Meanwhile, she also questioned why a special allocation of RM3 billion was not listed in the budget.

"I wish to ask if the 2018 Budget is meant to court votes in the coming general election? This is because I found that part of the public funds were utilised for various special payments," she pointed out.

"For your information, my team went through the documents given to us and we found that all the payments were not listed in the budget," she added.

This included the RM14.7 million one-off payment to 1,500 village chiefs and 9,800 'tok batin', RM97.5 million for 65,000 religious class and Fardu Ain (Kafa) teachers, imam, bilai and takmir teachers, RM1,500 each for 1.6 million civil servants (totalling RM2.4. billion) as well as RM750 each for 775,000 retirees (totalling RM581 million).

If this is so, she asked if BN could realise the promises made by Najib last Friday.- Mkini