Govt may need to spend RM8b more next year

From the Star:

The Malaysian Institute of Economic Research (Mier) says the Government may need to spend another RM8bil next year if the economy continues to be weak.

“If the recovery is weak and tepid, the Government will have no choice but to introduce another stimulus package of RM8bil next year,” said executive director Prof Datuk Dr Mohamed Ariff Abdul Kareem.

Ariff said the country’s fiscal deficit may reach 9% in 2010 because of the extra spending.

“Next year will still be difficult and the Government may need to spend more to boost growth,” he said.

The Government has already announced stimulus packages worth RM67bil that are expected to bring its fiscal deficit to 7.6% this year.

On top of the 60 billion RM package, we are currently thinking of another 8 billion RM. Why do we have to spend money in unproductive ways? Is government spending the best option we have at the moment? Why not spend this money on making us more efficient uses instead of useless buildings and roads here and there.

With all this money, we can build our own power plants and not have to pay such a huge premium for power to private power producers or we can have a state of the art public transport system. Instead, we'll probably see lots of kickbacks and fattening of corrupt people's pockets.