RM1 trillion debt: We have gotten the measurement and messaging wrong?

I like less corruption. I like the ability to change the management of the government as long as they are for the people. I like a government that is transparent. I like a government which is more truthful and not trying to spin.

My article here is to put Malaysians into the mindset to think rather than be blindly led. I have always been supportive of this government or the people behind them long before the change. But things have to be put into clear perspective.

Over the last 6 weeks, we have been bombarded with the RM1 trillion debt message. I think no one single day, we have been told and drilled that Malaysia is now a country with huge debt and we have to tighten our belt, and to show patriotism there is a a save the country fund called Tabung Harapan. To be fair, the government has also told us that the fund is not meant to repay all the RM1 trillion debt but it is more of being a message to allow Malaysian to show that we care about the dire situation of this country.

First of all, let me put this question into the mind of all Malaysians. Are we serious with the message of having a ZERO debt country. Name me a country that has zero debt. Singapore? China? US? Japan? South Korea? These are countries which we are taking as our benchmark. Countries which have almost no debt - Norway, Saudi - and we know how their wealth came from. I have not heard from their government that they want to pay off their debt.

(Prof Jomo and Zeti are in the Council of Elders. I would love to hear from them on this perspective, as they have been quiet.) So far the ones that have drilled the high debt message are the politicians - Lim Guan Eng, Tony Pua, Mahathir Mohamed. They still want to win more seats in parliament, please remember. I want to hear from the professionals. The BNM governor, ex and current and others whom have been helping the government.

We mentioned that our debt during then was about RM200 billion. Today, it is RM1 trillion - I am not going to challenge the ones used by Moody's as their record still shows our debt is RM650 billion. In fact, I have not heard from any other government that they are willing to show to people how bad is their debt situation when they are the government. Is this a manner to create confidence? As opposition, yes! Not as the ruling government.

Now, let me give a case study from our past in 1990s and now. One of the barometer to show the difference between those days and today is the wealth of Khazanah. To put into perspective, look at this link to see the history of Khazanah. From its creation in 1994, now Khazanah has Net Worth of RM116 billion and assets of RM157 billion. Back in 1994, it was probably zero in assets.

There is a difference between then and now. TimeDotCom, Malaysia Airport, PLUS Expressway, UEM, Axiata, IHH and many more were under private hands. Today, it is owned by the government and obviously it can be sold. With more assets, there is a chance that there would be more debt. One of the measurement which have been used largely to measure how much debt the country can take is Debt/GDP. Even then as above, it is not the right measurement as countries like China and Singapore for example have huge reserves. They have huge sovereign controlled assets which can be utilised when needed.

Besides Khazanah, there are several more sovereign funds which are owned by the country such as KWAP, Johor Corp. Back then in 1990s these organizations were worse off than today. Example, KFC which is now part of Johor Corp was under private hands and the good company was wrongly mismanaged.

As a country, the private savings is also much healthier. EPF is now having fund size of around RM700 billion. I believe back then it was probably around RM200 billion. The wealth of the people is also the wealth of the country.

Truth be told, our country has progressed but of course as compared to many other countries and even our neighbors, we may not have come out ahead. Generally, the world has moved on to the better. And we have to call spade a spade.

Anyone who is saying I am not fair to this government should read this where I wrote it in 2013. A spade is better off being shown as a spade. So that as the people of this nation we are better off better educated - on the economy.

This is not a small blip

When Fitch comes out and downgrade our sovereign rating from stable to negative, this should be looked at it entirely and is serious. Few times, I have highlighted the danger of over lending by the banks, but little did I mention about the government's debt.

With that downgrade in rating, it seems that we have a dual problem, i.e. not just on the overly high consumption debt among the people, but it includes national debt which if not kept in check may turn out into a problem to the country. With the negative outlook, our borrowings cost may just go up. If you have noticed, we have gone more overseas to get our funding although a large portion of our national borrowings still come from within i.e. from EPF, KWAP etc.

Besides the published national debt, another cause of concern is the off balance sheet debt where it seems that many people do not even know the extent of the off balance sheet debt. Frankly, if the off balance sheet debt is not kept in check, the government itself may not even know the quantum of the guarantees and other contingent liabilities that may have already been in place.

I think with the extent of the downgrade, it would be good for any investors to reposition their investment portfolio to assets which are not too overexposed to the consumption, government awarded projects or rather who are dependent on those projects. In fact, concentration should be focused on companies which are export led and companies where the assets are located overseas rather than those which are fully dependent on local consumption.