Threats to economy need ‘full-time’ finance minister to handle, says DAP MP

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 28 — An impending confluence of international and local issues that could threaten Malaysia’s economy requires a minister whose sole focus is on managing the country’s finances, a DAP lawmaker argued today.

Saying that continuing the “unhealthy” practice of putting the finance portfolio under the attention of the prime minister was no longer viable, Kluang MP Liew Chin Tong urged Putrajaya to restore a “full time minister” at the head of the Ministry of Finance.

“The practice of the prime minister doubling as finance minister is an unhealthy trend for the country’s economy.

“Over the short and middle-term horizon, the Malaysian economy may face the following challenges, particularly a potential slowdown, the impact of the tapering of the Quantitative Easing, and a potential property bubble,” he said in a statement today.

Liew added that the delegation of duties normally handled by a finance minister to personalities from various ministries suggest a risk that too many forces were acting to chart the country’s economy at once.

As example, he pointed out that Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin was heading a Cabinet Committee on Cost of Living, which he said should rightly come under the Ministry of Finance.

He also highlighted that the government’s efficiency unit Pemandu also appears to have joined the Treasury and the Economic Planning Unit as Putrajaya’s main spokesmen on the economy in recent years, adding to the fragmentation.

“The time has come for the appointment of a full-time finance minister to be the leading voice for sensible and coherent economic policies.

The position of finance minister had traditionally been held by its own minister until 1998, when Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who was then prime minister took over control of the ministry following the sacking of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim who had held the portfolio at the time.

This practice was maintained when Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi succeeded Dr Mahathir, and again when current Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak took office in 2009.