PM Anwar questions need for new taxes if leakage of public funds is still rampant

The Star

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim on Tuesday (Oct 21) questioned the justification for the government to impose additional taxes on the people if existing collected revenue is not managed prudently and continues to experience significant leakages.  Read more at https://tinyurl.com/3yvwmkve  WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

Transcript

00:00I made the surprise announcement in the last fortnight's budget that due to effective enforcement,

00:11the Anti-Corruption Commission, the police, the tax agencies, we were able to get back

00:2115.5 billion ringgit in two years. Leakages, smuggling funds, racketeers, syndicates.

00:35But my question is, how is it that we could condone and tolerate this rubbish for decades?

00:46And you can follow the debate in Parliament. Hardly any support. I mean, except from the

00:57bad benches, of course, but then from the opposition, it's being ridiculed. I thought it's mind-boggling.

01:05How is it that any government attempt to stop this plundering of national wealth? We can't get this

01:17national consensus to proceed with such conviction and determination.

01:25But let me show you that we will continue. Alhamdulillah, impressive results. Then the basic

01:37question arises. I happen to be Minister of Finance. We have a problem, shortage of funds.

01:44Of course, we get PNB, Khazanah to help out with the Sekolah Madani, Sejati Madani, Fair.

01:49But the option from economics is tax. But I, my question is a conscience. It's a question of

01:58conscience. Why must you tax? Because you need revenue. But what makes you assume that the revenue

02:08that you have collected thus far is well spent and there are no leakages? Now we realize that the

02:15leakages for the last two years have got the 15 billion ringgit. Now why then tax? So, I'm not

02:25suggesting that we will not ever tax. I mean, we will have to. But what I'm suggesting is, what I'm

02:35stressing is, get our house in order. I gave an example. For example, for the last decades,

02:45we have allocated 1.1 billion ringgit annually just to support the price of chicken. Now, supporting the

02:55price of chicken actually is benefiting the cartels. Now, two years back, I said, no, call the players,

03:05the industry players and tell them we will not. Not at their expense. They will not lose. But they

03:13cannot get funds from the government when they already had profits. So, we stopped that two years ago. So,

03:22we saved 1.1 billion ringgit. The way can't this simple policy be implemented? As such, the other is, of course,

03:33the subsidy rationalization. Electricity, we earned between 4 to 6 billion ringgit. Now, recently,

03:42raw 95, all leaders, all governments, all economists say or suggest that you must have the courage to

03:54implement that. Now, we subsidize everybody up to, say, 20, 30 billion a year. Malaysians, foreigners,

04:09they're very rich. So, we introduced around 95. And in order to appease the general public, I reduce the

04:17price for the price for Malaysians. And still, we save between 2.5 to 3 billion ringgit.

04:25Okay. You see, it is in terms of transformation. Okay? Ramana. It's transformative. But don't envy me.

04:41Because it requires courage. It requires this broad consensus in the cabinet. And then, effective

04:54communications. So, I would hope that PNB Hazanah will help us in this. Where the policy is right,

05:02you need also to communicate effectively. Because without good governance, I don't think the other

05:10policies will be able to work.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended