Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia’s new premier, has vowed to scrap “unnecessary” infrastructure projects and fire thousands of civil servants as part of radical cost-cutting plans to stop the country “being declared bankrupt”.
“One of the most important priorities of course is the financial situation of the country,” he told the Financial Times yesterday.
The prime minister said he would cancel a multibillion-dollar project to build a high-speed rail link between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore — a flagship project of Najib Razak, whom Mr Mahathir defeated at historic elections last month. He said the scheme, which he estimated would cost $28bn, would “not earn us a single cent”. Mr Mahathir said: “We need to do away with some of the unnecessary projects.”