KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 9 — Government leaders should lead by example and tighten their own belts before ordering their charges in the civil service to be more prudent, an Islamic umbrella group said today.

“Moderation” should be made a formal policy, particularly at government functions, the Malaysian Muslim NGO Consultative Council (MAPIM) said, noting the common show of extravagance during official events like minister visits.

“We find it has become very common that celebrations or official programmes organised by the government are overly lavish and wasteful.

“It is illogical that a function to just receive a visiting minister should require such extravagance,” MAPIM president Mohd Azmi Abdul Hamid said in a statement here.

“We’d like to remind that the call for government agencies to be thrifty should first be emulated by government leaders at the higher level. There is no point in urging workers to be thrifty if their superiors are spending lavishly,” he noted.

Mohd Azmi also stressed the need for Putrajaya to keep its purse strings tight at all times and not merely just to ride out financial crises.

“Too many of our government agencies’ spending habits are not properly controlled. It has often been found that excessive spending is the result of orders from the top, although the implementer knows that there are things that should not be bought or spent on.”

He pointed out that the “irrational spending” is reflected in the Auditor-General’s report, either in government procurement or the money spent to hold lavish official ministerial events.

Last year, Auditor-General Tan Sri Ambrin Buang had even suggested a review in the government procurement system to ensure proper spending of public funds.

MAPIM’s comments today come following the recent call by Chief Secretary to the Government, Tan Sri Dr Ali Hamsa, for government departments and agencies to be prudent when organising their official events and ceremonies.

But according to Mohd Azmi, Ali’s call for prudence was not the first and similar requests in the past had ended up being ignored as mere rhetoric instead of being turned into practice.

“We found that the call for prudence is only made when our finances are tight, frugality is a principle that should be a permanent procedure that goes on at all levels,” Mohd Azmi said.

MAPIM also urged Putrajaya to review mega projects which might further add to the government debt, especially projects which are only symbolic in nature.

Malaysia’s longest-serving prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had also called on Putrajaya to be prudent last week, claiming that the government could not rely on subsidy cuts alone to reduce deficits.

Last week, Putrajaya had cut its fuel subsidy and increased fuel pump price for the first time since 2010 as part of its move to consolidate its fiscal position, and reduce the federal government current account deficit-to-GDP ratio to 3 per cent by 2015.

Putrajaya also announced that public sector projects would now be considered carefully, with higher priority given to projects with low-import content and high-multiplier effects.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak also stressed the need for a healthy current account balance, especially after global ratings agency Fitch Ratings revised Malaysia’s sovereign debt outlook from “Stable” to “Negative” last month.