I refer to: Singapore’s creative Budget accounting
The writer’s points must be corrected:
1) It is correct to expense the entire $8 billion. It does not finance any productive asset and should not be capitalized in the balance sheet. It is only prudent to charge the entire amount to this year’s expenditure since we can afford it, instead of trying to make the budget look better by trying to amortize it over 20 years.
2) No need for land sales to be included in the budget if land sales are used to finance investments (which are off-budget). The only time land sales should be included as revenue is when it is explicitly clear that revenue from land sales is used to fund programs in the budget such as defence, health, education, housing etc.
Please do no try to paint a black picture of our budget accounting when there is nothing wrong with it.
Steven Kho