Guan Eng unfit for his post, says Nancy after bankrupt remark

Batang Sadong MP Nancy Shukri.

KUCHING: Batang Sadong MP Nancy Shukri has questioned Lim Guan Eng’s suitability for his position as finance minister, saying his recent statement about Sarawak’s financial future showed an inability to understand budgeting.

Commenting on Lim’s remark that Sarawak might go bankrupt in three years if it were to continue setting an annual budget of about RM11 billion, she said he must have made his calculation without taking into account economic activities in the state.

Like others who have commented on Lim’s speech at a DAP dinner last Friday, Nancy assumed that he reckoned the RM11 billion would all be taken from the state reserves, which now stands at about RM30 billion.

She said he probably didn’t know that much of the money for expenditure would be generated by economic activities.

She told FMT she was in full support of remarks by Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Council of Eminent Persons chairman Daim Zainuddin that some federal ministers were below average in their performance.

“It is proven that some ministers really fit that description,” she said.

However, she also said Lim, in making his statement, might have had the more nefarious motive of trying to fool the people of Sarawak so that they would withdraw their support for Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), the coalition that currently rules the state.

She accused Sarawak DAP of supporting Lim’s statement and questioned whether that wasn’t an act of betrayal against the state.

In his speech, Lim said the GPS government deserved to “expire” for its alleged failure to fulfil the Sarawak people’s aspiration. He cited its decision to vote against a government-sponsored bill to amend the federal constitution to restore the status of Sarawak and Sabah as federation parters equal in status to Peninsular Malaysia. - FMT