Studying the Budget Documents

For those interested, after Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim presented Budget 2026 in his capacity as Finance Minister yesterday, I would recommend that you read the various books and documents that constitute the Budgetary process.

I was first elected to the Parliament in 2008. Those days, most of the Budget documents were only available to the Members of Parliament, and not easily accessible to the general public.

However, by the time I entered Parliament, I was already familiar with all the Budget documents and books as I had worked for MPs such as Sdr Lim Kit Siang, Sdri Teresa Kok, and Sdr Fong Kui Lun, as well as served as a researcher at the DAP Headquarters.

During my decade-long Opposition days (2008-2018), as Budgets were always presented on Friday afternoons, I would spend the next day plowing through the nearly 600-pages Anggaran Perbelanjaan Persekutuan (Estimated Federal Expenditure) to understand the amount allocated to each ministry. I would then look for points to discuss the Budget priorities and contexts in a holistic manner.

Having understood the expenditure side, one should also look at the revenue side of the story in Fiscal Outlook and Federal Government Revenue Estimates.

The Economic Report provides context of what has happened globally and in Malaysia, and explains the broad choices available to the nation.

I am delighted that the seven-volume Senarai Perjawatan which details all the positions and grades in the civil service is now available online. This document was not easily accessible before but I would cite materials from this series for the public through my writings.

Seventeen years after I was first elected to the Parliament, I regret that somehow, not many MPs or financial analysts bother to pore through these documents to discuss the budget in a more holistic manner.

I also wish the current Opposition would spend less time on rhetoric, and more time to read these documents and books to understand the Budget details. At least they owe it to their constituents.

A few days ago, I was explaining to a senior Treasury official that I would examine these Budget documents thoroughly when we were in the opposition. He smiled and said, “We in the Treasury are happy that DAP is now not the opposition”.