KUALA LUMPUR (April 2): The federal government has spent around RM9 billion more than the RM280.25 billion allocated in Budget 2018 last year, said Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng.

Guan Eng said this in the Dewan Rakyat today, when reading the Supplementary Supply (2018) Bill 2019 for the second time in Parliament to table an additional budget of RM19.6 billion.

"In total, the real spending in 2018 for both operating and development expenditure combined amounted to RM289 billion compared with RM280 billion approved in the estimated Federal spending for 2018.

"It needs to be emphasised that the increase of RM9 billion was due to the actions of the previous administration," he said.

During the tabling session, Guan Eng explained that from the RM19.6 billion, RM9 billion is not additional budget sought, but rather a reclassification of the expenditure from operating expenditure to development expenditure.

Among the utilisation of the reclassified RM9 billion was for payment for MARA students locally and overseas worth RM2 billion, he said.

On the other hand, the overspending of RM9 billion in 2018 includes RM4 billion that the government had to fork out for debt commitments under off-balance sheet items, he said.

"Among them, payment for private finance initiative (PFI) which required an additional RM1.1 billion, and to service DanaInfra [Nasional Bhd] which required an additional RM2.5 billion," said Guan Eng.

The government also had to fund its commitments under the previous government without the necessary allocation in the previous budget.

"These commitments include the takeover of the EDL (Eastern Dispersal Link) in Johor worth RM1.4 billion, due to the previous administration's decision to abolish its toll in 2017.

"Numerous development projects were not allocated the necessary funding such as the Double-Tracking project under KTMB (Keretapi Tanah Melayu Bhd) worth RM1 billion, easy loan provision for highways amounting to RM0.5 billion and sewerage projects worth RM0.4 billion.

"Other than that, the previous administration also did not allocate enough operating expenditure despite them being contractual payments such as hospital support services worth RM0.5 billion, schools cleanup and security contracts worth RM0.3 billion and TUDM (Royal Malaysian Air Force) airplanes maintenance worth RM100 million," he added.

"Apart from the reclassification, RM1.9 billion was allocated for transfer of surplus from consolidated revenue account to the development fund," he added.

Meanwhile, Guan Eng said the government is able to maintain its revised deficit-to-GDP ratio target of 3.7%, adding that the additional budget will not affect the ratio.