PUTRAJAYA: The tabling of a supplementary budget bill is normal and should not be a big issue, said Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani (pic).
The Second Finance Minister said the Government used to seek approval for a supplementary budget every year, but pointed out that its occurrence has decreased.
“In the past, the Government abled the Supplementary Budget Bill up to four times in a year.
However, in the past three or four years, we only tabled the supplementary budget Bill once a year.
This means that we have become more efficient in our budgeting," said Johari.
He added that the supplementary budget is needed to rectify areas that lacked full details at the time the budget was tabled.
“So it is not a big issue. I will explain the supplementary budget in detail during my winding-up speech in Parliament on Monday next week,” said Johari to reporters after his ministry's open day here on Thursday (May 22).
Last Monday, Johari tabled the Supplementary Supply (2017) Bill 2018 in Parliament, which requested some RM7.1bil (RM7,122,833,728) from the Consolidated Fund for additional expenditure on services and expenses.
This is on top of the country's 2017 budget of RM260.8bil tabled earlier by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, who is also the Finance Minister.
Among the largest sums sought is for Statutory Funds amounting to RM2.7bil.
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