KOTA BARU: Kelantan state government has refuted Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng’s claim that the approved advance loan was for salary payment for its employees.
Menteri Besar Datuk Ahmad Yakob said the loan served as a backup funds in case it failed to achieve its revenue target by the year end.
Apart from that, he said, the advance loan would also be used in the event of late disbursements from the Federal Government for payment of land premium of RM18 million and Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA) premium amounting to RM 144 million.
“The Finance Minister (Lim Guan Eng) may have misunderstood when we made the request. When we asked for the advance loan, we are actually worried about the welfare of the people.
“We have enough funds to pay for salary (for civil servants in the state). The money comes from land and timber revenue and the total collection amount is RM300 million,” he told reporters after chairing the state exco meeting here today.
Ahmad said the request for advance loan between state governments and the federal government had always been a norm since Barisan Nasional (BN) era.
“We (the state government) hope that there will be a co-ordination between disbursements of the advance loan and other payments from the federal government to the state government,” he said.
Guan Eng at a press conference in Parliament yesterday said the Kelantan state government this year had received RM22.5 million from the federal government to pay for operational and management costs.
He said the advance loan was also used by the Kelantan state government pay their staff salaries.
The finance minister said Kelantan government originally applied for RM24.5 million and RM22.5 million was immediately approved.