I think one of the most callous thing one could imply is that SG got reserves which it can deploy for covid19 spending

and we don't have them. therefore we can not fund the extraordinary spending needed.

first of all we do hve reserves similar to Singapore.
- foreign currency reserves held by BNM
- Khazanah/MOF Inc - held investments etc.

secondly, there is no need for Malaysia to emulate Singapore's reserves.

Singapore central bank main policy tool is not trying to influence interest rate but actually trying to influence Singapore's exchange rate.

Singapore consist of mostly MNCs based there which depend on outside funds esp from their head offices abroad

there is no point the central bank trying to influence interest rate in Singapore because it won't affect behaviours of those MNCs which dominate Sg's economy

while other central banks can meaningfully use interest rate to influence level economic activity in order to achieve its objectives

Singapore can't. so it holds huge amount of foreign currency in reserve. when it want to stimulate the economy,it devalue SGD

the other purpose of Sg's reserve is to bridge the gap between tax collection and its spending in order to achieve balance budget target. yes, SG runs a structural deficit

we do this too. we get dividends from petronas and bank negara to reduce our deficit.

anyway u can read this here
https://www.bis.org/review/r190313b.htm

my point is the nature of Malaysia and Singapore's economy is very different. their huge exchange reserve accounts for that.

(though I must say i always felt temasek is better run than khazanah)

but the controls singapore have on their reserves are worth emulating. that two key policy where govt and president(whom is directly elected) need to concur on drawdown of reserves etc.

we shld emulate that in setting up a fund from our oil proceeds.

PH shld envision a govt where it no longer take monies from Petronas directly. instead, monies frm Petronas sequestered to a future fund similar to norway

small % of investment incomes frm tht fund cn be used for govt annual spending. similiar to SG's usage of income frm reserve

the second part is we got sufficient funds to finance whatever extraordinary spending we need to prop up the economy.

don't need a "reserve like Sg" to do that