Najib tables 'mother of all budgets'

Kuala Lumpur

WITH only a few months to the 14th General Election, Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak tabled a budget for 2018 on Friday that he described as the "mother of all budgets".

The budget allocation of RM280.25 billion (S$90.2 billion) certainly made it the largest one yet, but it was not entirely surprising as it was aimed to appeal across the board, and primarily to his core target groups of rural voters, civil servants and East Malaysians. As in previous years, the operating expenditure of RM234.25 billion took up the lion's share of the budget, or nearly 84 per cent, and came at the expense of development expenditure.