MP SPEAKS The BN government will surely play up the fact that it is a prudent government that is managing its finances well, with its projection in Budget 2014 that the annually growing budget deficit will be reduced to RM37 billion or 3.5% of GDP in 2014.

However, this ignores an extremely worrying problem of a huge increase in the deficit position of the companies that are owned or controlled by the government and statutory bodies - or non-financial public enterprises (NFPEs)...