New Guidelines On Preparation Of 13MP - Rafizi

KUALA LUMPUR, March 3 (Bernama) -- The Ministry of Economy has introduced guidelines on the preparation of the 13th Malaysia Plan (13MP) and application for 2026 - 2030 development projects as a reference source for ministries, departments and government agencies.

Its minister, Datuk Seri Rafizi Ramli said the move was aimed at improving and streamlining the implementation of development projects by the federal government by introducing new approaches that emphasise cost control to avoid leakages, financial waste and project delays.

He said the new approaches include dividing development projects into two categories.

"Before this, all projects from the smallest, which involve a few million Ringgit to projects worth billions of Ringgit could be submitted by the ministry or agency every year.

"Now, we have broken down where high-value projects with a cost of more than RM300 million, applications can only be submitted every two years starting from the Rolling Plan 1 to be submitted between March 1, 2025, to March 31, 2025.

“If the application for the projects cannot be submitted within that period, it can be submitted in 2027, while projects worth less than RM300 million can be submitted every year through the Rolling Plan,” he said during a question and answer session at the Dewan Rakyat today.

Rafizi was responding to a question from Riduan Rubin (Independent -Tenom) regarding measures by the ministry to streamline the implementation of the 13MP projects, especially in Sabah, to avoid delays and failures.

 "Our purpose of separating it is because one of the factors that contribute to the delays or weakness in the project implementation is that the planning does not match the size of the project.

"If the planning of projects is done well, then they can be implemented smoothly,” he said.

Rafizi said the ministry has also issued new instructions to optimise the use of existing land owned by the Federal Land Commissioner as well as land found in the land bank managed by the Department of the Director General of Lands and Mines (JKPTG).

In response to Riduan's supplementary question on unused development allocations being returned to the federal government, he said current regulation required any unspent money to be returned to the federal government.

-- BERNAMA