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PH changed the rules on debt, Najib tells ’emotional’ Tony Pua

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He says governments around the world count only direct debts and do not include guarantees and lease obligations as done by PH.

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Free Malaysia Today
Najib Razak responded to what he called “an emotional outburst” by Tony Pua regarding the state of the national debt.

PETALING JAYA:
Najib Razak, hitting back at “an emotional outburst” by Damansara MP Tony Pua, said Pakatan Harapan had changed the rules on counting national debt.

Unlike other governments around the world, including Singapore, the PH government tried to create an entirely new definition which included direct government debt, government guarantees and lease obligations.

“As explained numerous times before, all other countries in the world and the various international agencies classify government debt as only direct government debt and does not include the other two.

“No one other than the PH government uses the definition that PH uses. It is just not internationally recognised and does not follow accounting standards,” he said.

His criticism came after Pua had responded to Najib’s statement that the government’s direct national debt had now reached RM1 trillion, a far cry from when his administration headed the country. Pua hit back by saying that the RM1 trillion debt was entirely that of Najib’s Barisan Nasional government.

In 2018, then finance minister Lim Guan Eng had claimed that the total amount of the government’s debt, including liabilities, amounted to more than RM1 trillion.

Najib questioned if a person would classify a guarantee given for a relative’s loan as one’s immediate payable debt. “Would you also classify your future house rental payments as your debt? That is exactly what PH did when they tried to claim that overall national debt had crossed RM1 trillion at the point of GE14,” he said.

He also said RM80 billion in government guarantees for the various public transport projects are not included in the official government debt because infrastructure are long-living assets that continue to be useful 50 years and 100 years into the future.

“A tunnel, bridge or track line built today will still be functional decades into the future,” he said, quoting an article which said long-lived public infrastructure debt is not included as official government debt in Singapore.

He said government guarantees had increased by RM29 billion during the 22 months that the PH government was in office. “Using Tony’s logic, should we also claim that the PH government also tried to ‘hide’ RM29 billion in debts?” he said.

Najib also accused the PH government of having raided Petronas “to pay insanely high dividends” of RM24 billion in 2018 and RM54 billion in 2019, much higher than the RM16 billion paid to the BN government in the previous two years.

“If Petronas did not pay these dividends which is recognised as government revenues. the PH government’s deficit and increase in debt would have been even higher,” he said.

Najib said PH did not understand debt management, “which is why they failed so badly in economic management and efforts to promote growth when in power,” he said.

He chided Pua saying “no amount of emotional outburst and rude talking will mask the 22 months of failure under PH”, claiming that the government debt under PH had increased substantially during the time they were in office.

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