Lim Hwa Beng, a former Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) member lambasted Malaysian Premier Najib Razak on last Friday’s Budget 2018 speech.
The politician said it would seem from the budget presented by Najib that he has absolutely no idea how to develop the country. His budgetary plan is really simple, he said.
He said Najib measured the Budget with a simplistic approach as follows:-
- Income – mainly from GST, personal and corporate taxes which will increase. There’s no plan at all to generate income apart from taxes or to generate the capacity to generate more income. There’s no plan to propel us to a high-income nation.
- Expenses – cut down as much as possible on expenses across the board and re-allocate them as goodies and sweets to try to please as many as possible so that each will have a little, thinly spread.
- Development allocation – ‘’at the moment, I have to save my skin, this item is not so important now’’ – about 16% only allocated.
On the Jakim – he said “can’t lose them, big allocation of RM1b remains.”
Jakim is the Islamic development department that has its own ‘moral police’ that catches couples in hotel rooms and watches over people who are eating during the fasting month and so on.
The PM’s Department and Permata – about RM20 billion, “can’t reduce that, can you? Rosmah, bread and butter,” he said.
Rosmah is the wife of the Prime Minister, popularly known as FLOM or First Lady of Malaysia.
On the nation’s debts – Lim said don’t tell them (the population) the overall debts (which close to a trillion), just tell them the deficit this time (about RM20b). “Cover-up as much as possible. We shall cross the bridge when we see it,” he wrote in a message that is making its rounds in Whatsapp in Malaysia.
“The rest – just spread the cash out thinly to please as many as possible. No economic impact? No multiplier effect? Inflationary effect? Unemployment? Aiyo!!
“Don’t bother me with those macro-economics first!! This is hardly the time to speak about the macro stuff. What monetary, what fiscal, strategies? This is survival necessity!!” he wrote.
He said the Budget an ‘election budget’ as admitted by Rahman Jazlan (Lim probably meant Rahman Dahlan Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department).
“In fact, the UMNO leaders are happy that it’s an election budget which could ensure their victory in GE14. They just want to win. No need to perform.
“He (Najib) has absolutely no idea how to bring our nation to another level of development. Maybe he has but he is a PM and Finance Minister under siege and therefore irresponsible.
“His budget must be one which has his political survival at the forefront. It’s still endorsed ‘cash is king’ all over. We will be, at best, stagnating and at worst, nose-diving at a steeper angle,” said Lim.