“Why must the rakyat be burdened with a new form of tax when the money which is collected is eventually misused by the government?”
A balance budget may only be possible in the first year of GST. After which, we bet expenditure will quickly overtake income. “Kleptocracy” is the only reason those in power wants to stay for ever.
250 million was abused in NFC. The KLIA2 budget ballooned form 2 billion to more than 4 billion. Similarly, PKFZ's budget kept ballooning until 12 billion.Debts in 1MDB is much, much higher.
Our national debt is almost 55% of our GDP. In fact, it's already exceed 55%, if govt guarantees for all the crony projects are taken into account. Many of the rent-seeking projects started with huge govt guarantees of bank loans and profits. The investors do not take any risks. If they make a profit, it's theirs. If they fail, then the govt is left carry the baby. It's no wonder, everyone wants to jump into the bandwagon.
Our nation is so rich in natural resources... tin, rubber, palm oil and black gold, oil. They finished the tin, and oil is fast depleting. Oil revenue from Petronas amounts to RM732 billion from 1974 to 2012. Where has the money gone?
Our nation is blessed with oil, and it should not only benefit us, but future generations as well. Probably, our oil wealth will not be there to serve our younger generations. We do not even have a sovereign wealth fund, like Norway. It's precisely such fund, which can generate more wealth for the nation. Instead, our oil wealth is "pillage" in the form of expenditure to pay govt staff and other operating expenditure.
We do not have oil revenue, prior to 1974, yet Tengku was able to balance the budget. Now Petronas is contributing almost half the national budget, and yet they could not balance the budget. What if we do not have Petronas? Wouldn't our debt exceed 100% of the GDP? Wouldn't we be nation of bankrupts?
The nation is ill-managed, and kleptocracy seems to be tolerated. All they are good at is to create distractions, diversions and red herrings. They funded NGO's for these purposes. Members proclaim that Christians are proselytizing Muslims, without any evidence. Then, there is long running battle over the word "Allah" for God. They accused one man of two sodomies and many others of sedition. The nation's energy and focus has been diverted to serve a selfish agenda.
Now, PAS has been baited into the hudud issue. Sorry PAS, it's not a clever strategy, if you are only amputating the hand of the poor thief who stole because he is hungry, but silent on the big elite thief who stole and park the money overseas. Sorry, because you have fallen nicely into a trap. If Dr M had wanted to, he could change anything in the constitution. You certainly do not need to wait up to this stage to get things going.
Instead of making an issue of hudud, why don't they make an issue of the maha kleptocrat from Sarawak? Why, don't propose a national referendum to solve the hudud issue. It's not what the leaders imagine the rakyat wants, but what the rakyat actually wants.
Perhaps, idiots who voted in the "kleptocrats" deserve what they get. – May 7, 2014.
*H L Toh reads The Malaysian Insider.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.
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