KUALA LUMPUR, May 5 — The Pakatan Harapan (PH) government saved RM3.5 billion just from not being corrupt, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said.
News portal Malaysiakini quoted the DAP leader as saying that the government also saved over RM24 billion from cost-cutting measures for public transport projects such as the LRT 3 and MRT 2, which allowed the government to “save” Lembaga Tabung Haji and Felda.
“If you ask where the money comes from, I say it is because the government is clean, wasn’t corrupt, so we managed to save,” Lim was quoted saying in a media interview.
“When we were doing the budget estimate, how could we have measured how much being clean could save for us? We couldn’t. But when we had that little extra, we shared it with the people.”
Lim also reportedly said state investment firm 1MDB would service its debts to the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) and Retirement Fund Inc (KWAP) as they were government guaranteed.
“You don’t need to worry about that (debts to EPF and KWAP). You need to worry about the Finance Ministry, because we are paying the money.”
