Adenan taking lightly the people’s suffering due to GST

I refer to the news report on Sarawak Chief Minister Adenan Satem challenging “PKR and DAP to abolish Goods and Services Tax (GST) in Selangor and Penang before trying to sell the idea to the people of Sarawak.” (Source: http://www.nst.com.my/news/2016/05/143282/adenan-opposition-abolish-gst-selangor-and-penang-first-sarawak)

The Chief Minister was obviously trying to mislead the people on this issue. Here are nine reasons why:

1. While he acknowledged that the implementation of GST is under federal power, the Chief Minister conveniently forgot to remind the people that his own party, Barisan Nasional is ruling the federal government and has the power to put a stop to GST but it did not.
2. Although Penang cannot abolish GST because GST is under federal power, the Penang state government absorbed GST for all government services in the state to lessen the people’s burden. This year, about RM20 million is allocated by Penang to pay GST on behalf of the people for government services.
3. At the same time, the Penang and Selangor state governments have also exempted assessment on low-cost housing and villages this year to help the people cushion the impact of BN’s GST. In Penang the state government is exempting about RM11.5 million of assessment for these lower income community.
4. As the chairman of PBB and Barisan Nasional Sarawak, blood is on Adenan’s hands on the issue of GST. When the GST Bill was up for voting in Parliament on 7 April 2014, all Members of Parliament (MPs) from PKR and DAP rejected the bill. However, all 23 Barisan Nasional Sarawak MPs, including 14 from PBB, gave undivided support for the bill tabled by UMNO-BN.
5. Pakatan Harapan has already said that if we win federal power, we will remove GST. Are Adenan and PBB as well as BN Sarawak ready to join force with us to achieve this?
6. Adenan claimed that the opposition has no new ideas other than criticising GST. DAP has already presented our manifesto, but more importantly, Adenan, like Najib, is clearly taking lightly the impact of GST on the people. Everyone is suffering, inflation has more than doubled since the implementation of GST in April last year. The economy is badly affected due to a dampened domestic consumption as well as various financial scandals by UMNO-BN. Sarawakians whose minimum wage level is lower than West Malaysians are some of the worst off victims of GST.
7. Collection of GST was about RM51 billion as of January this year. The question is, how is money being spent? After implementing GST, Malaysia’s ranking on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index 2015 dropped from bad to worse, from 50th place in 2014 to 54th in 2015. Is GST being used to foot the bill for UMNO-BN’s corruption?
8. Thus, this Sarawak State Election is about GST, which represents all the other oppressive economic policies and corruption of UMNO-Barisan Nasional, including the 1MDB scandal. Sarawakians have the opportunity to speak up on behalf of all Malaysians, one year after GST was implemented: Yes to GST or No to GST.
9. Finally, as Prime Minister Najib Razak has repeated numerous times, GST is the “saviour of Malaysia” because we are running out of money especially due to the low oil price. It is clear that GST only saves BN not Malaysians. Hence if BN wins big this time, Najib will take this as an indication of support for GST. He may use this as an excuse to raise the GST rate from the current 6%, a comfortable two years before the next general election.