THE shrinking allocation for development each year is severely affecting the rural folk as small contractors and small business owners get increasingly less work from fewer projects, opposition leader Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail said today.

She said next year’s development allocation of 17% of the RM280 billion national budget was the lowest yet.

“Budget 2010 showed allocation of 27.78%, 2011 showed 23.9% and it continued to shrink further from 2012 to 2014. The figure was slightly higher in 2015 and 2016, but it still remained below 20%, and the 2017 figure was lower still,” said Dr Wan Azizah.

She said those who benefited from the development of rural areas, such as small traders and skilled workers produced by Pusat Giat Mara, would also be affected as there would be less employment.

“Not only will contractors find it hard to get projects, workers will be retrenched as there isn’t enough money to pay the workers. So, what will happen to these people?”

She said the budget for next year also showed a deficit of RM43.35 billion and that the government will have to pay a dividend of RM31 billion for the debt.

She said that amount alone was enough to build 60 hospitals in a year, given that the cost to build each one was around RM500 million.

Dr Wan Azizah further said Putrajaya has been tabling deficit budget for years and the only time it was able to table a surplus budget was in 1997, when Anwar Ibrahim was finance minister.

“No one has ever tabled a surplus budget after him until now,” she said.

She said Budget 2018 was filled with promises that failed to offer any solutions or answers to the problems and critical issues faced by the people and country, even though this budget is supposedly the “mother of all budgets”. – October 30, 2017.