KUALA LUMPUR (July 1): Lembaga Tabung Haji recorded a 22.14% year-on-year decrease in operational expenses in the first quarter ended March 31, 2019 (1Q19) to RM204 million from RM262 million, said Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Mujahid Yusof Rawa.

This is the outcome of steps taken to cut spending by the pilgrim fund, which include renegotiation of contracts, introduction of centralised procurement system, as well as refinancing on key projects to reduce finance cost, the minister told the Dewan Rakyat today.

"We renegotiated old contracts, especially on the supply of IT infrastructure supply, where we saved RM9.3 million per year.

"We also reduced operational spending and procurement by the headquarters and branches nationwide by introducing centralised procurement that allowed us to save RM2 million per year," said Mujahid.

Other efforts include cutting spending on events by RM1.5 million per year, refinancing key projects and cutting interest charges on some of them to 1.9% from 3.7%, and cancelling non-beneficial initiatives or those with low potentials such as investment in ATM machines.

Mujahid was responding to a question by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim (PH-Port Dickson) on the operational savings achieved by Tabung Haji so far.