Mahathir’s lie regarding Malaysia’s REAL Government Debt to GDP ratio
That is merely a lie to use as an excuse to NOT lower the price of petrol to RM1.50 as promised. They will also use this as the excuse to NOT pay Terengganu, Kelantan, Sabah and Sarawak 20% Oil Royalty as promised. And Mahathir is now using that same excuse of Malaysia is going bankrupt to borrow money from Japan.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Malaysia recorded a government debt equivalent to 50.90 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product in 2017. Malaysia’s Government Debt to GDP averaged 48.50 percent from 1990 until 2017, reaching an all-time high of 80.74 percent in 1990 and a record low of 31.80 percent in 1997.
At the time that Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak left office, Malaysia’s Government Debt to GDP was the same as Japan’s and lower than Germany’s, the two countries considered economically the most successful in the world. In fact, Malaysia was even lower than the European average, which was about 65 percent.
So, no, Najib did not bankrupt Malaysia, as what Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Lim Guan Eng, Lim Kit Siang, Anwar Ibrahim and the rest of the Pakatan Harapan rat-pack alleges. That is merely a lie to use as an excuse to NOT lower the price of petrol to RM1.50 as promised. They will also use this as the excuse to NOT pay Terengganu, Kelantan, Sabah and Sarawak 20% Oil Royalty as promised. And Mahathir is now using that same excuse of Malaysia is going bankrupt to borrow money from Japan.
The last time Mahathir borrowed money from Japan, Malaysia almost went bankrupt. ‘Anti-Wayang’ has written about this, which you can read below. And after swearing to never again take loans from Japan in Yen, Mahathir is doing it again. What was that Mahathir said about Melayu mudah lupa? And then when Malaysia ends up in trouble, yet again, because of these Yen loans, he will blame Najib for it.
Mahathir certainly has a yen for blaming others for the mess he creates, pun intended.
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Anti-Wayang
Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said that he has asked to borrow money from Japan and that this borrowing will be in Yen.
So, our Pakatan Harapan Government’s solution to reduce our national debt is to borrow more money to create more debt!
How does borrowing money and creating more debt to reduce debt works? Only god and Mahathir know.
In the past, Mahathir had borrowed heavily from Japan in Yen but had ended up in disaster. Although the interest rates on Japan loans are generally low, the appreciation of the Yen meant that Malaysia ended up paying double or triple of the amount loaned.
It got so bad in the past that Mahathir had once sworn off borrowing in Yen when he said this in the 1990s.
“The yen’s ascent to record levels is straining the finances of East Asian governments that have borrowed heavily from Japan and now must pay Tokyo back in a now more expensive currency.”
“We tried to renegotiate the loan in order to reduce slightly our debt burden to Japan,” Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohammad of Malaysia said in a recent speech in Japan. But, he added, “We were not given even one yen reduction.”
It was one of the factors that caused our national debt to soar to record levels of 103.4% in the past under Mahathir compared to only 50.8% now.
One of the lessons learned by the previous Barisan Nasional Government under Najib Tun Razak was to ensure that 97% of borrowings are denominated in Ringgit.
As Malaysia controls the Ringgit, this ensures that our borrowings have no foreign currency risk and that no foreign country can declare Malaysia bankrupt.
By borrowing in Yen, Mahathir is putting Malaysia back to the mercy of Forex risk which could severely weaken our country in future if the Yen continues to appreciate as it did in the past.
