KUCHING: Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng’s remarks reflect his naivety and shallow outlook on how the state’s budgetary preparation is done, said Tourism, Arts, Culture, Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah.
Karim said he was amazed at Lim’s claim on Friday that the Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) government would go bankrupt in three years’ time due to its large State Budget.
“Sarawak has received good positive rating and outlook from International rating agencies like Standard & Poor’s (S&P) and Moody’s for the past 10 years and this (ratings) speaks volume on how the state is managed,” he said when contacted by New Sarawak Tribune yesterday.
“This rating has always been better than the agencies’ rating for Malaysia. I can see that Lim is aware that Sarawak has positive reserves of more than RM30 billion which is the largest among all states in Malaysia.”
He continued, “Not to be arrogant, (but) the reserves that all other states in Malaysia totalled together are not even half of what Sarawak reserve is. So what Lim is saying does not reflect his smartness as an accountant and more so as a Finance Minister. I dread to think of what’s going to happen to the Malaysian economy with a shallow outlook from Finance Minister like him.”
Karim added that he could gauge that Lim’s reasoning for saying that Sarawak could be bankrupt in three years’ time was because of the RM11 billion State Budget which was introduced end of last year.
“With a reserve of about RM30 billion…he must have assumed that the amount would have depleted in three years. That stupid reasoning would be true if Sarawak is only spending its reserve without any revenue coming in.
“Our good State Financial Office and advisors know what to do and would not be stupid enough to prepare a budget which dig into its reserve which would have an effect on our credit rating by international rating agencies. The yearly revenue and expected income from royalties, sales tax and other incomes from our state investment would easily surpass our projected budget as it has always been through all these years.
“This is prudent management of budget and spending …which our Finance Minister should learn to emulate and adopt instead of coming up with a statement which would only show his naivety and stupidity,” he stated.
