TWO budgets were tabled this week and they point Malaysia in two different directions.
The Madani 2027 Budget spends RM459.84 bil. It raises STR and SARA to RM16 bil, lifts the minimum wage to RM2,000 from June 2027 and keeps about RM40 bil a year in fuel subsidies.
Its deficit is 3.3% of GDP (gross domestic product). This is a budget built for the coming election: more of everything with the same structure underneath.
On the contrary, BERSAMA’s Shadow Budget 2027 asks a harder question: how do we stop paying more every year for the same results?
𝐅𝐮𝐞𝐥: 𝐬𝐮𝐛𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞, 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐥
Under BUDI95, the government pays the gap at the pump. The more petrol you burn, the more subsidy you get. When oil spikes, the Treasury absorbs the shock. In March this year, the monthly fuel subsidy jumped from RM700 mil to RM3.2 bil.
BERSAMA would let fuel prices follow the market and instead pay households directly. B40 families would receive 90% of the price gap and M40 families 65% paid as a monthly allowance.
Support would depend on need – not on how much you drive. Oil shocks would no longer blow a hole in the national budget.
𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐡 𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝
STR and SARA are one-off top-ups that change every budget. BERSAMA replaces them with standing support:
- RM200 a month for every household in the bottom 60%
- RM50 a month for every child, up to RM250 per household
- A RM600 monthly social pension for elderly Malaysians with no retirement income
By our estimates, a B40 household comes out about RM367 better off per month, even after subsidy changes. All 189 aid programmes now scattered across 26 ministries and agencies would sit under one Social Security Ministry.
𝐖𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥
We propose state-based minimum wages above a national floor of RM1,800. Foreign worker levies and quotas would be tied to how many locals a company hires and what it pays them. Cheap foreign labour should not be the easy way out.
𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞
For too long, lucrative government IT contracts have gone to well-connected companies and the public pays when things go wrong.
This week, the Road Transport Department (JPJ) suspended Zetrix AI Bhd (formerly (formerly My E.G. Services Bhd) as a collection agent.
The company failed to remit RM314 mil in road tax and licence payments collected from Malaysians between May and September.
It had even stopped payment on a RM231 mil cheque meant to settle the arrears. The Transport Minister himself has said JPJ does not need such middlemen but nothing has been done.
The same week, the Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) reported on eJamin, the online court bail payment system run by Dapat Vista. The system ran for five years with no formal contract with the government.
Bail money was paid into the company’s own bank account instead of a government trust account.
By end-2024 that account held RM193.71 mil, of which RM130.8 mil of it had been invested in the company’s name without government approval.
The interest between RM4 mil and RM5 mil a year was booked as the company’s income. There was no trustee, no performance bond and no insurance protecting the money.
NexG Bhd (formerly Datasonic Group Bhd), Zetrix AI (formerly MyEG), DataVista – the names change – but the pattern does not. Core public systems are handed to well-connected private vendors, the government loses control of its own data and money, we the taxpayers pick up the bill.
BERSAMA is ready to build the government’s own capacity through GovTech and PADU. When the state owns its systems, it can target help properly and plug leakages worth billions.
𝐅𝐢𝐱𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬
Debt service already takes 16 sen of every ringgit the government collects. We propose a legal rule to repay maturing debt instead of rolling it over, and an independent Public Finance Commission to check the real cost of every mega-project and every election promise.
The result is a 3.0% deficit in 2027, 1.8% by 2031 and Malaysia’s first budget surplus since 1997 by 2035.
One budget is built to win votes. The other is built to last. – Oct 11, 2026
Former PKR Petaling Jaya MP Lee Chean Chung is ow a BERSAMA member
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
