In a statement, deputy prime minister Fadillah Yusof said the unity government had agreed in principle to “consider allocating funds” to opposition parliamentarians.

“To this end, a draft MoU will be prepared and sent to the opposition as the next step in the negotiation process,” he said.

“This matter was agreed on in a meeting that lasted for over an hour, chaired by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and attended by the top leaders of the unity government’s component parties (yesterday),” Fadillah, the government’s chief whip in the Dewan Rakyat, added.

Fadillah, who has been tasked with negotiating with the opposition on its demands for constituency funds, previously said the decision to meet yesterday followed his meeting with opposition leader Hamzah Zainudin in Parliament on March 19.

“In that meeting, the opposition expressed its desire for allocations, and that any conditions (for granting allocations) would be left to the government to determine,” he told reporters at a Hari Raya Aidilfitri open house event in Kuching on Saturday.

Hamzah, the Perikatan Nasional and Bersatu secretary-general, previously said he had received a draft agreement on constituency funds for opposition MPs from a representative of a “high-ranking individual” but declined to reveal more details.

Fadillah has denied the existence of such a draft agreement.

Hamzah also previously pushed the government to present any proposed offer in “black and white”, saying the government under Ismail Sabri Yaakob used this same approach when signing an MoU with Pakatan Harapan in September 2021, during which an equal allocation of funds for MPs was among the items agreed upon.