Stop blame game and start saving nation’s economy, Najib tells govt

(FMT) – Former prime minister Najib Razak today again urged the Pakatan Harapan-led federal government to stop blaming him and Barisan Nasional (BN) for all that is wrong with the country.

Instead, Najib called on Putrajaya to focus its attention and energy on finding ways to save the country’s economy as it faced a more challenging economic situation.

This is necessary to protect the people’s interest, he said.

“We, as opposition members, will continue to play our roles and be constructive in our criticism. We have no other intent than to bring our thoughts to the table.

“A constructive opposition means a healthy parliamentary democracy for Malaysia,” he said during a Facebook Live session tonight.

The Pekan MP, in the 10-minute live feed, noted that in the first 200 days of PH’s governance, the country had yet to see a clear direction on the administration of the country, especially in the management of the country’s economy.

He said there were too many flip-flops, U-turns and rebranding of what had previously been done by the BN government.

“There are also instances where PH has confused the people. For instance, the national debt is said to be RM1 trillion, but when the mid-term review of the 11th Malaysia Plan was tabled in Parliament, the document itself confirmed that the national debt is just RM686 billion.

“This is a number we have been using all this while. And an official PH document has confirmed that it is the amount of the national debt,” he said.

Najib said when he took over as prime minister in 2009, the size of the economy was around RM713 billion.

He said when he left his position as prime minister, the size of the economy was RM1.35 trillion, demonstrating the speedy economic growth that was projected to reach RM2 trillion come 2020.

“If we look at economic growth, when BN governed the country, we achieved 5.9% last year. In my nine years of premiership, the average growth was between 5.2% and 5.4%.

“However, ever since PH took power, all projections have pointed to a weakening trend. Notably, this year, economic growth is projected to be at 4.5% and it is set to weaken next year,” he said.

Najib also said there was a lot of anxiety among Malaysians, with the prices of commodities such as oil palm and rubber going down.

This, he said, was compounded by social safety net schemes developed by BN but which were discontinued or reduced.

“As a result, the people are negatively impacted by these developments,” he said.

Najib said many industries, for example tourism, are seeing a dip.

“We had anticipated two million Chinese tourists to make their way here. But Thailand got 10 million.”

He said in the first four months of this year, there was a 37% increase in the number of Chinese tourists. But in the middle of the year, there was a 35% drop, leading to a revenue loss of RM13 billion.

The former finance minister said when there is an economic slowdown, investors will not invest more, the private sector will reduce its expenditure, workers’ income will go down, and unemployment will go up.

Since May, some 7,000 workers have lost their jobs each month, he said.

The global scenario is not all that rosy either, Najib said, pointing at the predictions by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

“IMF’s managing director Christine Lagarde had said that 2019 will be challenging because of uncertainties in terms of international commerce. This will cause pressure on global economic growth.

“She had also predicted the possibility of external factors putting more pressure on economies like Malaysia,” he added.