Budget 2025: Looking beyond the material world

BUDGET 2025: Looking beyond the material world 

(suggested pic of “Kopi”?)

17 Oct: At the Budget 2025 briefing for local editors in Putrajaya onTuesday, the Prime Minister was punctual as usual, shook hands with everyone, jovial.

And why not? Since re-taking the Finance Ministry portfolio two years ago (he was sacked as DPM and Finance Minister in 1998), the ringgit has been the region’s best performer, foreign investors have returned in droves, inflation and unemployment have been kept low. His war on corruption under the Madani banner is making many piss in their pants and bringing back confidence in his government’s serious about reforms. The forseeable future seems to be looking up.

Came my turn to shake hands, he quipped: “You’ve done this many times, sudah hafal (you’ve memorised this).” 

He meant that I’ve covered the annual budget as a reporter since he was DPM and Minister of Finance back in the 1990s. But so has he. Tomorrow Anwar Ibrahim, 77, will be tabling his xxx-th budget. Me, I’ve had the privilege of being part of this annual, customary pre-Budget press briefing my the MoF since the mid 1980s. 

Every Anwar Ibrabim budget in the 1990s, any business reporter in those days would remember, would come attached with a glossary to help us with the BM jargons he so loved to use. Rhetorics and semantics were aplenty, too. And mega projects. 

Yesterday, however, one came away feeling that the Budget to be tabled in Parliament tomorrow will be glossed with not just handouts for the masses but, more importantly, policies and prograns that will help increase their incomes and lessen their burdens.

One for the marhaen, dare I say? A Budget with a conscience?

I am not at liberty to disclose what the PM shared at yesterday’s briefing (everything is embargoed till tomorrow). But if you think you are one of the common people, or you need some kind of help, or you’re part of the 10 per cent of the population above 60, there should be something to smile about.

There will be a shake-up of the government-linked corporationsw (GLCs), a consolidation of overlapping authorities and agencies to reduce wastages and increase efficiency, and perhaps drastic changes in the way subsidies are awarded.

With regards to the GST, for example, the PM has made it clear even before yesterday’s briefing that the time has not come. It’s an effective and transparent tax regime, he admitted, but “my conscience says no, not now”. My colleage Zainul Ariffin, who is propagating the return to GST in his column The State of the nation: The case for GST again will be disappointed but there’s that conscience again: the PM feels the family income threshold for Malaysians must be doubled from today’s RM1500 before he brings back GST. 

That same conscience, a Treasury official said, is nudging the PM away from mega projects such as the High Speed Rail, which many thought (and some hoped) would be announced in the Budget.

“The PM wants more schools, more hospitals, more universities to be built. The money that would be spent on mega projects is better spent on these,” an aide said.

If that’s where the 2025 Budget is going, I believe it will go down pretty well with the long-suffering Rakyat and perhaps set this nation back on track.

Sometimes it’s the little things that we need. Taxes (and tax redemptions), incentives, subsidies, higher pay and better perks - everybody wants them. But quality of life is not defined by material terms only. 

I do have a short wish list - all non-monetary - that I shared on Instragram half an hour or so before the PM met us yesterday: be kind to the animals, be generous to the common people, and give plenty back to Mother Nature.

“If I were the Prime Minister, I’d shoot those who ordered strayed dogs shot, provide free education and health services to lower-income groups, and launch a campaign to grow a million trees.” - posted on Instagram by rockybru, 15/10/24

“Also, don’t forget cycling infrastructure please.”

“If you threw in another 3 million trees, I’d h help fund your political campaigns.”

“How about retroactive citizenship amendment + cancel the 3 regressive amendments. That covers 50% of the vote - WOMEN.”

“Yes, cruelty to animals a big NO.”

“And make it an offence to those who do not pay back their study loans.”

“Imagine if they shot John Wick’s dog.”

“Justice for Kopi.”

For the uninitiated, “Kopi” is the name of a “popular and friendly stray dog” in Hulu Terengganu shot dead recently by the local municipal officers. Read Who allowed this cruelty? A discrict council president said his officers had license to kill wild and dangerous animals. Shooting of Kopi followed SOP, says Besut Council

This was not the first time the authorities shoot dead stray dogs to resolve the problems of stray dogs. Perhaps the PM should set aside a small allocation in the Budget 2025 to train and motivate municipalities to build shelters for the homeless dogs and to have them neutered, vaccinated and spayed. And encourage people, including the Malay-Muslims, to adopt them.