KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng has defended the collection of public donations through the "Fund of Hope", which he said will go towards settling the nation's debt, including that of controversial state investment firm 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
In an interview with Channel NewsAsia's Conversation With, Mr Lim was asked about this unorthodox method of raising money from the public by the nation's first Pakatan Harapan government, which came into power on May 9.
The fund was created after Malaysians started crowdsourcing donations themselves following the revelations by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and Mr Lim that the previous administration had accrued debts and liabilities exceeding RM1 trillion (US$250 billion).
As of Thursday, the fund had reached more than RM90 million in contributions.
"This government is going to be unorthodox, but let us be unorthodox for the right reasons," Mr Lim said. "Of course, we have also been criticised for setting up this Malaysia Hope Fund, but this is not so much about getting enough funds to repay our debts - One trillion is a huge amount by any standards.
"But when we set up the fund, our main intention was to allow the people to come together so that everyone can do their bit, do their part, even if they give RM1, RM10, RM10,000, they contribute towards saving the country," he said.
Despite the debt being too big to be covered by the fund, he said the money will still be used exclusively to pay off what the federal government owes. An auditor has been appointed to monitor the operations of the fund.
"If there's a 1MDB debt, payment coming along, perhaps we’ll use (the money) to pay 1MDB debt repayment," Lim said.
Posted on :
Jun 22, 2018