MIRI: Pujut assemblyman Dr Ting Tiong Choon scoffed at and likens the 2017 Federal Budget to an “Empty Tin” and called on all Sarawak MPs, including the 25 BN members, to reject and vote against the budget in Parliament.
He said the overall impression of the Budget 2017 was an ‘unbalance and an unfair budget’, saying the Minister of Finance Dato Seri Najib Razak had failed to put forward any economic strategy to stimulate the sluggish national economy.
He said despite a small increase in BR1M, this additional amount would be easily consumed by the price hike expected in the coming months.
“The biggest beneficiary from the Budget are the government employees who has gained significant access to additional allowances and cheaper loans benefit,” he said.
He was referring to civil service benefits including computer purchase, loans up to RM5,000 once every three years, has been extended to smart phones while motorcycle loan limit has doubled to RM10,000; and the home loans up to RM750,000.
Dr Ting said Najib should have put in some economic strategies in order to provide stimulus for our current economic downturn to check the problems of unemployment and slow growth.
He described as an excessive amount the RM218 billion (82% of total budget) allocated for administrative expenses.
Dr Ting called on Najib’s Umno-led government to review the administrative expenses in the long-term, so that more money could be allocated for nation building and development.
He said the 2017 Federal Budget was considered by many as the worst budget Malaysia ever produced and chided Najib for spending a significant amount of time “to lecture” other MPs rather than to provide some long term BN strategies, to ‘steer the Malaysian Economy into the right path’.
Dr Ting also said Najib, who is also Prime Minister of Malaysia, failed to deliver on his promises during the last State Election as development funding for Sarawak in Budget 2017 was minimal and could even be considered negligible.
“Sarawak is far behind Malaya in terms of infrastructure, road construction or health services the Sarawak people will continue to suffer miserably without bigger allocations.”
Dr Ting, meanwhile called upon Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Adenan Satem to show his leadership by pressing Najib’s Umno government to insist on “our rightful allocation from the Federal Funds’.
He also urged all 31 Sarawak MPs to vote against the Budget 2017 in Parliament ‘to protest against Najib, to show our dissatisfaction with Umno in order to defend the state rights and to gain her dignity’.