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KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia says it will spend more money subsidizing oil
and gas this year than on developing the country with Prime Minister
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi calling for a review of all major projects.
Abdullah said the government would spend 45
billion ringgit ($14 billion) on fuel subsidies this year, state
news agency Bernama reported late Saturday.
This will exceed its annual 40-billion- ringgit
budget for major development and infrastructure projects under the
country’s ninth development plan.
“It is five billion ringgit more, we need to
look for more money,” Abdullah told the agency.
“As the government, we will try our best to
ease this burden. We will not allow this problem to grow. We cannot
wait and see any more. We have the political will to act to ease the
burden on the people,” he added.
Abdullah said with global oil prices hitting
$124 a barrel, the impact on Malaysians would be huge, Bernama
reported.
He said the government was also uncertain
whether the funds set aside to moderate the present soaring prices
of food was enough.
“We have allocated RM4 billion to provide for
sufficient supply of food. We will spend RM2.4 billion, and will be
left with RM1.6 billion. We do not know if this sum would be enough
for the long term,” he told Bernama.
“As such, we have decided to review all
projects and the allocations for them. We have to tackle both these
crises because they affect the people directly,” he said.
Malaysia, which imports about 30 percent of its
rice needs, heavily subsidizes more than 20 daily food items
including milk and salt.
World rice prices have soared this year, a trend
blamed on higher energy and fertilizer costs, greater global demand,
droughts, the loss of rice farmland to biofuel plantations, as well
as commodities speculators.
-- AFP
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