KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 24): Following former Prime Minister Dato Seri Najib Razak’s list of 17 questions in response to his question yesterday, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng hit back and said the 10-year ex-finance minister was just trying to avoid answering the main question. 

“I want him to address the main issue, otherwise, then he will distract me by asking other questions — which i am willing to deal with — but if he wants to avoid answering the questions by asking questions, I don’t want to play this game,” he told reporters at press conference after opening the Annual Property Developers Conference by the Real Estate and Housing Developers' Association (REHDA) Institute. 

“I would like to ask for Datuk Seri Najib to be a bit more professional as a former finance minister. Please don’t try to play with the questions,” Lim added. 

According to Lim, it is hard to believe that Najib, who was a finance minister for 10 years, can be confused between the government’s Consolidated Fund and Consolidated Revenue Account. 

The difference, Lim explained, is that the Consolidated Fund consists of Consolidated Revenue Account, Consolidated Loan Account, and Consolidated Trust Account, whereby the government can only use the Consolidated Revenue Account for its operating expenditures. 

“It may be a bit confusing for the common people, but he (Najib) was a finance minister for 10 years. I can’t believe that a 10-year finance minister cannot tell the difference between Consolidated Fund and Consolidated Revenue Account,” Lim said. 

“My question is simple; how [is it that] the funds left for the new government could shrink from RM11.86 billion by the end of 2017 to only RM450 million ringgit, which is a decrease of 96% or RM11.41 billion ringgit.

“He can not answer that. That is obviously an attempt to avoid responding to the question I raised,” he added. 

Yesterday on his Facebook post, Najib dared Lim to answer his list of 17 questions with regards to the financial shape of the nation. This came as Lim had earlier accused the previous Barisan Nasional (BN) government of misappropriating government funds for general election spending, causing the country’s Consolidated Revenue Account to drop from RM11.86 billion as of Dec 31, 2017, to RM450 million as of April 30 this year.