Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said alleged financial scandals plaguing Malaysia are responsible for the shelving of several national mega projects. ― Picture by Azuniddun Ghazali

KUALA LUMPUR, July 16 — The alleged financial scandals plaguing Malaysia are responsible for the shelving of several national mega projects, said Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng today.

The Star Online reported that Lim had blamed the freezing of these project on scandals that cost the government billions of ringgit.

Without scandals like 1MDB and other “mini 1MDBs”, Lim reportedly said the government would have been able to afford projects like the planned LRT3.

“We would have been able to afford all these including the originally planned LRT3. The 1MDB scandal itself costs us RM50 billion, this year we have to pay over RM1billion to settle the debts,” Lim reportedly said at a press conference today.

Lim noted that the people were sometimes unable to fathom the massive scale of the scandals.

Citing the LRT3 as an example, Lim noted that the price tag for the project would be sustained at RM32 billion — if the BN government continued to reign.

He said the LRT3 only cost RM10 billion when it was first announced, adding that the actual cost of the LRT3 was deliberately hidden by the previous government.

“Many people didn’t believe the cost then, but alas, the actual cost is at RM32 billion after we found a letter dated March 2018 by Prasarana (requesting for additional funding),” he said.

This amount won’t be borne by us but by the future generation — our children,” he said.