Saying Najib had claimed that as at Dec 31, 2017, there was RM42.2 billion in the consolidated fund, Lim said Najib had only left the Pakatan Harapan government RM450 million on April 30, 2018.
He called on Najib to explain the drastic drop of 96% , or RM11.41 billion, in the consolidated revenue account in just four months.
Federal government policy requires that all collections received be kept in a common pool of funds known as the consolidated fund. However, the amounts are separated and maintained in three different accounts by the accountant-general: consolidated revenue account, consolidated loan account and consolidated trust account.
“Datuk Seri Najib has continued to harp on the consolidated fund of the federal government of RM42.2 billion as of Dec 31, 2017, but failed to mention that out of this amount only RM11.86 billion was in the consolidated revenue account.”
Lim said payments and transfers of government money could only be made or used from the consolidated revenue account and that only RM11.86 billion was available for transfer to the goods and services Tax Refund Trust Account.
“However, this RM11.86 billion available was not transferred to the Tax Refund Trust Account. The total outstanding GST and tax refunds as at May 31, 2018, as announced earlier, was RM35.4 billion.
“When the Pakatan Harapan government took over the administration of the federal government on May 9, 2018, the latest position in the unaudited consolidated fund as of April 30, 2018, was RM35.5 billion and out of this amount only RM450 million was sitting in the unaudited consolidated revenue account.
“In other words, the available balance of RM11.86 billion as of Dec 31, 2017 in the consolidated revenue account had deteriorated to only RM450 million as of April 30, 2018.
“Datuk Seri Najib should explain this drastic drop of RM11.41 billion or 96% in the consolidated revenue account from Dec 31, 2017, to April 30, 2018.
“And yet Datuk Seri Najib dishonestly accused the Pakatan Harapan government of misusing RM42.2 billion he claimed the Barisan Nasional left to Pakatan Harapan on Dec 31, 2017, when he had actually left us with only RM450 million on April 30, 2018.”
Lim said despite the tax holiday period which took effect from June 1 this year, the unaudited consolidated fund had improved to RM59.90 billion as at July 31. The unaudited consolidated revenue account balance, too, has improved to RM3.81 billion from RM450 million.
“This increase in unaudited consolidated revenue account to RM3.81 billion on July 31, 2018, is an improvement of 8.5 times by Pakatan Harapan as compared with Barisan Nasional as of April 30, 2018.
“Hence, it is not true that the Pakatan Harapan government has misused the consolidated fund inherited from the Barisan Nasional government as alleged by Datuk Seri Najib,” Lim said.