PETALING JAYA: The Selangor government under former mentri besar, Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim, tabled supplementary budgets "after we have earned income to balance expenditure," said his former political secretary Faekah Husin.
She said what the present government (under Mentri Besar Azmin Ali) was doing, in tabling a deficit budget, was "spending money he has not yet earned," she said in response to Azmin's remarks that Khalid had tabled deficit budgets during his tenure.
She suggested that such remarks by the new mentri besar showed "a means to hide his own shortcomings."
“It is weakness in financial management. Perhaps Azmin should get further explanation from the state’s financial officer or call TSKI (Khalid) for free financial advice,” she said, adding that Khalid had made efforts to ensure enough cash in the state’s coffers while also spending wisely for the people.
Azmin tabled a RM2.4bil state budget for 2015 on Monday, the largest in the state’s history and exceeding the previous record by more than half a billion ringgit.
He defended the amount by saying that he was declaring outright how much his administration would be spending, unlike Khalid, who added supplementary figures to the initial budget.
"He (Khalid) will table a balanced budget but three or four months later, he will table a supplementary budget in the assembly. This caused expenditure to increase every three to six months.
"The budget for 2008 to 2014 are all deficit budgets," he told a press conference.
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