Dr M: ECRL like taking loan to buy diamond for your wife

When you do not have the money, don't end up in debt by borrowing more than what you can pay, said Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

He warned of debt traps such as the East Coast Railway Link (ECRL) project, likening it to buying a diamond for a wife.

"Supposedly you want to buy a diamond for your wife with your money but you can't afford it. What can you do? You borrow money and buy the diamond ring, then forever be in debt. That is not wise.

"The previous government borrowed money, huge sums of money. To borrow money under very bad conditions and to pay very high interest.

"We are not going to make money having the (ECRL) train or having the high-speed train. We cannot afford it.

"If we go on with it, we will be owing billions and billions of ringgit," Mahathir said to 500 from the Malaysian diaspora during a dinner held at the China World Summing Wing Hotel in Beijing yesterday.

The premier was responding, in a question-and-answer session, to a member of the audience who asked him about the negative reactions by many locals in China about the move to cancel or postpone mega projects in the country.

Mahathir reminded the audience that the national debt has surpassed the trillion ringgit mark and the government will not tax the people to raise the money because people will not accept such a move.

"We have to reduce our borrowing, and one way to reduce the borrowing is to cancel the projects, or at least postpone the projects until we have the money.

"That is why we are negotiating with the Chinese contractors and the government to either postpone or drop the project. Supposedly we drop the project, we have the debt of RM1.1 trillion.

"If we cancel the ECRL and the high-speed rail projects, we could save RM100 billion and that is going to reduce the amount of money we borrowed," he added.

Mahathir also told the audience that he hopes to see more Malaysians living overseas to return home.

During his speech, he said he was proud to see many people in the audience singing the Negaraku proudly at the start of the dinner, despite being far away from home.

"One must always remember that you go out from this country, you benefited from this country, you gained opportunities to study because of your country. It is now payback time.

"When you go and study in a certain country, you'll see a different life and maybe when you go to a good country, the condition of life is much better than in Malaysia," he said.

Mahathir mentioned that many people will be tempted to stay abroad because they wanted a good life.

"But a good Malaysian would like to come back..." - Mkini