KUALA LUMPUR: The government has tabled a supplementary supply bill seeking an additional allocation of RM3.08 billion for 2016 from the Consolidated Fund on top of the RM267.2 billion allocated in Budget 2016.

Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Othman Aziz tabled the Supplementary Supply (2016) Bill 2017 for first reading in the Dewan Rakyat yesterday.

However, the saving grace is that the supplementary budget of RM3.08 billion is not as sizeable as it had been in the past years.

The biggest amount sought in the supplementary bill is for “contribution to statutory funds” totalling RM2.25 billion.

This is followed by RM297.96 million for the education ministry, RM215.71 million for the transport ministry and RM128 million for the women, family and community development ministry.

The health ministry is seeking RM104.4 million, while RM24.13 million will go to the foreign affairs ministry.

The bill also includes an allocation of RM62.78 million for the Election Commission.

This is not the first time that the government has tabled a supplementary supply bill to enhance its budget; it has been doing for years.

The government has a tendency to overspend in terms of operating expenditure and the country has seen two supplementary budgets every year since 2009. The supplementary budget was as large as RM25.97 billion in 2012. Since then, excess spending has been on the decline (see chart).

That Malaysia no longer needing to subsidise fuel may be one of the reasons the size of supplementary budgets is now smaller. Some RM8.85 billion or easily half of additional funds approved in October 2013, for instance, was for fuel subsidies.

The excess spending before 2000 was “not large” and did not exceed RM5 billion. In the early 1990s, there were even times where the government actually spent less than budgeted.