TTF: It is wrong for Lim Guan Eng to dish out fake figures in relation to the national debt and Debt-to-GDP ratio.
Correct.
However, it is also true that it was Dr Mahathir Mohamad who instructed Guan Eng to focus on exposing non-existent scandals and debts. In that sense and that sense alone, the Minister of Finance is innocent, meaning, he fell victim to a scheme by the Prime Minister to blame the DAP for the state of economic affairs (READ HOW AND WHY HERE).
That having been said, the MCA should clean up its act first before attempting to gain mileage. The BN component party spent a great many years playing good cop bad cop with the DAP on Islam and other related matters. Dato’ Chong Sin Woon was even perceived to be supporting the DAP when it came to 1MDB and spent a great many months criticising Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Razak hinged purely on conjectures and hearsay by the Wall Street Journal.
Did the MCA not consider the ramifications to the economy then?
PETALING JAYA: Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng has failed to put countermeasures in place to stop the nation’s economic decline, said MCA Youth chairman Datuk Chong Sin Woon.
“Though news agencies have relentlessly highlighted the outflow of foreign investments, we have yet to see Lim take any countermeasures to stop Malaysian economics from going further downhill,” said Chong in a statement on Wednesday (June 20).
Chong said he agreed with PKR adviser Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s reminder to Lim to focus on increasing confidence among foreign investors and to let other federal Ministers expose scandals.
Anwar previously suggested that Lim asked other ministers or the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to expose scandals instead of him, as his position as the Finance Minister was deemed “sensitive”.
However, Lim responded that he was carrying out the instructions of Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
“I believe that Lim’s rebuke infers that he admits to have neglected the core responsibilities of a Finance Minister all this while,” Chong said, adding that there was “nothing wrong” with Anwar’s advice.
He added that the Finance Minister’s portfolio has made Lim the keeper and manager of the nation’s treasury, adding that matters concerning the nation’s fiscal well being should be the most pressing focus of the person holding that portfolio.
“What the current Finance Minister is doing right now is not only dereliction of his own duty, but he is also disrupting the division of power in government administration,” said Chong.
Chong added Lim should be more concerned about resolving the crisis by attracting more foreign investments, re-stabilising the stock market and foreign exchange rate, instilling confidence in investors and addressing the rate of foreign capital outflows if the country’s debt was RM1 trillion.
He also pointed out that issues such as the Employees Provident Fund’s (EPF) losses of RM6.09bil in investment value following GE14 should be addressed, as well as that of foreign investors selling off RM1.21bil worth of Malaysian stocks.
“This is a clear indication that investors have gotten skittish over the political situation and economic outlook in Malaysia,” he said.
Source: The Star Online
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