KUALA LUMPUR, June 9 — The Najib administration is spending between RM4.76 billion and RM11.62 billion annually off its balance sheet for nine companies under the Finance Ministry for a five-year period from now until 2020.

Assets or debts that do not appear on a company’s balance sheet are considered off-balance sheet spending. Off balance sheet refers to items which the company does not have a legal claim or responsibility for.

“For your information, up till May 31 2015, there are nine government-owned companies via the Finance Ministry Incorporated (MKD)  which has expenditures that have been classified as off balance sheet, currently borne by the government.

“The annual payment for this between 2015 and 2020 is between RM4.76 billion and RM11.62 billion,” Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said in a written reply to Parliament yesterday.

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The disclosure from Najib who is also finance minister was in response to Kulim-Bandar Baharu MP Datuk Abd Aziz Sheikh Fadzir who had asked Putrajaya to state the number of government-owned companies such as Pembinaan PFI Sdn Bhd (PPFI) and Pembinaan BLT Sdn Bhd and how much public money was being spent on them that were off balance sheet.

Questions about the little-known PPFI, owned by the Finance Ministry was first raised by DAP’s Serdang MP Ong Kian Ming.

On March 11, Ong said that PPFI, an obscure firm that had that racked up RM27.9 billion in liabilities in 2012, could have easily doubled up on its debt by now if left unchecked.

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He had claimed that just last year, the company took on an Islamic Bai Muajjal loan with the Employees Provident Fund with a RM19.5 billion ceiling, potentially bumping up PPFI’s liabilities to over RM47 billion.

On April 1, Putrajaya confirmed that PPFI still has an outstanding debt worth nearly RM27 billion.

According to the Auditor-General’s report in 2013, PPFI had the third-highest liabilities among all government-owned entities at the end of 2012.

Its total liabilities were RM27.9 billion, behind national oil giant Petronas and sovereign fund Khazanah Nasional.

Ong claimed that more questions arose after the Federal Land Commission signed a deal in November to pay RM29.2 billion in rental to PPFI in staggered payments of 30 blocks spread out over 15 years from February 15, 2013 right up to August 13, 2027.