PETALING JAYA: The Federal Government has a large number of bad loans that are yet to be recovered, reveals the Auditor-General’s Report.
A check by the department on loans taken by state governments, companies, statutory bodies, local governments and various other agencies and corporations revealed that 451, or 44.3%, of 1,091 loans, have loan repayment arrears of between one and 41 years.
The highest arrears revolved around loans taken by companies, which amounted to RM7.206bil, involving 89 loans.
Among the 451 loans that were in arrears, 219 loans, amounting to RM6.683bil, had never been serviced from the time the repayment schedule came into effect.
The biggest arrears owed to the government involved borrowers in the company category that came up to RM4.552bil, with Indah Water Konsortium Sdn Bhd having the most arrears.
The company had not made any payments on three loans totalling RM1.670bil.
Indah Water Konsortium also owed the most arrears for a loan taken for the National Sewage Project amounting to RM1.417bil.
The repayment period for 85 loans, amounting to RM5.475bil, out of the 451 that were in arrears, had also come to an end but no payment had been made.
There were also 25 loans by companies totalling RM4.254bil that had exceeded the repayment period.
In 2021, 35 loans amounting to RM0.783bil, involving three borrowers, were approved to be written off, subject to due adjustments.
The principal amount for 33 loans amounting to RM0.702bil involved the Kedah state government whilst RM81mil was late interest imposed on the Sarawak government and Cyberview Sdn Bhd.
All the said loans were financed with funds from the Development Fund Group.
At the same time, the report said the government has not made any adjustments to write off 13 loans that were financed by the Statutory Body Fund Group and other groups amounting to RM3.059bil involving five borrowers.
The approval for these loans to be written off was made in 2011.
A RM60mil allocation, for writing off loans, was made available in Budget 2021 but it was moved to pay for other programmes.
