In a sarcastic Facebook post in which he “congratulated” the Pakatan Harapan government for the latest development, the former prime minister said the downgrade was a result of Putrajaya’s “efficiency” in managing the country’s finances.

This, Najib said, included getting the national petroleum company to pay higher dividends to cushion the shortfall in revenue.

Najib said this could have an impact on Malaysia’s credit rating.

“This is when oil prices are said to be high and stable. But what if oil prices drop?

“What buffer do we have to cushion an oil crisis, if it happens again?”

Earlier today, Moody’s Investors Service affirmed the A1 domestic issuer and foreign currency senior unsecured ratings of Petronas, but changed the outlook from stable to negative.

The rating agency also affirmed the A1 rating for Petronas Capital Ltd’s senior unsecured notes and the US$15 billion medium-term note (MTN) programme as well as sukuk issued through Petronas Global Sukuk Ltd, but changed its outlook to negative from stable.

Moody’s said the rating action was due to the government’s announcement that Petronas would be paying RM26 billion in dividends in 2018 and RM54 billion (inclusive of a one-off special dividend of RM30 billion) in 2019.

On Nov 2, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said Petronas can afford to contribute the RM30 billion special dividend to the federal government in 2019 due to higher oil prices.

Mahathir also said Petronas has taken its expenditure into consideration before committing to the dividend payout.

Najib, who is also the former finance minister, went on to say that the Barisan Nasional government had worked hard to reduce the country’s dependency on oil revenue.

“But it looks like, the PH government wants to return to the old days.”