KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 9): Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng has accused the Sarawak government of making false claims and seeking to slander the federal government on the issue of the state's outstanding loans with Putrajaya.

In a statement today, Lim reiterated that the amount stipulated in his statement on Jan 6 was as of November 2018, whereby the balance of the debt stood at more than RM2.5 billion and the outstanding loan repayment was almost RM50 million.

"Based on the federal government's record, as at Dec 31, 2018, the balance of the state government debt amounted to RM2.43 billion and there was still arrears of debt repayment of RM46.5 million," he said.

On Monday, the Sarawak government issued a statement in reply to Lim, claiming that it has provided sufficient allocation in its annual budget repayment for federal loans, which amounted to RM2.38 billion as at Dec 31, 2018.

It added that the federal loans are paid in a timely manner based on repayment schedules as stipulated in the agreement between the state and federal governments.

Lim, in his statement today, once again dismissed the state's accusation that the federal government has already distributed proceeds of the tourism tax to Sabah, but not Sarawak.

"The Sabah state government itself has issued a statement denying the Sarawak state government's statement that Sabah has received the tourism tax revenue.

"It is obvious that the Sarawak state government has made false claims with the intention to slander the federal government," Lim added.

Lim further explained that the tourism tax that has been collected since September 2017 but was not paid by the previous government, will be paid by the new government in the first quarter of 2019.