SHAH ALAM: National Security Sector 2023 budget or no funds for the needy. The government has allocated some RM35.6 billion to the national security sector – national security and defence – from the 2023 budget which amounted to RM372 billion.
The defence budget is RM17.4 billion; 0.47 per cent of the total budget or 0.98 per cent of the 2021 Malaysian GDP, which is much lower than the 1.5 per cent sought by the Armed Forces shortly before the presentation of the budget.
The operational expenditure for 2023 is RM11.4 billion (RM11.1 billion for 2022) and the development expenditure is RM5.964 billion, an increase of some RM900 million from the 2022 figure of RM5.039 billion. This mean there is an increase of around RM1.3 billion for defence in the 2023 budget. However, in US dollar terms, it is a decrease of around US$200 million.
It must be noted that a budget of RM25 million has been reserved for the organising of Lima 2023. Apart from LIMA 2023, as usual not much is revealed in the budget documents or even in the speech of the Finance Minister to indicate any future procurement priorities apart the usual generalisations.
As for the Home Ministry, it is getting RM18.3 billion with RM13.8 billion (RM13.5 billion in 2022) in OE while the DE has been pegged at RM4.5 billion (RM3.6 billion). MMEA’s DE expenditure for 2023 is RM719 million in 2023 compared to the measly RM103 million it got last year.
Most of it according to the Finance Minister is allocated for the maintenance of its patrol boats and other assets.
— Malaysian Defence
1.4billion increase from last year. I wonder if the surplus is intended for the LCS cost overruns as the amount indicated to complete the first 2 units is around that figure. I hope not because def. minister said no more money for BNS until they complete the first LCS
The surplus is because of depreciation of Ringgit
Actually, there is no surplus, if based on US dollars….
We should stop basing our defence budgets to RM and instead to USD which is the real value, AFAIC, since we will be buying in USD after all. There is nothing to say increase in RM as relative to USD value, this year’s budget actually drop compared to last year. So we are actually moving backwards, not forward.