Najib’s excessive control over developmental allocation

Budget Speech (Part 2) by DAP National Political Education Director and MP for Kluang Liew Chin Tong

One salient feature of Budget 2015 is the Prime Minister’s Department’s excessive control of the already very small development allocation.

Prime Minister’s Department (PMD) has sliced away more budget allocation from other ministries over the last decade.

According to the statistics I have compiled, the allocation of PMD in 2006 was 2.5% of (RM 4 billion) of the total budget. Since then, it has been increased to 3.8% in 2008 (RM 6.9 billion), 4.9% in 2009 (RM 10.2 billion), 5.6% in 2010 (RM 11.9 billion) and 7% in 2015 (RM19 billion).

What is more alarming is that the PMD took a quarter of the total development allocation. In 2006, the PMD only had RM 2 billion (5.6% of the total development budget) but the amount increased more than six fold to RM 13 billion in 2015.

While the 2015 Budget has only allocated 18% or RM 50.5 billion for development, the PMD has taken the lion’s share, 25 % of the total development budget.

The concentration of financial resources in the hands of Prime Minister Najib is unprecedented and unparalleled.

Of the development funds given to Najib’s Prime Minister’s Department, significant portions are of discretionary nature which usage is determined arbitrarily by Najib himself. To name a few big ticket items in the PMD’s developmental budget- the Facilitation Fund (RM 2.5 billion) and an allocation for “Special Projects” (RM 1.6 billion).

Such slush funds at Najib’s disposal in PMD at the expense of genuine developmental needs is deplorable.

I will raise the question of PMD controlling so much of the development budget during the committee stage of budget debate.

Liew Chin Tong