PARLIAMENT | The Pakatan Harapan government is seeking to reallocate funding to the ministries through a supplementary bill.

This is due to the restructuring of the ministries after Pakatan Harapan’s takeover of the administration.

The bill, which was tabled for its first reading today, pointed out that after the 14th general election, several ministries were restructured and renamed while several new ministries were established and one ministry was dissolved.

“Reallocation of the appropriated expenditure for the purposes involving the restructured and renamed ministries and the new ministries can only be done through a Supply Act,” read the bill.

The newly formed Economic Affairs Ministry, headed by Mohamed Azmin Ali, received the lion’s share of the reallocation for management, nearly RM1.3 billion out of RM3.06 billion worth of reallocated funds.

The bill said the Economic Affairs Ministry required the funds for programmes which were moved from other ministries such as the Prime Minister’s Department, the Treasury, the Rural Development Ministry as well as the Domestic Trade Ministry.

The Economic Affairs Ministry again received the most allocation for development at RM1.68 billion for programmes shifted from other ministries under its jurisdiction.

The total funds reallocated for development purposes is RM6.23 billion.

The ministry's predecessor was the Economic Planning Unit which was housed under the Prime Minister's Department. The EPU has since been established as a separate ministry.

The next biggest amount was obtained by the Finance Ministry, which received RM516 million for management and RM2.09 billion for development.

Similarly, the bill said the Finance Ministry needed the additional allocation to fund programmes shifted from other ministries under its purview.

Fourteen ministries are slated to receive the reallocated funds.