BarisaIt is noted with regret that the BN Government has presented for the 11^th consecutive years, a deficit budget despite having huge income from our petroleum which constitute about 40% of the Government Revenue

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Media Statement 
by Ngeh Koo Ham
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(Ipoh, Saturday): It is noted with regret that the BN Government has presented for the 11^th consecutive years, a deficit budget despite having huge income from our petroleum which constitute about 40% of the Government Revenue. The Government should start planning now not to rely on the petroleum income which is expected to dry up in about 16 years’ time. If we continue to have deficit budgets we are only burdening the country with debts which we may not be able to coup when the petroleum income dry up.

Ensure the people gets true value for their tax money 

The Government should trim its expenditure by ensuring that Government projects are not given out at inflated prices due to corruption and to benefit certain political cronies.

Government should down size the civil service

The Government should also look into down sizing the civil service which takes up RM36.1 billion of the budget allocation. It shows the failure of the Government’s privatisation policy which has burdened the people with toll and other charges imposed by the concessionaires and yet failed to reduce the size of the civil service. When the privatisation policy started in 1990, we have 773,993 civil servants and the Government had announced that through privatization of the services the number of civil servants will be reduced to 500,000. However, the number of civil servants have increased. In 2006 it was 894,88 but has increased to 1.2 million this year. The Government plans to increase the number further to 1,366,079.

The people should expect more raids and greater enforcement from the Inland Revenue Department

The level of both personal and corporate taxes in Malaysia is still very high compared to our surrounding nations making us less competitive in attracting foreign investment.

The public should expect more raids and greater enforcement from the Inland Revenue Department as it has its target to achieve a higher income for the Government due to the additional expenditure in the 2008 budget. The income of the Inland Revenue has increased tremendously in the pass few years due to greater enforcement as can be seen from the figures below:-

Year                                                        Tax collected

2000                                                       RM29.0 billion

2001                                                       RM41.2 billion

2002                                                       RM44.0 billion

2003                                                       RM42.0 billion

2004                                                       RM48.6 billion

2005                                                       RM56.6 billion

2006                                                       RM65.74 billion

2007                                                       RM70.00 billion (target)

It is hoped that the people will not be carried away by this ‘feel good’ election budget and forget that after the last general election goods and services increase in price tremendously when the BN obtained a landslide victory.

(8/9/2007)