Malaysia’s actual development expenditure (devex) is shrinking every year despite increases in allocation under the country’s annual budgets, according to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
In a statement on Monday (Nov 6), Anwar, who also holds the finance minister post, said this finding was made in a National Economic Action Council meeting, adding that the decrease in actual devex could have a long-term impact on Malaysia’s economic growth.
No further elaboration on the meeting’s findings was disclosed in the statement.
Looking at Malaysia’s latest annual budgets, RM90 billion was allocated for devex in Budget 2024, as compared to RM97 billion in Budget 2023, RM71.57 billion in Budget 2022, RM64.26 billion in Budget 2021 and RM51.36 billion in Budget 2020.
Further, Anwar said that the implementation of development projects that are problematic and facing delays has resulted in an increase in costs and negatively impacted economic growth.
“It was also found that effectively determining specifications and evaluating costs of ICT projects is difficult, and that a cost review process is difficult without a standard cost estimate. This can lead to repeated duplication of work and increased ICT project costs,” he added.
In response, Anwar said the government is to take a number of immediate policy measures to improve the implementation of devex projects.Source: The edge malaysia
