Government mulls tabling supplementary budget

SERDANG, Aug 12 (Bernama) -- The government is looking at tabling the supplementary budget next week, said Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

“We will look at that,” said Dr Mahathir when asked by reporters if the government would be tabling the supplementary budget next week after visiting an art exhibition 'Tun M: A Forever Legacy' at the Perdana University here today. 

On the dispute between the previous government and Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng on the alleged missing RM18 billion from fund for the goods and services tax (GST) refund, Dr Mahathir said : "So if it (the RM18 billion) is not missing show us where the money is."

Asked if the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government had used the money to pay any of the expenditure since it came into power on May 10, the prime minister said: "Well we are short of money. That is the fact."

Dr Mahathir said PH was short of money because a lot of the money went to servicing loans and trying to retire the loans. 

"That is where the money has gone to," Dr Mahathir  said. 

The prime minister said the people (the rakyat) also expected the PH government  to give free money to them because this was a habit developed by former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

"He (Najib) gives money to people freely and now the people expects us to give money to them freely. But we don't have the money,”he said. 

-- BERNAMA