MOCKING his former ally, former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak urged Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed to reflect on himself before commenting on the nation’s economic turmoil.
“Tok Pa elaborated on our Prime Minister’s statement recently, who claimed that the country has not much funds left after spending nearly RM600 bil to contain COVID-19.
“But at the same time, these are the same people who accused me of bankrupting the country; yet they had RM600 bil to spend,” he said, in a Facebook post.
Last week, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said that the Government was lacking in funds after spending billions of ringgit to sustain the COVID-19 ravaged economy.
With that, the Pagoh MP urged civil servants to volunteer themselves to take a pay cut to help the nation’s financial situation.
However, the Government received brickbats for the idea, who retorted by saying that the premier should trim his bloated Cabinet first before asking others to sacrifice their paycheck.
Gov’t missteps compounded to the problems
Two days ago, Mustapa said that many nations in the world are suffering from financial issues due to the pandemic, with some nations recording a deficit of 15% of their gross domestic product (GDP).
“Malaysia recorded 6% deficit recently. We borrowed because our revenue dropped but our needs increased. We had to spend because the people are our priority,” the Jeli MP was reported saying.
On Mustapa’s views, Najib agreed that many nations are suffering the after-effects of the raging pandemic but he added that Malaysia’s is going through certain problems due to the Government’s own folly.
Citing an example, the former Umno supremo said that Malaysia is receiving the lowest foreign direct investment (FDI) among all other Asean nations.
“Malaysia is the only country which have used COVID-19 as an excuse to declare an Emergency. With that, we prorogued the Parliament, which allows the Government to spend without Parliamentary scrutiny.
“And we’re the only country that breached our own debt ceiling of 60% and still refuse to reconvene the Parliament to increase the threshold,” the Pekan MP retorted.
Malaysia debt level now is at 62.2% of the GDP. – April 20, 2021.
