Ever since the Pakatan Harapan government came to power, one of the things we learned was the total amount of government debt that Malaysia now have, which comprise not only the official government debt, but also two other components – committed government guarantees and lease payment for Private-Public Partnership (PPP) projects as well as debts related to 1MDB. PPP comes in two forms, i.e. either in the form of Privatisation or Private Finance Initiatives (PFI).
A check under PPP Unit of the Finance Ministry portal suggests that the benefit for the government to opt for the PFI method is to remove the need for the government to provide government guarantees as well as to spread out the lease payment over the agreed concession period.