Madani selling off strategic assets to cut the budget deficit

Murray Hunter


Madani selling off strategic assets to cut the budget deficit

Stripping the nation of its wealth

Jun 27, 2025



Pirates used to stripe wealth from people.


With the Madani government running large deficits (RM 80-100 billion) to finance spending on crony driven development projects, a new strategy is being utilized to reduce the deficit by increasing dividend payments from GLCs.

With aggregate public debt exceeding RM 1.25 trillion, recurring budget deficits are increasing the overall debt. With debt service charges now running around 12 percent of aggregate budget payments, higher public debt just increases this burden. So, the government is selling off strategic assets, so GLCs can pay larger dividends to the government.

The government is pretending public debt is decreasing by emphasising the decreasing size of the deficit. Some people call this smoke and mirrors

This practice is becoming very widespread, not only within the federal government, but state governments as well. State governments are swapping public land parcels instead of paying cash (land swaps). These transactions are outside of state budgets that must be voted on in state legislative assemblies, allowing the government to move more state wealth into private hands, outside legislatures.

The fire sale of Malaysian Airports can be understood from this perspective. The Khazanah sale of Malaysian Airports Holdings Berhad (MAHB) will enable Khazanah to pay larger dividends to the government in the short term. However, the nation has lost ownership of a sovereign asset.

Another upcoming sale being pushed by the need for more GLC dividends are Petronas Canadian assets bundled up in a company formally called Progress Energy Resources. According to Business Times online, this transaction could be between RM 6 to 7 billion.

These sales may reduce government budget deficits over the next few years and reduce the urgency for real tax reform. These sales and subsequent dividends will also make the government look fiscally more responsible. However, the government through loss of strategic assets is getting poorer (if a government can be poor).

However, the opposite of sound fiscal management is the case, the government is selling off the nation’s strategic and sovereign assets, where much of the proceeds are lost on spending on development projects in the budget that primarily benefit crony corporations.

These activities are stripping the nation of its wealth.