DANA YANG MERAGUKAN

Something very wrong as “slush funds” for PM’s department hit RM20 bil since 2011   

Harakahdaily - TS,     06 November 2013

Nov 6:  Putting Prime Minister’s Department’s expenditure under microscope, Kluang MP Liew Chin Tong concluded that “something

is very wrong” with the way Prime Minister Najib Razak handles public money judging by the exponential increase in the allocation for his department’s discretionary funds.



Liew had earlier pointed out that 65 percent or RM6.9 billion of PMD’s RM11 billion development allocation for 2014 fell under "near slush funds", or discretionary funding items with scant details  - namely "Restructuring of Society" (Penyusunan Semula Masyarakat),

"Development programmes"  (Program Pembangunan), "Special Projects" (Projek Khas), "People Friendly Projects" (Projek Mesra Rakyat), "Facilitation Fund" (Dana Fasilitasi).



From his ‘digging’, Liew found out that the usage of “new slush funds” by PMD became a new phenomena since 2011; and over the next four years, the amount has totalled up to a whopping RM20 billion starting from RM 2.8 billion in 2011; RM 4.3 billion in 2012; RM 5.9 billion in 2013 and RM 6.9 billion in 2014.



Liew said the "near slush funds" is now 15 percent of the entire development budget for 2014 of RM46 billion compared to only 0.3 percent in the 2010 development budget of RM53 billion.



“The overall development budget has dwindled over the years but PM's "near slush funds" has grown exponentially,” he chided, adding that the phenomena shows that the government is now addicted to the discretionary funds.