PUTRAJAYA, 3 Feb 2009: Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi wants all plans for the economic stimulus packages to be implemented immediately.
The prime minister said the first stimulus package and the yet-to-be announced second package were efforts to stimulate the country’s economy to cushion the effects of the global economic meltdown.
They were also preparations to face the future and ensure that the country’s economy was in good shape, he said.
“That’s our hope. We cannot predict what’s going to happen but we can prepare ourselves for any eventuality.
“We can put our plans in place and decide how we want to go about it and we can also fix the allocations for the purpose,” he said at the monthly assembly of the Prime Minister’s Department here today.
On 4 Nov 2008, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who is also Finance Minister, announced a RM7 billion stimulus package to strengthen the economy and enhance resilience in the wake of the global economic meltdown.
Najib was reported to have said recently that a second stimulus would be launched soon to ensure that the country was not caught in a serious recession resulting from the increasingly gloomy global economic outlook.
Meanwhile, Abdullah again rapped civil servants over delays in decision-making on the extension of government contracts given to companies.
“When it’s time for extension (of the contract), the company holding the contract expects to collect quick payment. So if we delay, the company will face problems. The work goes on, it doesn’t mean that when the contract ends, everything stops,” he said.
Abdullah said he was happy with improvements in the civil service’s efficiency but warned against complacency. — Bernama
