KUALA LUMPUR, July 27 — The Pakatan Harapan (PH) government’s efforts to fix the country’s administration and economy is slowed down due to several political attempts to undermine the ruling coalition.

Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said in an interview with Turkish news agency Anadolu that PH took over a huge financial problem due to the excessive loans taken up by the previous Barisan Nasional (BN) government.

"... there are political attempts, though they are not very successful, to undermine the present government, but of course they will retard the course of the actions taken to recover.

"We were left with a lot of problems among which was a financial problem because the previous government borrowed huge sums of money.

"And we need to pay back the loans that was taken by the previous government. And we don’t know where the money is kept in [by the previous government],” he said in the interview.

Dr Mahathir said that while the money was to have been used in some business enterprises which could be restored, he said the money was, however, lost and was believed to have been hidden abroad.

"And we believe that they are hiding the money outside, [and] the financial pressure on the present government is very great.

"And it is hampering our return to a good economic management,” he said.

Dr Mahathir began his four-day official visit in Turkey on Thursday.

The prime minister and his entourage was joined by Foreign Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah, and the Malaysian ambassador to Turkey Datuk Abd Razak Abdul Wahab.

Among the issues discussed with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during his visit were international relations, defence, trade and investment.