Guan Eng defends decision to publicise financial scandals

PETALING JAYA: Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng defended himself against criticism from PKR de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim today by saying that his publicising of all the previous administration's financial scandals was carried out on the instruction of Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, and were not borne out of his own action.
Lim was responding to comments that had Anwar made during an interview with Astro Awani earlier in the day, where he urged the finance minister to be mindful of his public flogging of scandals, as his words now carried the weight of the Finance Ministry and the government, which have significantly greater influence, especially on investors, than when he was an Opposition lawmaker.
Anwar opined that Lim should leave all exposes of scandals and abuses to the respective ministries and agencies.
Lim in a statement said that the financial scandal connected to the 1MDB fund and the other scandals he exposed were done on Mahathir's orders. He also claimed that he had personally explained this to Anwar.
"I am not the prime minister and I do not have the power to instruct other ministries to reveal financial scandals that fall within the power of the Finance Ministry, it is not in my place to instruct a minister to reveal financial scandals of the previous government which happened in the Finance Ministry which I am in charge of," he said.
He added that the rakyat has the right to know of the financial standing of the country.
"The rakyat does not want the government to hide or withhold this information any longer."
He added that Anwar agreed about his making the scandals public.
"My ministry will still reveal all the financial scandals in the first 100 days of our administration as instructed by the Prime Minister.
"We have to tell the truth for the truth's sake," he stressed.
Lim said the Finance Ministry's plans to trim the national debt will not come at the expense of the budget deficit, which remains at 2.8% of the gross domestic product.
"It needs to be emphasised that the federal government has succeeded in removing the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and is paying out cost of living aid (formerly known as BR1M) without leading Malaysia into bankruptcy," according to Lim.