PETALING JAYA: Former prime minister Najib Razak said today the RM264.415 billion in revenue recorded by Putrajaya last year was largely due to dividends paid by Petronas amounting to RM54 billion.
In a Facebook post, Najib said Petronas had contributed RM38 billion more than it did when Barisan Nasional (BN) was in power.
He said Pakatan Harapan (PH) leaders were lying to the people by claiming that the 13.5% increase in revenue compared with the previous year was due to the PH’s administration.
“How can the government’s revenue go up in 2019 when there was no more goods and services tax (GST), the economy was at its worst in 10 years, our share market was among the worst in the world and global oil prices were low?”
What made matters worse, he said, was that RM174 billion of Petronas’ cash reserves was spent by PH in two consecutive years.
“It was supposedly to pay back the GST refund claims but PH still didn’t pay it back despite GST being abolished by PH more than two years ago,” he claimed.
He said the people should ask PH leaders why the government’s deficit and expenditure increased despite the 13.5% increase in revenue.
Last year, he said, the government’s debt increased to RM792.9 billion from RM741 billion the year before and RM686.8 billion in 2017 under the BN administration.
This RM51.8 billion increase in debt, Najib said, was the highest in a single year.
He added the increase in debt was despite the sale of Khazanah Nasional assets.
In 2017, he said the sovereign wealth fund held assets worth RM116 billion compared with RM73 billion at the end of 2019.