PUTRAJAYA: Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng (pic) has confirmed that Malaysia's debt is now above RM1 trillion (1,000,000,000,000).

He said this was revealed during the discovery exercise where all relevant departments were able to start consolidating their accounts and numbers.

“Previously, certain files were not accessible by certain people and therefore, consolidations were not available,” he said in his first press conference as the Finance Minister on Tuesday (May 22).

Lim added that he has also been informed that the ministry has been bailing out 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) with payments since 2017.

He had also instructed current 1MDB chief executive officer Arul Kanda Kandasamy to brief the ministry on 1MDB's affairs.

On Monday, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has said that the country’s debt has reached more than RM1 trillion.