KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 1 — The government will need three more years before it can undo the devastation wrought on the country’s finances by the previous administration’s scandals and corruption, said Lim Guan Eng.
In a new year message in his capacity as the DAP secretary-general, Lim said while Putrajaya has made promising strides under the stewardship of Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, it still needed time to reverse the issues responsible for the people’s current hardships.
Among others, he said the financial damage caused by the 1MDB scandal and the RM1 trillion “debt” amassed by the Barisan Nasional administration was still straining public coffers.
“Malaysia will require three years to restore our fiscal health and take our place as the most promising emerging economy to achieve high-income status,” Lim said.
Despite the prognosis, Lim said Malaysia was well placed to chart its return to the ranks of the region’s vibrant economies.
He noted that Bloomberg has placed Malaysia as No.1 amongst the top 20 emerging economies in the world while the three major international ratings firm have all reaffirmed their assessments of Malaysia’s creditworthiness.
Lim, who is the finance minister, said this confidence was also demonstrated by the markets, with Malaysian exports hitting a new record of RM96.4 billion in October and leading to a trade surplus of RM16.3 billion then.
“Economic growth and prosperity enjoyed by all is the best antidote to the poisonous politics of polarisation, exploiting racism and religious extremism, that threatens our Malaysian polity,” Lim said when asserting that Pakatan Harapan is the only coalition able to achieve this.
