Cabinet's 2024 trips cost RM44m, Shahidan responds with misinformation

Summary

• Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Dr Zaliha Mustafa releases figures on ministers travelling abroad 234 times last year, costing RM44 million.

• Arau MP Shahidan Kassim responds - with misinformation - that the amount was the same as the entire cabinet on overseas trips from 2008 to 2013.

Cabinet ministers took a total of 234 overseas trips last year, which cost RM44 million overall.

The figures, released by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Dr Zaliha Mustafa, triggered outrage from Arau MP Shahidan Kassim.

Shahidan’s (above) retort, however, contained glaring misinformation.

In a press conference at Parliament today, Shahidan claimed that what the Madani cabinet spent in 2024 was the same amount the entire cabinet forked out on overseas trips from 2008 to 2013.

“When I was a minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, the cost of overseas trips, consisting of the cabinet and the prime minister, foreign minister's expenses from 2008 to 2013 was RM44 million.

“Nga Kor Ming, (the) Taiping (MP) was shocked then and condemned the Najib Abdul Razak cabinet spending RM44 million.

“I was also shocked, but today I am even more shocked. Now the Madani government spent RM44 million in just one year," he said.

Shahidan’s claims about the Najib era expenses, however, are inaccurate.

Only for PM and entourage, not cabinet

According to a June 16, 2013 parliamentary reply that Shahidan issued to Nga, the RM44 million spent between 2008 and 2013 was for the prime minister and his entourage only, not the entire cabinet.

Najib only became prime minister in 2009, so it is unclear if the figure included expenses incurred by his predecessor Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

Nga, however, had speculated that the figure may have included the cost of Najib's travels when he was deputy prime minister in 2008.

No figures for expenses for the cabinet’s overseas trips at the time are publicly available.

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