THE national debt level is now over RM800 billion as a result of the Pakatan Harapan administration driving up the country’s borrowings, said former prime minister Najib Razak.
In his latest Facebook post, Najib said Malaysia’s debt will hit RM1 trillion if the government’s borrowing pattern continues.
“The official debt may reach RM900 billion by the end of the year and RM1 trillion by the middle of next year,” said Najib, who is also a former finance minister.
Najib’s claims conflict with the government’s assertion that the Barisan Nasional administration drove the national debt to more than RM1 trillion in mid-2018.
When PH came into power, it revealed that the Najib administration had put the country in deeply in debt thanks to off-balance sheet spending and the 1Malaysia Development Bhd debacle.
Najib has repeatedly refuted this, saying that the national debt stood at RM680 billion when he left office after the May general election last year.
He reiterated this on Facebook today, with the statement that as of end 2017, the country officially owed RM686.8 billion.
This, he said, showed that the national debt had soared to stand at RM800.9 billion as of this week.
Only RM17.7 billion of the national debt has been paid since PH took power, Najib wrote.
He said the government had so far borrowed RM77.8 billion, RM70.5 billion of which were in local Islamic sukuk and RM7.3 billion were in samurai bonds from Japan.
“Today (Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng) has borrowed RM3.5 billion while last week he borrowed RM4 billion.
“Now Guan Eng is in China and working hard to get Panda bonds to borrow from China.”
Schools shouldn’t be battleground for political parties, says Najib
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UMNO has reservations about lowering the voting age to 18 although the party supports the move in principle, said former prime minister Najib Razak.
“Our main reservation is if this will lead to too much volatility in Malaysian politics,” he told reporters in Parliament today.
He added that the other fear was that schools would be turned into a battleground for political parties.
“Generally, because of the universal trend towards 18, our party’s decision is that we will support – provided that it goes with the automatic voter registration. But we have our reservations.”
He added that youths are easily swayed and influenced.
Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin, meanwhile, said the opposition would support the move if both the lowering of age limit and automatic voting registration are amended concurrently.
“The opposition’s stand is: we support if both are implemented.
“Both should be made together, meaning that we amend the voting age limit and automatic voting registration,” the Rembau MP told reporters at the Dewan Rakyat lobby.
Khairy also said that by lowering the voting age, it doesn’t necessarily give any political parties any added advantage as the younger generation nowadays are wiser when it come to making decisions.
“I don’t think there’s (advantage). I believe the young Malaysians will wait and see who gives them a better direction,” he said.
Yesterday, opposition MPs agreed in principle to lower the voting age to 18, but the conditions attached to their votes for the bill makes its passage uncertain.
They also want Article 47 of the federal constitution to be amended to lower the age of eligible candidates for the Dewan Rakyat from 21 to 18.
– https://www.themalaysianinsight.com
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