Second Finance Minister Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani has denied that he had issued a statement that the total number of civil servants had resulted in a drop in government revenue.

Johari said he had also never issued statistics making comparison with other countries on the strength of the government servants.

"What I had stated in the newspaper 'Oriental Daily' (a Chinese language daily) was merely the total number of government servants and the amount of emolument paid by the government in 2016.

"My factual statement had been manipulated by the opposition," he said in a statement Friday.- Bernama