Just recently, Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz revealed the initiatives that will be put forward by the government in Budget 2023 as well as the various details on how they are planning to use the money to help benefit the rakyat.
However, it appears that Budget 2023 seems to lean towards benefitting the rich and the elite in comparison to the ordinary Malaysian.
According to Subang MP Wong Chen, the RM94 billion development expenditure will see government contractors and tycoons “celebrating”.
Wong said that he also expects these groups to be major contributors to the funding of political parties ahead of the next general election (GE15).
In a series of social media posts, the PKR man said that in a typical year, the development expenditure should be within the range of RM50 to RM60 billion.
He explained that the higher expenditure this year was “obviously a case of election fever spending”.
“I am sure that many of these tycoons and contractors will be opening their cheque books to make political donations soon for GE15.”
Wong also said that the RM369 billion budget tabled today was the “biggest ever” in Malaysian history but it was also funded by what he claimed to be the largest development debt of RM97 billion which he deemed to be unsustainable.
“This has gone through the roof! The government intends to borrow RM97 billion to pay for this highest ever development expenditure,” he said.
“Government contracts only benefit the connected contractors and connected tycoons to the government, they get the contract. Only the super rich and super connected will get these contracts.”
Meanwhile, Wong also claimed the government intended to cut subsidies and social assistance in 2023 to RM42 billion from RM58 billion this year.
He said, this was a reduction of RM16.9 billion, which constitutes a 29% drop from the allocation this year.
“This means that for the people we have a reduction in subsidies but for the rich, a doubling up in contracts for them. This is a budget that helps the rich and does not help the poor.”
What do you think? Do you agree?
Also read: BUDGET 2023: Individual Income Tax Rate Will Be Reduced By 2%
