Kota Kinabalu: Sabah Finance Minister Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun dismissed claims by opposition leader Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal that his previous Warisan administration successfully paid off RM1 billion in State debt in 2019.
In a statement, here, Sunday, Masidi said the debt repayment was not the result of financial management by the Warisan government, but due to a structured plan put in place by the previous Barisan Nasional administration.
“The RM1 billion bond in question was issued in December 2014, with Bank Negara Malaysia requiring the State to establish a dedicated Sinking Fund to ensure repayment.
window.googletag = window.googletag || {cmd: []};googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.defineSlot('/22826383987/dailyexpress_inline', [1, 1], 'gpt-passback').addService(googletag.pubads());googletag.enableServices();googletag.display('gpt-passback');});“Under the bond terms, the State was required to deposit RM200 million annually into this fund for five years until 2019,” he said.
“By the time the Warisan administration took office in 2018, most of the funds needed for repayment had already been secured.
“The payment was the outcome of prudent financial planning put in place by the previous administration years before the bond matured,” he said.
Masidi said the RM1 billion available in the Sinking Fund by 2019 enabled a one-off bullet payment to settle the bond debt entirely, contradicting Shafie’s claims of superior financial management.
“Therefore, it is not accurate to suggest that this repayment was the result of any special action by Warisan,” he said.
The current administration, Masidi added, is committed to ensuring that the public is given clear and accurate information about the State’s finances and will not allow misleading statements to go unchallenged.