Lim agrees with Dr. M, attacks Najib

GEORGE TOWN: Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng concurred with the allegations of former premier Dr. Mahathir Mohamed that funds used by the 1Malaysia Development Board (1MDB) was sourced from heavy debts, not surpluses.

Lim said Dr.Mahathir was spot on in questioning 1MDB funds, cynically proposing that 1MDB should be termed the “1Malaysia Debtors Bureau”.
“I agree with what Dr. Mahathir says this time, as the money was all sourced from debts.

“This will eventually lead to a country that chokes with debts,” Lim told newsmen after launching the MyTeksi smartphone application in Esplanade here today.

In his blog yesterday, Dr. Mahathir launched a seething attack on current Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, claiming that 1MDB had spent billions of ringgit buying power plants from Genting and Ananda Krishnan by paying above market prices.

He alleged that in its five-year operation, the 1MDB had become indebted to the tune of RM38 billion.

Lim said the RM38 billion was not a small amount that could be taken lightly especially when it was sourced from loans.

“We have a culture of depending on loans here and are too reliant on loans,” he added.

Lim likened this dependence to a person’s over consumption of sugar which could lead to diabetes. He said if this dependence continued, like the diabetic person, the country would eventually collapse.

He claimed that the country’s debts had since doubled from RM266 billion in 2007 to the current RM542 billion.

-fmt