RM1 trillion debt an excuse to avoid fulfilling polls manifesto, claims Najib

(FMT) – Former prime minister Najib Razak today accused the new government of continuing its propaganda of RM1 trillion national debt to make his former administration look bad and an excuse for not fulfilling its election manifesto.

He said the use of the “RM1 trillion” figure was easy to grab the public’s attention even though World Bank and local government agencies like the finance ministry, Economic Planning Unit and Bank Negara did not state the country’s debt is at RM1 trillion.

In his Facebook page, he continued his attacks, stating the rakyat needs to know the World Bank had released a statement that Malaysia’s debts were not “extraordinarily high”, as summarised in the 11th Malaysia Plan.

He said the report had summarised that “Malaysia was still given encouraging ratings with stable prospects by international rating agencies based on the country’s strong economic fundamentals”.

Due to that, Najib said the PH government was continuing with its propaganda on the country’s debts to reduce or stop welfare programmes and to cancel projects in states that are under the opposition.

“It is also an excuse to open tenders for projects and to give opportunities to certain parties.

“It’s an excuse to hike taxes and to ask the rakyat to sacrifice and to blame BN government for the shrinking economy.”