SIBU: Based on certain important statistics released in the Budget 2020, the outlook of Malaysian economy for the year 2020 does not look optimistic.
On the contrary, Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) Dudong branch chairman, Wong Ching Yong, said he sees gloom ahead.
Wong said: “The revenue expected to be collected for the year 2020 is RM244.53 billion. Comparing with 2019 revised estimate of RM263.3 billion, this represents a 7.13% decrease.
“Reduction in revenue means taxable income from taxpayers, including companies, individual, petroleum income tax and other non-tax revenue and indirect tax, is also reduced.
“This is a very worrying sign because this is the first time in many years that income is reduced by such a significant percentage.”
Wong said this to reporters here, Saturday.
Wong said another worrying sign is that operating expenditure for 2020 is RM241 billion as compared to RM262.26 billion for 2019.
“This represents an 8.1% reduction. However, while the government is trying to reduce operating expenditure, emoluments payable to the civil servants increase from RM82.045 billion in 2019 to RM82.60 billion.
“The emoluments for civil servants in 2019 represented 31.6% of the total operating expenditure whereas in 2020, it represents 34.27% of the total operating expenditure. The number of pensioners in 2020 is 874,000 while in 2019 it was 853,000.
“This represents an increment of 21,000 pensioners. In other words, a big bulk of the operating expenditure has gone to paying the salary and wages and pensions of the civil servants in Malaysia,” he said.
