Budget 2025: Value Creation Through The MyBelanjawan.com Initiative

I would like to start my article on the value creation of the annual budget with the preamble that the budget is extracted from the following references. The preparation is indeed very structured as it is always being fallen back on these  treasures.

First, the annual budget is extracted from the five-year Malaysia Plan. For Budget 2025 is of course on the 12^th Malaysia Five-year Plan (2021-2025).

Secondly, the 12^th Five-year Plan has been reviewed during it’s mid-term, adjusted according to the vision of the present Madani Government, which is focusing on the restoration of the dignity of the nation. It is based on the six core values: sustainability, prosperity, innovation, respect, trust and compassion.

Thirdly, since this is the first term of the Madani government , the above vision shall be the guiding vision being used not only to adjust the mid-term of 12^th Malaysia Plan (2021-2025), more important is to design and construct the next five-year medium term plans of the nation.

Finally, the vision of the leader, the projection of which subjected to the length of stay in the government, is always guided by the Mother Policy. As in our case, we don’t have one, hence, the Federal Constitution 1957, shall be the documents being referred to as the pseudo Mother Policy.

Furthermore, the preparation and eventually the execution, of the annual budget is also the manifestation as to how the legislative institution is  working pretty well with the executive institution.

For the first time, we have experienced the frequent change of the legislative institution that govern the nation. Not once but several times in less than four years we had experienced such a valuable encounter. And yet, the governance of the nation experienced a minimal uncertainty.

With such experience, rest assured, irrespective who shall be at the political driving seat, our annual budget shall remain as steady and stable as expected. Hence, it is very unlikely the preparation of the annual budget could go wrong. Of course we can expect some variations here and there and priorities do vary from one leader with another. Generally, the budget is able to drive the nation smoothly and steadily for another year, as a continuity of the previous years.

But nevertheless, from the national governance perspective, it must be tabled to Parliament for approval by the legislative institution. No exemption to this mandatory routine.

About the budget itself, the two main features of the annual budget are the revenue and the expenditure streams. What will be spent shall be budgeted for and the allocation shall be derived from what the nation could generate via taxation, duty,  return from the national investment, return from the national ventures and few more.

Each year the total budget to be spent  has an incremental rise, due to the growth in the development. This increment must be matched with the ability of the government to generate more revenue, or else the government has to make some borrowing in order to balance the budget.

In recent years however, the government has to resolve to certain quantum of borrowing, either externally or internally.

We at MPM are in the opinion, that the budget need not to fall back into yearly borrowing, in the quantum or about RM 100 Billion a year. The revenue could be increased especially by way of value creation of its economy and by way of taxpayers and duty payers make a more credible contribution.

Likewise, on the spending side, various ministries and agencies shall be more credible in creating value to their spending.

Lets start this new paradigm during this coming term of Budget 2025.

Consistent with the vision of the Madani Government, with its six core values (sustainability, prosperity, innovation, respect, trust and compassion) the government must start with the value creation among the tax payers first, before the GST could be re-introduced. GST is indeed very justifiable option, after all, the government who initiated this before is now part of the Madani Government.

First, lets allocate some budget to promote the growth of the tax payers pool. The nation urgently need a much bigger pool of corporations and high-income workers to contribute more as taxpayers.

This shall be dome by promoting the culture of a minimum of one company per household. In the medium to long term period, we will have a much bigger pool of corporations capable of contributing to taxation.

Secondly, the professional, chartered and TVET training programs must be continuously enhanced to create much bigger pool of high-paying jobs, thus, an increment in the personal taxation.

Thirdly, there must be a scheme or program that reward and recognize the contribution of the taxpayers. This shall include initiatives such as:

1. Enrolment into the credible taxpayers club, with several categories in term of corporations and value of tax contribution. During the presentation of the annual budget, the government could announce the profile of the said taxpayers club. This, initiative in a way will promote the culture of credibility among the taxpayers.

• Coming along with the recognition is the list of incentives and entitlement for their credibility, including the green lane preference in their engagement with various government agencies. In other words, we are creating not only the credible but also friendly community of taxpayers.

Here comes the need for this sort of initiative to deliver as to how the government could promote the culture of credibility. The government must develop the digital platform equipped with features specially AI and AHC, to enable the platform to evaluate analytically and independently, every submission of the tax valuation. Coming along with such analytical valuation is the rating performance and indexing. There shall be no bias with this approach.

Just imagine that each year during the tabling of the budget the government announce the list or numbers of taxpayers club, in recognition of their significant contribution to the nation. This will indirectly promote the keenness of the taxpayers to pay more, for, they know that the more they contribute, the more recognition they will get and possibly, in return to that, the more benefits and incentives they will enjoy.  

The same shall be applied to the spending side of the annual budget.

The same digital platform could perform the task to evaluate analytically, who among them are the credible spenders.

Some years back during the NEM 2010 era, the government then introduced an annual assessment to be carried out by various ministries and agencies. It turned out that the results were too good to be true. It was partly due to the approach was on self assessment and it was done without the application of independent analytical tool or system, thus, the results were ‘adjustable’.

We at MPM believed that much better value can be created if such spending were to be continuously evaluated analytically and independently, by the the said platform, mybelanjawan.com, with the said AI and AHC features. This is also in line with the action taken by the Prime Minister early this year when he established the Pantau Madani Division at MOF. Surely the developemnt of this platform will expedite much more effectively and transparently the roles being tasked to this Pantau Madani Division.

In conclusion therefore, we, the members of the myMPM.com team at MPM are in the opinion that, starting with this Budget 2025, the government must drive for better value creation by:

1. A more aggressive and with proper budgeting for the continuous planning and development, to keep creating a much bigger pool of taxpayers among corporations and high-paying jobs;
2. Promoting a more credible culture among taxpayers.
3. In return to their adoption of such culture, the government shall develop the recognition and incentive schemes to recognize and appreciate their initiative.
4. On the spending side, the further strengthen the present initiative by the Pandatu Madani Division @ MOF, the proposed digital platform will promote a more dignified, credible culture and initiative among ministries and agencies in their annual spending. In return, they create better value to the spending being made, with better and more productive outcomes for every single sen spent.
5. Likewise, similar recognition and incentives could be rendered to those who shall be categorized as credible spenders.
6. As we move on, the government could expand this value creation initiative to include the duty payers as well as other revenue contributors. As business community members or industrial players, such recognition from the government all matters to them.
7. The same goes at the spending end, other parties on the budget receiving end must also be encouraged to be more credible in spending the public fund they receive. This shall include various institutions, including the independent institutions and NGO.

Together we build a more dignified nation