Damansara MP Tony Pua.
The Budget 2019 that was recently tabled by the Pakatan Harapan government has garnered mixed reactions amongst the public.
Regardless, Damansara MP Tony Pua pointed out that the budget has shown that the government is taking the opportunity to collaborate with the private sector to deliver the nation’s economic growth.
“In the past, our budgets were mostly insular. What the government thinks is best, they will do it their way. They want to create jobs and match it to the people? Spend RM24mil to set up a job portal. All the while we have good existing job portals out there such as Jobstreet and others that can do the work,” said Pua during the Rehda Budget 2019 Commentary recently.
Pua who is also the special officer to Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng added that even the infamous peer-to-peer home crowdfunding ideas came from the discussion between the private sectors.
“Even simple things like the homeownership campaigns were borne out of the dialogue sessions that the ministry previously had with Rehda," he shared.
Pua suggested that the partnership is part of the government’s approach to finding the solutions for Malaysia’s economic problems.
“I agree that we may not be able to solve every problem with this budget, but in thinking out of the box and coming up with the innovative solutions, I think we already made a whole lot of difference for any other government,” he elaborated.
Going forward, Pua believed that the government will continue to take risks and explore new ideas.
“There would be some judgement calls to make, that this idea might work while the other may not, but most importantly, the government is willing to go out from the conservative notion and work on the wellbeing of the country,” he concluded.
