FORMER finance minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz was ticked off by some netizens on his Facebook page when he expressed feeling out of place not presenting the revised Budget 2023 at the Dewan Rakyat yesterday (Feb 24).
Obviously, he was relegated to be a listener as Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim who is also the Finance Minister had the honour to re-table the Budget 2023 which Tengku Zafrul himself had tabled on Oct 7 last year prior to the dissolution of the Parliament three days later.
“A slightly different experience for this year’s Budget. Usually I am the one presenting, but this time I listened to the presentation as well,” Tengku Zafrul who is currently the International Trade and Industry Minister penned on his Facebook page.
Although he eventually praised the unity government’s “Madani” budget for its inclusiveness and holistic nature, few netizens led by former DAP Bukit Bintang MP Wee Choo Keong hurled brickbats at him for the introductory remark on his FB post.
“In the past, you table (Budget 2021 and Budget 2022) through the backdoor. Self-serving (syok sendirii),” chastised the former Tourism Malaysia chairman with Muzzaimy Moosa concurring:
“Not only that he’s not qualified to table the budget, he’s not even eligible to be a minister because he was rejected by the people in GE15 (15th General Election).”
Netizen Ahmad Zuber also took a swipe at Tengku Zafrul for insinuating that he should be the one presenting Budget 2023 in the Parliament.
“It doesn’t matter who table the budget so long as he’s the Finance Minister … that also can become an issue … have you submitted your nomination form (presumably for the UMNO vice-presidency poll) – lest you will be left behind … are you qualified in the first place for you are very new (in UMNO) … Allah SWT knows best.”
Elsewhere, Badron Duramid praised Anwar’s tabling of Budget 2023 “as the best” with M Ahmad Mohamed seconding that “this time around, the Budget is comprehensive and embroidered with holy verses of the Quran as advice and reminder”.
To be fair, there are also netizens who gave Tengku Zafrul thumbs-up for his past performance, but these are the people who were left disappointed that Budget 2023 did not offer as many goodies for the B40 group as had Tengku Zafrul dished out during his tenure as finance minister during the premiership of Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob. – Feb 25, 2023
