Opposition against wastage in Covid-19 stimulus package, Anwar rebuts Najib

Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has stressed that the opposition is against the wastage of allocation for certain ministries in the Covid-19 economic stimulus package and not the package itself.

“What we reject is the wastage of allocation for certain ministries which we feel do not focus on growth in the stimulus package, help the unemployed, or improve technology.

“The question of opposing (the stimulus package itself) does not arise at all,” said Anwar in his debate on the Temporary Measures for Government Financing (Coronavirus Disease 2019 [Covid-19]) Bill 2020 in the Dewan Rakyat today.

On the contrary, he said the opposition actually wants the allocation for the stimulus package to be higher.

Anwar was responding to Najib Abdul Razak (BN-Pekan) who last week claimed on Facebook that the opposition tried to derail the government’s “Prihatin budget” that was conceived to save the economy from the Covid-19 crisis.

Najib was referring to a bloc vote which was on a bill to restructure Budget 2020 to facilitate the creation of new ministries when Perikatan Nasional (PN) took power.

The bill on the government’s Covid-19 aid was only debated after Najib’s Facebook posting.

Several Pakatan Harapan MPs had accused Najib of misleading the public on the issue at the time.

Previously, former finance minister Lim Guan Eng (Harapan-Bagan) had said that the opposition was prepared to support the bill to facilitate a RM45 billion fiscal injection for Covid-19 economic aid only if the amount was doubled to RM90 billion.

He said this was because RM45 billion was insufficient to help affected individuals and businesses.

However, Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim (BN-Baling) in his debate today said RM45 billion is indeed enough and criticised the opposition for not supporting the bill otherwise.

He said back when Lim was the finance minister, Lim had urged the public to “sacrifice” and that there was no such thing as “free money”.

Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim

But now that Lim is in the opposition, he wants the government to be less thrifty, Azeez said, describing this as a “double standard”.

The Covid-19 Bill 2020 seeks to establish a Covid-19 fund which will cover various stimulus packages such as Prihatin and Penjana.

The PN government had received flak from opposition lawmakers for failing to allow debate on the economic stimulus packages, announced in stages over the past few months, and worth a total of RM295 billion.

Instead, the fundings were pushed through without parliamentary oversight and approval.

However, the Covid-19 Bill 2020 is seeking to backdate and validate all related sums paid by the government from Feb 27, in line with the announcement of the first RM20 billion stimulus package by then-interim prime minister Dr Mahatahir Mohamad following the collapse of the Harapan federal government.

Any sum payable from the fund shall be paid within six months of the expiry of the act, with the balance to be then channelled to a development fund under the Financial Procedure Act 1957. - Mkini