Beyond Budget 2016: The Cost of the Budget.

By Mohd Ariff Sabri

SUNDAY, 8 NOVEMBER 2015

Beyond Budget 2016: The Cost of the Budget.

There is going to be a lot of money passing through all the regulatory agents for 2016. RM267.224 billion. The ministries are essentially regulatory agents. They regulate the release of money they get. And that’s the worrying part.

Every spending by the government contains within it, the seeds of corruption. Preventing and making noise about it, is part of ensuring good governance.

So what’s the fuss about them being regulatory agents? Many of us fuss about that, because whenever there are regulatory agents, there are possibilities for regulatory or state capture. Those involved in managing the spending can also do things to benefit financially. They become corrupt or are presented with the means and opportunities to profiteer because of the nature of their positions.

I cringe each time the government MPs say the opposition do nothing but complain. They on the other hand deliver development to the people. By inference, because they do that, they can and have the right to benefit.

The simple retort to that is, we can’t do anything other than complain and exercise vigilant guardianship over the spending by the government of public money, is because the money is held by the government. What’s left for us to do other than to make sure public money entrusted in the hands of unscrupulous BN MPs is spent correctly?

Any institution receiving public money and having the power to decide on where and how much to spend is a regulatory agency by nature. A ministry getting money from parliament is a regulatory institution. It can decide where, when, how much and who to spend on.

All RM267.2 billion. And there will supplementary budgets to come.  In the course of 2016, the government will come back to parliament to ask for more money. All the government ministers and backbenchers will once again, as usual, tell all the cock and bull story about the good intentions of the government in wanting to spend on the welfare of the people.

The task of ensuring the money is honestly spent falls on the shoulders of a few institutions. We want to see results commensurate with the amount of money we approved for them.

 The judiciary for instance, will look at adjudicating cases and meting out punishments for wrongdoings. The office of the auditor general and his department comb through the expenditures. Every year they publish thick documents on financial wrongdoings. But the wrongdoings do not seem to be corrected. Profiteering, falsification of pricing, embezzlement, fraud all seemed to be a habit.

The agency directly in charge of ferreting out corruption, SPRM appears to be aggressive only on small fry. The big fishes are getting away.

Since 2013 to 2016, we spent on average or we gave on average the following amount to the various agencies:-

TABLE 1: BUDGET OUTLAYS FOR INTEGRITY-WATCHING AGENCIES- 2013-2016.

In RM million.

Dept/year	2013	2014	2015	2016	Average/year
Judiciary	77.63	79.04	90.00	90.00	84.17
Auditor general  and department	144.09	154.14	165.92	164.08	157.06
SPRM	231.39	260.94	294.33	251.78	259.6
Attorney Gen	185.57	183.07	202.30	185.43	189.09

SOURCE: ANGGARAN PERBELANJAAN PERSEKUTUAN, PP13-16

Since 2013, we spent RM259.6 million per year on average on SPRM. With that amount we expect, and the public has a right to expect more successful prosecutions of corrupt officials. We must stop the game of passing the buck. The excuse of having no prosecutorial powers by the SPRM cannot be upheld; SPRM has legal talent who can prepare water tight cases even obstinate AG officials cannot reject.

I also think it is time for us to create an independent assessing committee to decide on prosecutable cases.

 The Attorney General’s department spends on average RM189 million per year. With that amount of financial resources which employ the keenest legal brains, we don’t seem to be able to prosecute many wrongdoers. Will anyone believe, there are no corruption in public offices?

Which part of the concept of good governance do people in these agencies don’t understand?

Even with that cynicism, I believe and am sure, there are good people working their butts out in these departments. I can only empathise with them. But the executive led by two-faced Najib makes sure embarrassing findings are mothballed and repressed. Insignificant cases are allowed to pass through so as to give a semblance of good governance and to appease public complains.

Najib the PM has destroyed and emasculated almost all these institutions that support the integrity of our democracy.  How many corrupt people has the judiciary punished? What action has been taken on the reports by the auditor general and his department? How many corrupt people has sprm ferreted out? And how many cases of corruption has the AG’s office prosecuted?

The Budget is founded on costly items. We pay on average RM23.6 billion of interest payments on public i.e. loans taken by the government. Each year, our immigrant workers who seem to be taking over this country, repatriate about RM20 billion in recorded transactions and probably another RM25 billion in unrecorded remittances.

Our ministers say our economic fundamentals are strong, yet our Ringgit has fallen most among Asian currencies. It is as though some people are just printing money and flushing the market with Ringgit. And we don’t have USD to mop up excess Ringgit.

Since 2 weeks ago, we have signed up agreement with the USA that Bank Negara can accept USD deposits. This effectively makes our Bank Negara a branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of USA. We have lost our independence.

Now US officers- all of them, financial regulators, financial experts of all sorts and FBI officers are stationed or can come into Bank Negara and monitor all USD movements. We have become a stooge to the US Federal Reserve and by extension a puppet to Uncle Sam. All because, the great Najib Tun Razak has compromised himself in so many ways.

This man will sell his mother to stay in power. Maybe the price of having Uncle Sam keeping quiet about all his transgressions is becoming a modern slave to the USA.

Yet he comes before parliament and put up a good show; presenting budget 2016 in a magniloquent manner.

Why should Malaysian even believe in this man?

Why should I not believe that Budget 2016, isn’t just a perennial excuse for those who regulate public spending, doing the most heinous of conduct? Profiteering from the budget.  

Even though the 2016 budget is smaller than the 2015 budget, RM267.2 billion is a lot of money. A lot of public money can be stolen in so many ways.

This amount of money will flow through ministries which are controlled by the political masters known as ministers. The money will be administered by the KSUs, TKSU, and secretary of division, directors, and officers.

Who are these people?

They are regulators. When there is a regulator, who makes rules of the game, who can decide on tenders, decide on who wins and who does not. There are plenty possibilities for regulatory or state capture. These are refined words which mean the same thing- corruption. Inside the cost- build-up of budgets, certain amounts of commission and deferred gratifications are made. The pay-outs will be made later.

Who will police this amount of public money? That is the greatest challenge in Malaysia today.

The people salivating at the prospects of millions and billions passing through their ministers are ministers, KSUs, TKSUs, directors and regulatory officers. They see a lot of opportunities to extract money for future use- their future that is.

The budget itself is presented by a person who authorised the fraudulent transfer of first USD700, 000 into Jho Low’s account. The budget was presented by a person who must be party to the creation of the fictitious loan by PSI. The budget is presented by a person who later received donations but which were actually laundered money from 1MDB.