Guan Eng shares regrets on his first year as finance minister

INTERVIEW | Lim Guan Eng has had a challenging first year as finance minister.

While he said he has achieved most of his targets, he pointed out that there were two things he wished he could have done, but did not have the means to.

"I wanted to do these but we didn't have the means to carry it out, one was to create more jobs especially for graduates.

"At the same time to check or even reduce the cost of living so that the people have higher purchasing power.

"We hope we can do that maybe in the next budget. We can create jobs, especially for unemployed graduates," Lim said in a joint interview held at Putrajaya recently.

He said he wanted to shift the government's focus away from mega projects and onto ordinary Malaysians.

"I am sick and tired of 1MDB. Can we think about one Malaysia, not 1MDB? One Malaysia that can get jobs, and have higher purchasing power and lower cost of living," he added.

The 1MDB issue is a sore spot for Lim, who is often criticised for not being able to move on beyond the subject.

But for the DAP secretary-general, it's not hard to get worked up by the scandal - where over US$4 billion had allegedly been misappropriated.

"You know when I became finance minister, my first press conference I was so angry, you know.

"When I looked at the figures (on 1MDB), I said it's worse than what I had expected. We already (started) paying 1MDB loans, (Suria Strategic Energy Resources) 88 percent of the project already paid, on the ground only 13 percent (of the work) completed.

"This can't be. If you are not angry you are not human," he said when asked to respond to the perception of him being an aggressive "fighting cock".

Lim was unapologetic for this, saying he only wants to speak the truth.

Job now is '330 percent' harder 

For the finance minister, his job now is "330 percent" harder than being Penang chief minister - coming up with the percentage by comparing the island state's budget against the federal budget.

But he appeared proud when listing the things that the government did manage to achieve over the past year.

Lim said the government had succeeded in replacing the goods and services tax (GST) with the sales and services tax (SST) "without bankrupting the country".

He is also proud that the government had begun paying back GST and income tax arrears it had owed.

Another achievement, Lim added, is that the government was able to maintain a good economy.

"Even though we are faced with financial problems following the 1MDB scandal, but the confidence of foreign investors and institutions are still strong, they've still maintained Malaysia's credit ratings (at A-).

"That is a test that Malaysia passed," he said.

Lim said foreign direct investments were up 48 percent last year compared to 2017, while unemployment was at 3.3 percent.

All these, he added, were signs that Malaysia still had strong economic fundamentals.

He is confident the country can get back on track to a pre-1MDB time by 2021. - Mkini