Anwar's mini budget passed without debate

KUALA LUMPUR: The Consolidated Fund (Expenditure on Account) Bill 2022, which allows for funds amounting to RM107.718bil to be issued from the consolidated fund to meet the government's urgent expenditure has been passed in Parliament on Tuesday (Dec 20).

The bill, which was tabled for the first reading on Monday (Dec 19), was tabled for the second and third readings on Tuesday and was passed without being debated.

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Dubbed as the mini budget, the temporary operating budget was to pay salaries of civil servants, utilities, scholarships, welfare payments as well as education services and healthcare, until the federal budget, better known as Budget 2023, is passed.

The first part of the bill tabled by Prime Miniser Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who is also the Finance Minister, was to allow the government to withdraw a sum not exceeding RM55.95bil from the Development Fund to meet the government’s urgent expenditure, pending the approval of the Development Estimates for 2023.

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“Ongoing development projects have to be continued and contract payments must be serviced according to schedule,” the Prime Minister said in the Dewan Rakyat on Tuesday.

“I will retable Budget 2023 somewhere in February or March next year,” said Anwar in his Parliament speech on Tuesday (Dec 20).

The government of the day will have to retable Budget 2023 as the 14th Parliament was dissolved before the supply bill was debated and passed.

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Meanwhile, Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Maslan tabled the latter two provisions of the bill.

The first is to transfer RM35.05bil comprising of the balance of the proceeds from the Malaysian Government Investment Issue (RM31.83 bil) and RM3.21bil from the Malaysian Islamic Treasury Bills into the Development Fund.

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The second motion was in relation to the transfer of RM16.2bil, which is the balance of the proceeds from the MGII for 2022 into the Covid-19 fund.

The Act will come into operation on Jan 1, 2023.