The 5 biggest ministerial winners and losers

BUDGET 2018 | Budget 2018, at RM280.25 million, is the biggest budget in Malaysian history. Malaysiakini takes a look at the top five ministries that will get a financial boost next year, as well five ministries whose budgets have been cut.

The biggest winner is the Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Ministry, whose budget grew 126 percent from RM634.4 million in 2017 to RM1.4 billion for 2018.

There were cuts and additions to several of the ministry's budget items. However, the biggest boost was an allocation of RM720 million for the Cooking Oil Stabilisation Scheme (COSS).

The COSS came under the ministry's purview in September 2016, but no budgetary allocations were made according to the 2017 and 2018 federal expenditure estimates.

The government had done away with most cooking oil subsidies last year, with only 1kg packets of oil now subsidised.

Also, new to the ministry's budget this year is an RM45 million allocation for flour subsidies.

In second place is the Plantation Industries and Commodities Ministry, which saw a budget increase of 110 percent from RM446.9 million in 2017 to RM938.4 million next year.

Among the ministry's biggest allocations is RM261 million in monsoon season aid for small estate owners and rubber tappers.

Next up in third place is the Communications and Multimedia Ministry, whose budget grew from RM1.6 billion in 2017 to RM2.2 billion in 2018.

Among the ministry's increases were for its propaganda arm the Special Affairs Department (Jasa) as well as for strategic communications.

In fourth place is the Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Ministry, which received an addition of RM934 million to RM5.2 billion in 2018.

The ministry received boosts for its various paddy subsidies among others.

The fifth ministry that received a big percentage boost to its funding was the Foreign Affairs Ministry, whose budget rose 19.3 percent or RM119.3 million to RM740.7 million for next year.

Meanwhile, the biggest loser was the Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Ministry, whose budget shrank 16.1 percent from RM5.3 billion to RM4.4 billion.

The decrease was mainly due to a cut to its allocation for national solid waste management from RM1.9 billion in 2017 to RM1.2 billion next year.

This followed a sharp increase of RM1.1 billion for solid waste management in the 2017 budget, from just RM872 million in 2016.

Four other ministries received relatively small cuts percentage-wise to their respective budgets.

The Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry's budget shrank 2.3 percent or RM26 million to RM1.1 billion in 2018.

The Works Ministry's allocations, meanwhile, dropped 1.6 percent or RM90 million to RM5.8 billion.

As for the Tourism and Culture Ministry and the Transport Ministry, their budgets reduced by 0.15 percent and 0.06 percent to RM999 million and RM4.5 billion respectively.

This is the fourth time the Tourism and Culture Ministry's budget has been cut since 2014.

Minister Nazri Abdul Aziz had previously complained that the cuts had impacted the ministry's ability to perform.

-Mkini