Ismail Sabri denies claim about RM620 bil unrecorded govt spending

KUALA LUMPUR – Former prime minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob has denied allegations that RM620 billion spent via stimulus packages rolled out by the previous administrations was not recorded. 

He described the accusation regarding the funds, which were disbursed between 2020 and 2022, as false, maintaining that all relevant government expenditure had been recorded in the government’s financial statements.

“Pertaining to the comment that the stimulus packages were not recorded, I would like to stress that the allegation is not true,” Ismail Sabri said in a Facebook post last night. 

The Umno vice-president said this in response to comments made by social media user Yusoff Bachek, who claimed that Ismail and his predecessor Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin did not record the government’s expenses when they were in power.

 “The RM620 billion was not recorded in the Treasury Account for 2020–2022 during the MCO (movement control order) and emergency,” Yusoff had alleged.

“Now we know why Muhyiddin and Ismail Sabri do not want someone else to be PM.”

Commenting further, Ismail Sabri also clarified that the actual overall cost of the eight stimulus packages rolled out by his and Muhyiddin’s governments amounted to RM530 billion, and not RM620 billion. 

He added that the majority of the amount did not involve direct government spending, including the implementation of loan moratoriums by financial institutions. 

 “The government’s direct expenditure is only RM110 billion, and the allocation has already been approved by Parliament unanimously,” he said. – The Vibes, November 29, 2022