He said the opposition as a whole rejected the budget.
“There were no surprises or magic in the form of incentives for the people. There was no allocation specifically for farmers and fishermen,” the former deputy prime minister told reporters after attending the tabling of the budget by Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng at the Dewan Rakyat today.
Zahid said the budget was more beneficial to the government but not the people.
“We see that a lot of big projects have been scaled down. It doesn’t represent any form of savings.”
Meanwhile, Barisan Nasional’s man in charge of the finance portfolio, Khairy Jamaluddin, said the Budget 2019 was “underwhelming”, adding that it “hijacked” a lot of initiatives from the previous administration.
He said many parts of the budget were a repeat of previous budgets prepared by his coalition.
Yesterday, Khairy, who is effectively the shadow finance minister, tabled proposals for the budget which includes bringing back the goods and services tax (GST) at the lower rate of 3%.
Khairy today said the budget did not portray the big picture of Malaysia’s growth.
“There was no big strategy to grow the national economy.”
He said although the budget allocates a bigger amount, there were “not many touch points for the people”.
Meanwhile, veteran Umno MP Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah said he had expected more reforms to be announced in this budget.
“I don’t think there was anything new that was presented,” said the Gua Musang MP who served as finance minister in the eighties.
“I expected something new, something more on reforms, but nothing was presented other than touching here and there,” he said.
But Razaleigh said he was not surprised by Guan Eng’s remarks in the budget blaming the previous government.
“You must blame somebody,” he said.
On the bigger allocation for the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), Razaleigh quipped: “Very big. I think they want to catch more people.”
The operational budget for MACC has been increased to RM286.8 million from RM242 million, including to employ up to 100 more officers.
Razaleigh however said only those who are guilty should be worried.
“Those who go against the law must be punished of course,” he said.