Anwar: Opposition to Reject Budget 2021 in Its Current Form

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Budget “may not be passed easily” as it did not touch on several issues that concern the rakyat.

The opposition will not back Budget 2021 as questions remain over income projections, Covid-19 allocations and dodgy accounting practices, said Anwar Ibrahim.

“We are asked to support Budget 2021 on the assumption that this will be a Covid-19 budget. In my opinion, we will only support this if it is indeed a Covid-19 budget.

“In its current form, there are too many questions over income projections, Covid-19 allocations and dodgy accounting,” the opposition leader told Parliament today as the first lawmaker to debate the Budget 2021 bill (policy stage).

“I propose for the Finance Minister (Tengku Zafrul Aziz) to look into these issues and prioritise Covid-19. We have been pressured and urged to support this bill, but we will only do so if it is a Covid-19 budget,” said the Pakatan Harapan chairman.

He also claimed the budget tabled on Friday was “misleading and nothing extraordinary”.

Anwar said the views given by opposition MPs to Tengku Zafrul during pre-budget discussions, especially on the loan moratorium and Covid-19 allocation, had been ignored.

He said this showed there was no cooperation from the government.

As much as the opposition wanted to support the budget, he said, there were several issues, such as figures which “have been manipulated so that the budget looks good”.

Due to that, he said, the budget “may not be passed easily”, adding that the finance ministry should review the allocation to fight Covid-19, allocation for frontliners, and measures to stimulate the economy.