02 April 2019
When tabling the second reading of the Supplementary Supply Bill 2019 at the Dewan Rakyat today, he said the fiscal target had already been achieved. “The balance of RM9 billion is not an additional budget, but rather a reclassification of the expenditure, mainly from operating expenditure to development expenditure,” he said.
Lim pointed out that the real operating expenditure and development expenditure for 2018 amounted to RM289 billion compared to RM280 billion approved for the 2018 Estimated Federal Expenditure. These commitments include the takeover of the Eastern Dispersal Link in Johor worth RM1.4 billion after the previous government decided to abolish its toll at the end of 2017.
Other than that, servicing off-balance sheet loans required an additional allocation of RM4 billion, he noted.